No treasury grant for parties in snap elections

Political parties will not receive additional grants from the Treasury to finance their election campaigns in the case of snap elections, Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek said on Saturday. Şimşek said that Turkey's Law on Political Parties does not require any Treasury aid to parties in the event of more than one parliamentary election within a year, and therefore, a possible early election will not mean any additional cost to the budget since no party will receive any state aid this year. "This means the national budget will not have to incur any additional cost for an early election in November or any other time this year," he said.

The current Law on Political Parties clearly defines the total amount of the grant political parties will receive in a year with or without elections. It is stated that 0.04 percent of the annual national budget is dedicated for political parties as a grant that is doubled in the case of local elections and tripled for general elections. Nevertheless, there is not any clear definition regarding the grants if early elections are held within the same year as the previous one. In accordance with the law, this year a total of TL 531 million ($187 million) was proportionately provided to three political parties: the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), Republican People's Party (CHP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which acquired more than 7 percent of the total votes in previous election. The pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), which became eligible to get a grant from the treasury by securing more than 7 percent of the vote in the June 7 election, will receive its payments in 2016.