![]() Istanbul-1’s 2011 results under proposed systemsĬonclusion : In a heaving Turkish metropolis, either of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s proposed electoral reforms would wipe out small party representation. ![]() Merging it with next door Sancaktepe (169,839 registered voters) might make sense mathematically, but it was solidly won by AK and a combined constituency would be tipped towards them. Suburban Maltepe (329,817 registered voters) was evenly split between the AK Party and CHP at the last election and it isn’t quite large enough to be a constituency on its own. That means neighbourhoods inside districts will need to be broken up. But combining those two into next door Ümraniye (420,745 voters) pushes us far over the threshold. Nearby Beykoz (179,347 voters) is a good idea, but the combined total is still not enough. The distant Black Sea district of Şile (21,667 registered voters), on the other hand, would need to be merged into a neighbouring district. If we were to assume each constituency needed to represent around 450,000 voters, the central district of Kadıköy (440,029 registered voters) fits the bill quite neatly. The real problem is how to divide Istanbul’s Asian side into constituencies. No MHP or independent MP would emerge, despite a third of a million people voting for one. If either system were in place in 2011, a majority would have been taken by AK Party candidates and the remainder by the CHP. Proposal B would create 37 single-member districts. Proposal A would divide Istanbul-1’s 278 neighbourhoods into seven constituencies electing five members each. This accounts for why the existing system produced only two MHP MPs and one independent in Istanbul-1 . Dark blue – the colour this blog uses for the MHP – is nowhere in sight because the MHP did not win a single neighbourhood in Istanbul, let alone a district. The image above shows each of Istanbul-1’s 278 neighbourhoods in the colour of the party that won them in 2011: a sea of AK Party yellow with pockets of CHP red. The second and third districts are wholly on the European side of the province. ![]() The first district, shown in the map below, covers the whole of Anatolian Istanbul. Istanbul is by far the largest of these, divided into three electoral districts of between 27 and 30 MPs each. Together, they account for a third of the country’s population, which is why many political parties have focused campaign efforts here more than anywhere else. Turkey’s three largest cities – Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir – each have more than four million people living in them. Istanbul-1: parties’ share of the vote ( left ) and elected MPs ( right) A stronghold for the main opposition (Tekirdağ) and.Part of a metropolis (the first electoral district in Istanbul).This post will look at how they change the results in four different types of Turkish province: To try and understand how both proposed systems would work, let’s take the results from Turkey’s most recent election. The options are:Ī) Creating 110 five-seat constituencies and a 5% threshold in each of them ī) Creating 550 single-seat constituencies with no threshold orĬ) Retaining the existing system unchanged. One of them would be in place in time for the 2015 general election, he said. ![]() Parties with a vote share lower than this are not represented in parliament at all, even if they are overwhelmingly popular in a small number of seats.Īs part of his recent package of democratic reforms, Mr Erdoğan announced three options for electoral reform he would to like to debate. Larger provinces naturally get more seats, but every province, however small, must have at least one member of parliament.Ī distinguishing and ruthless feature of Turkey’s system is its election threshold, which at 10 percent is the highest in Europe. The number of seats allocated to each constituency changes according its population and is reviewed every other year. Each of Turkey’s provinces is an electoral district (constituency) Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir are further divided to account for their size as the country’s largest cities. The existing system has been in place since 1982, when the post-coup constitution was approved, and has only been slightly tweaked along the way. There are two proposed two options to reform Turkey’s election system, but as our leader piece argues both options would simply entrench his AK Party’s position.
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