Amendments in electoral law won’t change poll result: CHP
ANKARA
The government’s plans to win next year’s parliamentary polls through a set of amendments in the electoral law will not change the result and the opposition will unseat the government democratically, the leader of the main opposition party has said.
“The people have already given its decision. They will send you away [from the power]. Whatever changes you make in the law, we will unseat you,” Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), said in his address to his party group at the parliament on March 15.
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its main ally, Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), have submitted a draft law to amend the electoral law, which includes reducing the national threshold from the current 10 percent to 7 percent. It also stipulates that political parties within alliances should pass the national threshold to be represented at the parliament, meaning that small parties will gain no parliamentary seats although they are part of alliances.
The presidential and parliamentary elections in 2023 are expected to observe a race between two major political alliances, the government and the opposition ones.
“They undertook changes because they perfectly know that they will lose the polls. Therefore, their main motivation is not to best reflect the people’s will to the parliament but to keep their seats,” Kılıçdaroğlu said.
For a more inclusive government, the threshold should be reduced to 3 percent, he said, adding, “But they cannot do it. The reason why they are lowering the barrier is because of the fear that the MHP cannot pass the 10 percent threshold. They do it for just one political party.”
