AKP to amend electoral laws ahead of 2019 local elections

ANKARA

An amendment to the current electoral regulations will be made ahead of the 2019 local elections, and this amendment should take place one year before the polls, the ruling Justice and the Development Party (AKP) spokesperson Mahir Ünal told reporters on Feb. 9.

“First we will make an arrangement for the local elections, because the new regulations should be in place one year before the elections,” he said.

Turkey’s local elections will be held in March next year, before the presidential and the parliamentary elections in November the same year.

The AKP and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) have agreed to keep Turkey’s current 10 percent national election threshold unchanged as part of the alliance formed between the two parties, Ünal said.

The ruling party envisages a single envelope to be used in a single ballot in local elections, he noted, adding that work on the ballot paper is still underway.

Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gül, the parliament’s constitutional commission head Mustafa Şentop and the AKP spokesperson Mahir Ünal, as well as MHP lawmakers Mehmet Parsak, Mustafa Kalaycı and İsmail Faruk Aksu, have begun working on a set of legal changes to the electoral law and political parties’ law.

The AKP and MHP officials are said to have agreed to a great extent on the framework of the legal regulations paving the way for political parties in Turkey to form an alliance for the elections.

The work of the commission is continuing, Ünal said.