What was expected happened. The proposal to amend the election law, which the public had been waiting for a long time, was announced to the public by representatives of the AK Party and MHP.
There has long been an expectation of a change in the electoral law in the country. While a radical change was actually pronounced, the draft fell far short of expectations.
Of course, this has to be discussed in the commissions first, then to the General Assembly, and then to be approved by the Presidency. The articles can be changed in the commission and the General Assembly. “Well, what changes in the electoral law?” Before answering the question, we find it useful to remember the short political history.
TWO LEADERS WHO LOSE ELECTIONS AND THE DEADLY END OF THE MOTHERLAND PARTY!
Those of middle age and above remember well. With the start of the normalization process after the September 12 military coup, the Motherland (Anavatan - ANAP) Party came to power strongly in 1983. It lived its second term in the 1987 elections, and lost power in 1991.
At that time, as the 1991 elections were approaching, the powerful party of the time, ANAP, attempted to turn the will of the people at the ballot box in its favor with its legal tricks. For example, the regional system was introduced at that time. He divided the provinces into 2-3 regions according to the number of deputies. For example, if there are three electoral districts in a province; In the electoral circle with 5 deputies, when all parties could not pass the election threshold of 20 percent, no deputies could be elected, including the party that received 19.9 percent, while the party that received 21 percent could elect 5 deputies.
As a matter of fact, this situation was exactly what happened in the election in which Mr. Devlet Bahçeli was a candidate as a concrete example. Despite 19.86 percent of the vote, Devlet Bahçeli, who was the Adana Deputy candidate from the "Holy Alliance" Welfare Party, which was held between the RP-MÇP-IDP at that time, was not elected by a very narrow margin.
(https://www.ysk.gov.tr/doc/dosyalar/docs/Milletvekili/1983-2007/1991MV-KesinAdayListesi.pdf)
At that time, a preference system was also introduced. Regardless of the position in the list, a candidate at the bottom was elected as a member of parliament by working as a single party and bypassing the candidates above it. As a matter of fact, Welfare (Refah) Party deputy Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was at the top of the list in the Istanbul constituency of the Welfare Party, could not be elected. Mustafa Baş, the second-ranked candidate, was elected instead. How strange it turned out that the two names who were not elected by the party members, are in a position to steer the country today.
The reason why we convey this short historical information is our impression that a similar process took place in this election. None of these and similar measures could change the fate of ANAP, that is, its loss.
ELECTION THRESHOLD 7 PERCENT
Let's move on to the changes made in the election law. It is striking that there is a change forecast below the expected. One of the possible reasons for this is that the MHP, in a way, prevented the AK Party from taking more radical decisions. Because the narrow region election decision to be taken would create a situation against the MHP.
The fact that the Chairperson of the Election Board will be determined by lot instead of the judge being the most senior member may have both favorable and unfavorable results. An advantage may have been sought by calculating the average of the total number of judges. However, the main issue is the election threshold issue.
As a result of the alliance law used in the 2018 parliamentary and presidential elections, the parties entered the elections in two main blocks as the People's Alliance and the Nation Alliance. At that time, assuming that no one could ally with a party with the group in which the CHP was located, a system was introduced that gave the remaining deputy, who remained in the system after the division, as a gift to the "alliance," as the phrase goes. But in the end, both groups benefited from this situation.
Now, with the desired change, this advantage given to the alliance is removed. Thus, it is aimed to abolish the alliance, since the temptation of the parties to form alliances will no longer exist. The solution to this will probably be that the parties implement the formula to elect their candidates from a single list.
Secondly, there is the reduction of the country threshold existing in the election law from "10 percent to 7 percent". A somewhat positive development. It is clear that this decision was taken for the ruling partner MHP. Already in the polls, the vote rate was in the "6.5-9 percent" band. However, who will benefit from this will emerge after the election results. If the issue was to increase the ability of democratic representation, the threshold could very well be "3 percent".
ACCEPT DEFEAT IN ADVANCE
As the third amendment, a closed party is prevented from entering the election by forming a group close to the election. The Good Party, which could not complete the conditions for participation in the previous elections, overcame this problem with the support of the CHP, and participated in the election by establishing a group with trust seats. With the new law, the possibility of “establishing a group to participate in the elections” is eliminated. It is aimed to nullify a party that was closed close to the election.
As it turns out, Cumhur's junior partner prevented the narrow region system that was frequently brought up. Fortunately, the country was saved from being 550 constituencies.
After all this, we can easily say that; The losers club admits defeat. This draft is a sign that defeat has been accepted in advance, and it is the signal of the end.
It is not known whether fear will help the eternity. Sometimes the account is reversed. Your solution will let you down. There is a solution to every cheat.
In summary, it is meaningless for the administration, which has lost the support of the people, to plan to fill this gap with the regulations it will make in the election law. Recovering the lost public support by those in power/government with such election tricks, ballot box games and legal traps is not a solution. What needs to be done here is to make up for this deficit with actions that will receive public support. Otherwise, what wound would a change in the electoral law be a balm for?