We now have a brand new discussion topic

We now have a brand new discussion topic, thanks to the head of the Constitutional Court announcing that a verdict would be announced in the coming weeks about whether the 10 percent election threshold amounts to a violation of individual rights.

We don’t know what the ruling will be, but we are discussing it as if the Court has already announced that the threshold is a “violation of rights.”  Soon, before this week is over, we will see that everybody has become an expert in constitutional law. We will find ourselves discussing legal issues that we had never even thought of before.

We will waste time in hollow discussions, because we have not succeeded up to this day in lowering or increasing the 10 percent election threshold - a situation that cannot even be imagined in a normal democracy.

Phrases like the “national will” and “democracy” are constantly referred to by speakers of the ruling party, but they have not even raised a finger to have the “national will” reflected in Parliament closest to reality.

They took advantage of the Sept. 12 coup heritage; they want to continue their reign benefiting from it and - if possible - they are waiting to transform the parliamentary system into a presidential system after the next elections.

If the Constitutional Court decides that the threshold is indeed a violation of rights, we will have the opportunity to test once again whether or not the ruling party is sincere on the “national will” theme.
If the Court rules that it is a violation of rights, it would be Parliament’s duty to implement this ruling in the next elections.

We will see how the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) majority acts in this situation.
They will start with “stability” and say the Court is under orders from the “parallel structure.” Of course, they could go further and define it as a “coup of the juristocracy.”

Don’t ever say that something can’t happen in this country; it is always possible.

Time to lower the threshold

Free elections are an indispensable part of democracy. People express their will through free elections, electing the legislative body that forms the government.

However, we now know that free elections alone are not adequate; the democracy experience across the world has also proven this.

Another indispensable condition is that the results of free elections should exactly reflect the national will. However, we have still not been able to solve this issue because of the election threshold passed down to us by the Sept. 12 coup regime.

We have not been able to make sure that the existing political tendencies in the country are represented according to the rate of their presence.

Indeed, at first glance it looked like this was a wise solution.

However, this policy, because of the features of the election system, has ensured that certain votes have not been evaluated.

Kurdish parties soon found out they were underrepresented in Parliament, but this situation was accepted as if everything was as it was supposed to be. Through this, it was hoped that the disgrace of the election system would go unnoticed.

However, since the topic has now been reheated, I hope that it is time to do something about this situation.