New election law comes into effect

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Click to read the article in Turkish

Passed by the parliament on March 31, the Law on the Amendment of the Law on Election of a Member of Parliament and Some Laws was published in the Official Gazette today (April 6).

According to the law, the election threshold was lowered from 10 to 7 percent.

MP distribution

Seats will be distributed to the parties that surpass the threshold and the parties within the alliances that surpass the threshold. The distribution will be made according to the D'Hondt system. Seats will be directly distributed to the parties. In the old system, the seats would be distributed to alliances first and then would be distributed within alliances.

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Participation

If a party that has qualified to participate in the elections has not held its district, provincial and grand congresses twice in a row, within the periods stipulated in the Political Parties Law and specified in the party bylaw, it will lose eligibility to participate in the elections. Having established a group in the Turkish Grand National Assembly will not be sufficient for participating in the elections.

Electoral councils

Provincial electoral councils will consist of a chairperson, two original members, and two substitute members.

The members of the councils will be determined by draw by justice commissions of judicial courts of first instance in every two years in the last week of January. The members will be selected among judges who work in provincial centers, who have not been reprimanded or received heavy disciplinary fines, who have been "reserved for first degree" and who have not lost qualifications for being reserved for first degree.

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The first judge to be drawn will be the council chair, the two judges to be drawn after them will be the original members and the two judges to be drawn the least will be substitute members.

If there are less than five judges to participate in the draw, the missing positions will be filled by judges according to seniority.

Chairpersons and members of provincial electoral councils and the chairpersons of district election councils will be selected again according to the changes made within the months from the entry into force of the law. The chairpersons and members determined in this way will complete the term of office of the previous chairpersons and members.

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(AS/VK)