Discussions on the Bill on the Amendment of the Election Law and Some Laws started at the Constitutional Commission of the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM). The Constitutional Commission convened under the chairmanship of Justice and Development Party (AKP) Tokat Deputy Yusuf Beyazıt. At the meeting, the election law proposal prepared with the joint signature of the AKP and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) deputies was discussed.
“LET’S LOOK AT THE 1990s”
The signatories of the proposal, Hayati Yazıcı, Deputy Chairman of the AKP, and Feti Yıldız, Deputy Chairman of the MHP, made a statement regarding the content of the proposal. MHP's Yıldız responded to the allegations regarding the election law and said, “The allegations that this law will affect the election results and cause problems for the opposition are completely unfounded. These are not realistic. I didn't want to say this, but please turn around and look at the nineties. Let them look at the Social Democratic Populist Party (SHP)- Republican People’s Party (CHP) coalition government. May God have mercy on them, some of them have passed away. They openly confessed, by saying, ‘We took two thousand judges from our own organization, what were we going to do, were we going to get them from the Nationalists?’”
ELECTION THRESHOLD WILL DOWN TO 7 PERCENT
According to the proposal, the country election threshold, which was applied as 10 percent in the elections, will be reduced to 7 percent. If the total votes received by the alliance exceeds the country threshold, the calculation and distribution of deputies in the electoral districts will be made by taking into account the number of votes received by each party within the alliance. The party that obtains the qualification to participate in the election will be able to participate in the elections, provided that it has not neglected the district, provincial and grand congresses more than two times in a row. Just forming a group in the TBMM will not be one of the sufficient conditions for participating in the elections.