Six opposition parties say new election law aims to 'disrupt our unity'

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Leaders of six opposition parties met yesterday (March 27) at the Democracy and Progress (DEVA) Party's headquarters in the capital city of Ankara.

Releasing a written statement after the meeting, the parties said they had established a working group as part of their efforts to lay out a roadmap for the country's switch to what they call the "reinforced parliamentary system."

At the end of last month, Republican People's Party (CHP) Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, İYİ (Good) Party Chair Meral Akşener, Felicity Party (SP) Chair Temel Karamollaoğlu, Future Party (GP) Chair Ahmet Davutoğlu, DEVA Party Chair Ali Babacan and Democratic Party (DP) Chair Gültekin Uysal signed a memorandum of understanding on the "reinforced parliamentary system."

In mid-March, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) put forward a draft bill altering the country's election system and lowering the election threshold.

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The proposal was anticipated by the opposition parties as an attempt by the AKP-MHP bloc to keep the parliamentary majority despite losing popular support to render the alliance of the six parties useless.

In their statement, the six leaders said, "We evaluated the political developments in the last month, and, in this context, we exchanged opinions about the election law proposal that aims to disrupt our unity.

"We would like our nation to know that our unity based on democratic principles will not be affected by such political engineering efforts. We are determined to continue our cooperation in harmony."

The leaders further said they had established a working group for election security and discussed the economic crisis and the Russia-Ukraine war. (AS/VK)