Soner Cagaptay Discusses Turkey’s Electoral Threshold

Writing in Hurriyet Daily News, Soner Cagaptay discusses the importance of Turkey’s “uniquely high percent electoral threshold,” which is set at ten percent; most multiparty democracies have minimum thresholds ranging from two to five percent.  The threshold, which was initially introduced as a mechanism to prevent the Kurdish nationalist party from being able to serve in parliament is no longer relevant, as the Kurdish parties run candidates as independents thereby by-passing the threshold rule, Cagaptay states.  Instead, this threshold has prevented small center-right and center-left parties from gaining seats in parliament and led to the current polarization of the political system between the ruling Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the opposition étatist Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the disenfranchisement of over 14 million voters.   The inability of parties such as  the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the True Path Party (DYP) has allowed the AKP to gain a super majority, which is a cause of concern in the upcoming election.  If the MHP and DYP fail the threshold, the AKP could receive the required 367 seats it needs to “unilaterally draft and approve a new constitution for Turkey without seeking consensus with the rest of the Turkish society.”