I wrote: I fully support the Turkish Armed Forces, and hopefully there will be a new election for the parliament soon.
Turkey's government will call early parliamentary elections and seek to alter the constitution after the highest court blocked its attempt to elect the country's first head of state with an Islamist past. The ruling party will apply to parliament to hold the general election on June 24 or July 1. The question is can the opposition deliver. Have you seen any polls? Do you think that the opposition would be able to pool their resources into bigger parties to reduce the effect of the 10 % limit?
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Info for the readers: The Islamic conservative AKP won an absolute majority of parliamentary seats in the 2002 general elections, organized in the aftermath of the economic crisis of 2001, with only 34 % of the suffrage.
There are 550 members of parliament who are elected for a five-year term by a party-list proportional representation system from 85 electoral districts which represent the 81 administrative provinces of Turkey (Istanbul is divided into three electoral districts whereas Ankara and Izmir are divided into two each because of their large populations).
To avoid a hung parliament and its excessive political fragmentation, only parties that win at least 10 % of the votes cast in a national parliamentary election gain the right to representation in the parliament. As a result of this threshold, only two parties were able to obtain that right during the last elections in 2002. Independent candidates may run; however, they must also win at least 10% of the vote to be elected.
(from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey )
Distribution of Seats in the Turkish Grand National Assembly
as of May 1, 2007
353 Justice and Development Party (AKP)
151 Republican People's Party (CHP)
20 Motherland Party (ANAP)
5 True Path Party (DYP)
1 Social Democratic People's Party (SHP)
1 People's Rise Party (HYP)
1 Young Party (GP)
10 Independents
8 Vacant
550 TOTAL
http://www.byegm.gov.tr/REFERENCES/Structure.htm
What is the probability for the opposition to form a grand election list in order to defeat AKP?
Perhaps the CHP leader Deniz Baykal, that it is difficult to work with, should resign in order to find a winning-coalition. This case is bigger than his personal career.
Is this being discussed in Turkish newspapers?