Everything you need to know about Turkish elections
According to the report of Fars News Agency International Group, eyes in Turkey are focused on the day of presidential and parliamentary elections on May 14 (May 24). An election in which Erdogan is once again considered a main party and there are three other candidates in front of Erdogan, the most important of which is the leader of the People’s Republic Party, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.
According to the announcement of the Supreme Election Commission, which oversees the voting process, the candidates for the presidential election who were accepted after the review of their files by this commission, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the candidate of the Republic coalition, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the candidate of the Nation coalition, “Moharram Inche” is the head of the “Mamlukt” party and the fourth candidate “Senan Oghan” is the candidate of the “ATA” coalition.
Meanwhile, these days in Turkey, party representatives, presidential and parliamentary candidates are organizing election meetings in every city and province. The rivals of the ruling party hope to take the initiative in the shadow of economic problems and high inflation and end the rule of Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party after 21 years.
At the regional level, due to the fact that Turkey is involved in many crises and the change of the ruling policy in Turkey has a significant impact on the region, this election is closely monitored by the countries of the region.
The direct military presence in Syria, Iraq, Libya and the Republic of Azerbaijan, the crisis with Armenia and Greece, the tension with European countries and the United States, relations especially with Russia, along with the sale of military weapons to Ukraine, have all caused the global and regional media with high sensitivity. Cover the developments related to Turkish elections.
Regarding the elections, despite the number of presidential candidates, the competition between Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu (candidate of six opposition parties) is concentrated.
How will the elections be held?
The upcoming election is the second election that will be held based on constitutional amendments in 2017, in the referendum that changed the parliamentary system to a presidential one, and a year later in 2018, the first election was held based on the presidential system, and Erdogan was able to win more than 52 won the percentage of votes. On the other hand, “Mohram Inche” as Erdogan’s main rival also won more than 31% of the votes. In the parliamentary elections, the “Republican” coalition consisting of the “Justice and Development” party and the “Nationalist Movement” won more than 53% of the seats in the parliament (344 seats).
This time, the presidential and parliamentary elections will be held on the same day. The Turkish government has cited the reduction of social, political and economic instability resulting from the holding of elections as the reason for holding two elections. On the election day, voters will cast two ballots, the first is the names of the presidential candidates and the other is the names of the parliamentary parties, coalitions and independents. Also, different tariffs will be printed in each province according to coalitions and parties and the names of independents.
According to the new presidential system, presidential and parliamentary elections are held every five years. Another point is that the recent period was the longest parliament in the modern history of Turkey, so that before the Justice and Development Party came to power, no parliament could complete its four-year term, therefore early elections were always held and the life of the governments A coalition was always short.
But since the Justice and Development Party came to power in the last 20 years, a kind of political stability prevails in Turkey. Regarding the number of parliamentarians, before the 2017 referendum, the number of representatives was 550, which increased to 600 with the reforms.
Electoral mechanism
According to Turkish law, in the presidential election, the winner must win more than 50% of the votes, and if none of the competitors can get this amount of votes, the election will be extended to the second round, but the parliamentary election will be held only one round. .
According to the lottery of the Supreme Election Commission, the names of the presidential candidates are listed on the ballot paper from left to right, first Erdogan, second Moharram Incheh, third Kılıçdaroğlu and fourth Sanan Oghan.
Parties participating in parliamentary elections
According to the announcement of the Supreme Election Commission, parliamentary elections will be held with the participation of 24 political parties and 151 independent candidates, while earlier the number of parliamentary parties eligible to participate in these elections was announced by 36 parties. But joint lists, coalitions and some parties that participate in the elections on behalf of other parties and on their lists reduced this number to 24 parties.
Constituencies are also divided into 87 constituencies including 81 provinces of Turkey, in addition, some provinces are divided into several constituencies, such as Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, which are divided into three constituencies.
The parties participating in the elections are: Justice and Development Party in 87 constituencies, Great Unity Party in 87 constituencies, People’s Republic Party in 80 constituencies, Justice and Unity Party in 47 constituencies, Justice Party in 67 constituencies, Watan Madari Party in 63 constituencies. the district, the Young Party in 72 districts, the Ittihad Power Party in 59 districts, the Right and Freedom Party in 87 districts, the People’s Freedom Party in 87 districts, the Good Party in 78 districts, the State Party in 87 constituencies, the People’s Republic Party in 87 districts, National Movement Party in 87 constituencies, National Way Party in 49 constituencies, Left Party in 87 constituencies, Turkish Workers Party in 55 constituencies, Communist Movement Party in 87 constituencies, Communist Party in 87 constituencies and Turkish Workers Party in 87 constituencies, Al-Watan in 87 constituencies, the Raffakat Party in 87 constituencies, the Renewal Party in 74 constituencies, the Green Left Party in 87 constituencies, and the Victory Party in 75 constituencies.
Electoral coalitions
According to the new amendments to the constitution, parliamentary elections are conducted based on coalitions, and according to the new election law, any party in the coalition can enter parliament only based on the votes it has obtained, and if a party alone and without a coalition If he participates in the elections, if he gets more than seven percent of the votes, he can go to the parliament, which encourages small parties to form coalitions with big parties.
Meanwhile, five coalitions will participate in the May 24 elections: the Republic Coalition, the Nation Coalition, the ATA Coalition, the Effort and Freedom Coalition, and the Socialist Forces Alliance, the first three coalitions have announced their candidates for the presidential election. The “Effort and Freedom” coalition supported the candidacy of Kılıçdaroğlu and the “Union of Socialist Forces” coalition did not support any candidate.
Regarding the members of the coalitions, the “Jumhori” coalition consists of the Justice and Development Party, the Nationalist Movement Party, the Great Unity Party and the Welfare Party. The Islamic Party of Kurdistan “Hadi Par” and the Democratic Left Party have also announced their candidates in the list of the “Justice and Development” party and declared their support for Erdogan.
But the “Nation” coalition, as the largest opposition faction of Erdogan, consists of six parties: the People’s Republic Party, the Good Party, the Future Party, Saadat, Shafa, and the Democratic Party, whose candidate is Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.
The “Effort and Freedom” coalition is also led by the People’s Democratic Party, which has decided to participate in the elections under the title of “Green Left” party in order to avoid the cancellation of the activity license by the Supreme Constitutional Court. This coalition has the support of Kurdish socialist left parties and has officially announced its support for the candidacy of “Kemal Kilicdaroglu”.
“Ata” coalition also consists of two parties “Adalat” and “Pirozi” which is considered an extreme nationalist coalition and works against illegal immigrants and foreign nationals and is a supporter of “Senan Oghan” in the presidential elections. The last coalition is the “Union of Socialist Forces”, which includes the Communist Movement Party, the Communist Party of Turkey and the Left Party.
Number of voters and ballot boxes
Ahmed Yener, the head of the Supreme Elections Department, announced a few days ago that the number of eligible people to participate in the upcoming elections has reached 64 million 113 thousand 941 voters, of which 4 million 904 thousand 672 are citizens for the first time. They have the right to participate in the elections.
According to him, the number of voters inside Turkey is 60 million 697 thousand 843 and the rest are voters outside the country.
Also, 191,884 ballot boxes are considered inside Turkey and 5040 ballot boxes outside this country. 6215 voters can also cast their votes in 421 mobile polling stations.
Time to announce the results
However, regarding the announcement of the results, the Supreme Election Commission will not allow any information about the results to be leaked until the late evening of the election day (May 14), and after that the media can gradually announce the results, and until the midnight of May 15, the Supreme Election Commission will announce the preliminary results. He announces gradually.
After the announcement of the results, the parties and candidates can announce their objections and after reviewing the complaints, the final result will be announced within two weeks.
If none of the presidential candidates get the majority of votes, the election will be extended to the second stage, which will be held after two weeks on May 28.
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