Turkey’s ruling alliance to ease election threshold, but opponents smell trap
An agreement between the AKP and the MHP to cut the vote baseline to enter parliament from 10% is seen as a bid to undermine the opposition.
ISTANBUL — Turkey looks set to lower its election threshold for entering parliament — the highest in the world — after party leaders of the ruling alliance agreed to drop it from 10% to 7%.
The current threshold, which was introduced by a military junta in 1983, prevents any political party that receives less than a tenth of votes nationwide from taking a seat in parliament, even if it comes first in a particular constituency.
Over the weekend, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who heads the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP), said the reduction had been agreed upon, but he was waiting to hear from alliance partners, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).
MHP leader Devlet Bahceli on Wednesday also agreed to the new threshold. “No further evaluation is needed,” he said in a statement.
