Turkish PM Erdoğan dismisses 10 percent threshold pleas

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan speaks at an iftar dinner with his party members. He dismisseed pleas to lower the 10 percent threshold on July 26. AA photo

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said July 26 during a brief press interview that he had no intention of tackling the 10 percent election issue, despite opposition pressure.

“My thoughts on the threshold are clear. We don’t have that on our agenda. This wasn’t something that has ever been done in our time. We don’t want to put our country through any suffering, we want to continue with a process that has been tried before,” Erdoğan said.

Opposition parties have repeatedly called for the reduction of the 10 percent threshold. Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy head Sezgin Tanrıkulu said July 25 that no package of reforms could be considered a “democratization package” without the reduction.

“A package that does not include reducing the election threshold, that does not bring new proposals on [the problem of long] imprisonment, that does not broaden the scope of freedom of speech, and that does not renew laws on freedom of assembly, cannot be considered a democratization package,” Tanrıkulu said.