Good Party in favor of 5 percent election threshold

ANKARA

Good (İYİ) Party is in favor to decrease national election threshold from 10 percent to 5 percent, İYİ Party Chair Meral Akşener has said amid reports on a government-led study to amend the Election Law.

“We are in favor of 5 percent [election] threshold, but I have no idea what Mr. Bahçeli has in mind regarding the election threshold,” Akşener told reporters in Ankara late Jan. 21,

Akşener referred to a recent statement by Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli, who reiterated the nationalist party’s demand for reducing the national election threshold.

Turkey imposes a 10 percent national threshold, which is the highest in the European continent, for all the political parties running in parliament. With the administrative system been shifted into executive-presidency from the parliamentary system, all the political parties agree that the national threshold should be reduced. Besides, the introduction of the alliance system, which convenes like-minded political parties under the same roof, has made the threshold meaningless.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the MHP, which together have a parliamentary majority, are separately drafting a new Election Law whose details have not been publicized yet.

In a statement earlier this week, Akşener had said that she was anticipating that the AKP might opt for early elections in June 2021.

On being asked about Akşener’s statement on the possibility of early elections, Republican People’s Party (CHP) Head Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said that he cannot talk about a specific date for the elections but “Everybody is waiting for the polls. They say, ‘it’s enough.’”

Criticizing President and AKP Chairman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for staying indifferent to the problems of citizens, Kılıçdaroğlu said, “People say, ‘We want job,’ but where is the state? There is no social state but the state of the [presidential] palace. People’s agenda and the palace’s agenda are different.”