New election law will be even better for opposition, Erdoğan claims

Photo: AA

Click to read the article in Turkish

The election law draft proposed by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) will benefit the opposition more, according to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

"I believe the CHP [Republican People's Party] deputies will support the bill in their hearts, even though they won't be able to support it openly," Erdoğan said during the AKP's parliamentary group meeting today (March 16).

The main opposition CHP has criticized the bill, accusing the AKP and the MHP of tweaking the election system for their advantage in order to make up for the decline in their public support.

"I think that the arrangements in the election law will relieve the CHP deputies the most. Because, you know, the deputies of this party are ... handed to other parties on a silver platter," the president said, referring to several CHP deputies' transfer to the İYİ (Good) Party to make it eligible for the 2018 elections.

According to the current law, in order to participate in an election, a party either has to establish organizations in at least 41 of the 81 provinces and hold its general congress at least six months before the elections or have a sufficient number of deputies in order to assemble a parliamentary group.

The second condition will be removed with the new law, which the government says will prevent deputy transfers between political parties.

"With the new arrangement, as it will not be enough to establish a group in the parliament to participate in the elections, there will no longer be a need for such transfers, which are the product of political engineering efforts," Erdoğan remarked. "So, we will hopefully not encounter ... embarrassing situations where CHP deputies are handed over tables like salt shakers."

"They accuse the AK Party of not being democratic. But, as you see, we take into account the problems of CHP duties even when we were working on amendments in the election law and have made arrangements that would eliminate their concerns," the president further said.

The presidential system

Erdoğan also played down the opposition parties' efforts to lay out a roadmap for the country's return to a parliamentary system if and when the AKP loses power.

"It is, of course, not possible for those who can't even decide how to sit at a table and how to walk on a hallway to envision, prepare and implement such a radical reform," he remarked.

"Imagine that the same team holds the destiny of our country in their hands in matters such as security crises in our region, disasters like the pandemic and political and economic fault lines.

"It will be too late until they come together and decide in what order they will walk in the hallway ... The mere thought of this is like a nightmare. This is the system offered to our nation.

After months of deliberations, six opposition parties, including the CHP and the İYİ Party, published a 50-page text named the "reinforced parliamentary system."

These parties are also expected to form an alliance in the next elections, which are due to be held in June 2023. (AS/VK)