Turkish deputies approved Wednesday a proposal to change the country's election laws with its provisions including lowering the national election threshold to 7% in addition to a number of changes in requirements for parties to participate in elections and the formation of electoral boards.
The election threshold will also be the same for electoral alliances, and seats in the Parliament will be distributed according to the votes received by each political party – who passed the threshold or as a member of an alliance that passed the threshold with combined votes – in a certain electoral district using the highest averages method, known as the D'Hondt method.
Opposition parties argue that this change in fact contradicts the electoral alliance legislation introduced by the government earlier in 2018.
The new law also brings stricter requirements for parties to complete their district, province and nationwide conventions to take part in elections, and forming a parliamentary group alone before the election law is adopted will not be enough to take part in the elections. The law will require parties to complete organizing in 41 provinces six months ahead of the elections.
In the previous general election, the main opposition Republican People's Party(CHP) had transferred deputies to the center-right Good Party (IP) for the latter to take part in the polls in case of a snap election, with the move causing heated debates.
In addition, a change was adopted to enable visually-impaired voters to vote.
