'New election law will make the election system even more unfair'

Click to read the article in Turkish

The election law proposal submitted to the parliament will exacerbate the existing problems of the current electoral system, which is "already undemocratic and does not provide fair conditions," according to the Election Security Platform for Fair Elections.

The bill submitted on March 15 includes several arrangements, including the reduction of the election threshold from 10 to 7 percent, the exemption of the president from the propaganda ban within a specified time until the elections, and changes in the method of calculation for distribution of MPs to the parties in polling districts.

Comparing the bill to its 2018 Fair Election Matric, the platform found there was no improvement in the 20 areas of inequality it had found and the inequalities would be even deepened with the new system.

With the new system, an equal political competition will be impossible and the abuse of public resources will increase, according to the platform.

CLICK - Will Turkey's new election law save Erdoğan from losing majority in parliament? 

The threshold

According to the current law, seats are first distributed to alliances in proportion to their respective voting rates and then distributed within alliances. The new bill takes alliances out of the equation to distribute seats directly to the parties proportionally.

With this new method, there will be "de facto thresholds" even higher than 10 percent in some provinces, noted the platform.

"With the arrangement, there will be 'provincial thresholds' that will benefit the first part in practice ... and people's votes will not be included in the distribution in calculations. Thus, many parties will be excluded from the parliament," it said.

Voter lists

"When forming the voter lists, the information of the last year is envisaged to be taken as a basis; therefore, with this arrangement, a situation where voters will not be able to cast votes will arise, and thus the right of citizens to vote will be violated.

"It will be difficult for citizens on the move, especially seasonal workers, students, those staying at two addresses, the homeless, those staying in shelters, those who moved by appointment, and those who changed their address due to job changes during the year, to participate in the elections. Thus, the elections will be closed to the poor."

The president

"In the 2018 elections, data revealed that the president exceeded his authority and made the election unfair. With the latest proposal, the authority to enforce the law is given to the president on the grounds of 'Adaptation with the Presidential Government System.'

"In addition, the fact that the election bans on the use of public resources does not cover the president is an important arrangement that will deepen the injustice. By violating the election bans in the previous periods, a legal excuse is created for the unrestricted use of public resources." (TP/VK)