ANKARA
The Turkish government is working on a new election law dividing the country into 550 single member districts, the prime minister said Friday.
Currently, the country has 85 districts, and a total of 550 members of parliament.
In addition, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking to journalists, indicated that the government may propose a system where there is no minimum threshold for victory. The threshold now is 10 percent.
Lowering the 10 percent threshold has been on the agenda for a long time. On Sept 30, Erdogan announced a "democratization package" and said the government would propose three options to be discussed in the coming weeks: maintaining the 10 percent threshold, reducing it to 5 percent, or removing the threshold altogether and fully implementing the single-member district system.
Erdogan gave the signal that the governing AK Party would take action on one of these options. He said the the opposition asked for lowering the threshold, and the government had offered two choices regarding amending the electoral system.
"One of them was lowering the threshold to 5 percent while implementing narrowed district constituency system in groups of five and the other was removing the threshold altogether and fully implementing the single-member district system dividing Turkey into 550 constituencies. The single-member district system is currently on the agenda of our party and following simulations we will take our proposal to the parliament before it recessed," Erdogan said.
Amending the proportional representation system into single member districts would increase the number of constituencies, which could allow more seats for winning party.
englishnews@aa.com.tr
