Next Turkish parliamentary election explained

Election Name:Next Turkish parliamentary election
Country:Turkey
Previous Election:2023
Outgoing Members:outgoing members
Opinion Polls:Public opinion polls
Next Election:2033
Next Year:2033 Turkish general elections
Election Date:On or before 7 May 2028
Seats For Election:All 600 seats in the Grand National Assembly
Majority Seats:301
Ongoing:yes
Party1:AKP
Party Leader1:Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
Current Seats1:266
Party2:CHP
Party Leader2:Özgür Özel
Current Seats2:127
Party3:DEM
Current Seats3:57
Party4:MHP
Party Leader4:Devlet Bahçeli
Current Seats4:50
Party5:İYİ Party
Party Leader5:Müsavat Dervişoğlu
Current Seats5:32
Party6:Felicity Party
Party Leader6:Temel Karamollaoğlu
Current Seats6:20
Party7:DEVA
Party Leader7:Ali Babacan
Current Seats7:15
Party8:Independents
Current Seats8:7
Party9:YRP
Party Leader9:Fatih Erbakan
Current Seats9:4
Party10:HÜDA PAR
Party Leader10:Zekeriya Yapıcıoğlu
Current Seats10:4
Party11:DP
Party Leader11:Gültekin Uysal
Current Seats11:3
Party12:TİP
Party Leader12:Erkan Baş
Current Seats12:3
Party13:DBP
Current Seats13:2
Party14:EMEP
Party Leader14:Seyit Aslan
Current Seats14:2
Party15:DSP
Party Leader15:Önder Aksakal
Current Seats15:1
Speaker of the Assembly
Before Election:Numan Kurtulmuş
Before Party:AKP

Parliamentary elections will be held in Turkey no later than 7 May 2028, alongside presidential elections, to elect all 600 members of the Grand National Assembly. The incoming members will form the 29th Parliament of Turkey.

2015 election Deputies
2018 elections Deputies
2023 election Deputies

Background

2023 parliamentary election

See main article: 2023 Turkish parliamentary election.

The previous general election were held on May 14, 2023, and the second round of the presidential election was held on May 28, 2023. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has been in office since 2014, was re-elected president in the 2023 elections. The AKP, which received 35.62% of the votes in the general elections, came in first place, winning 268 of the 600 seats in parliament. The main opposition party, the CHP, entered parliament with 169 seats.

Additionally, 61 deputies from the Green Left Party, 50 from the MHP, 43 from the İYİ Party, 5 from the Yeniden Welfare Party, and 4 from the TİP received the necessary votes to enter parliament.

Due to the alliances formed after the elections, 4 deputies elected from the AK Party lists went to the Free Cause Party, 1 deputie to the Democratic Left Party, 15 deputies elected from the CHP went to the DEVA Party, 10 deputies each to the Future Party and SAADET, 3 deputies to the DP, 2 deputies elected from the Green Left Party went to the EMEP, 2 deputies to the HDP and 1 deputy to the TÖP, thus creating a parliamentary distribution in which 16 parties are represented.

Hatay MP Can Atalay, who was imprisoned due to the Gezi Park case, could not attend the oath-taking ceremony held on June 2, 2023. He was subsequently stripped of his parliamentary seat.

On June 4, 2023, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced the 2nd presidential cabinet of Turkey. The vice president and 15 of the 17 ministers in the previous cabinet have changed and new names have taken office.

2024 local elections

See main article: 2024 Turkish local elections.

Electoral system

The 600 members of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey will be elected by party-list proportional representation in 87 electoral districts, by the D'Hondt method. For the purpose of legislative elections, 77 of Turkey's 81 provinces serve as single districts. Due to their large populations, the provinces of Bursa and Izmir are divided into two districts, while the provinces of Ankara and Istanbul are each divided into three.[1]

According to the Constitution of Turkey, any amendment to the election law can only apply a year after it comes into effect.[2]

Lowering of the electoral threshold

At the initiative of the ruling AKP and its main political ally MHP, the national electoral threshold for a party to enter parliament was lowered from 10% to 7%.[3] This was the first lowering of the threshold since it was introduced by the military junta following the 1980 Turkish coup d'état.[4]

There is no threshold for independent candidates.[5] Political parties can also opt to contest the election in a political alliance with other parties, removing the 7% requirement as long as the alliance as a whole wins more than 7% of the vote in total.[6]

Other amendments to the election law includes the distribution of seats. Previously, parliamentary seats were distributed based on the vote share of each election alliance in any given district. Now, the seats are distributed based solely on the vote share of each political party in that district. If applied to the previous elections, the results would have been slightly more in line with the preferences of the voters on local level. For example, one Erzurum seat from IYI (4th largest party in Erzurum) would have gone to HDP (3rd largest party in Erzurum) and one Elazığ seat from CHP (3rd largest party in Elazığ) to MHP (2nd largest party in Elazığ).[7]

Electoral districts

Turkey is split into 87 electoral districts, which elect a certain number of members to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The Assembly has a total of 600 seats, with each electoral district allocated a certain number of MPs in proportion to their population. The Supreme Electoral Council of Turkey conducts population reviews of each district before the election and can increase or decrease a district's number of seats according to their electorate.

In all but four cases, electoral districts share the same name and borders as the 81 provinces, with the exceptions being Ankara, Bursa, Izmir and Istanbul. Provinces electing between 19 and 36 MPs are split into two electoral districts, while any province electing above 36 MPs is divided into three. As the country's most populous provinces, Bursa and Izmir are divided into two subdistricts while Ankara and Istanbul are divided into three. The distribution of elected MPs per electoral district is shown below.[8]

District MPs
15
5
6
4
4
3
36
Ankara (I)13
Ankara (II)11
Ankara (III)12
Antalya17
2
2
8
9
2
5
1
2
3
3
colwidth=1em  
District MPs
3
3
20
Bursa (I) 10
Bursa (II) 10
4
2
4
Denizli7
12
3
Edirne4
Elazığ5
Erzincan2
6
Eskişehir6
14
4
2
3
11
colwidth=1em  
District MPs
2
4
98
Istanbul (I) 35
Istanbul (II) 27
Istanbul (III)36
28
Izmir (I) 14
Izmir (II) 14
8
3
3
3
Karaman3
10
Kilis2
3
3
2
14
15
colwidth=1em  
District MPs
5
6
10
6
13
7
3
3
3
6
4
3
Sakarya8
Samsun9
3
2
5
14
4
8
5
colwidth=1em  
District MPs
6
1
3
8
Yalova3
4
5
Total 600

Opinion polls

See main article: Opinion polling for the next Turkish parliamentary election.

Notes and References

  1. Web site: How Turkey's Parliamentary Elections Work . carnegieeurope.eu . 19 May 2023 . 26 October 2015.
  2. Web site: Turkey: Parliament Passes Law Amending Election Laws and Lowering Electoral Threshold . Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA . 19 May 2023.
  3. Web site: Turkey reduces its election threshold from 10 to 7 percent . Turkish Minute . April 2022 . 2 April 2022.
  4. News: Turkey lowers party' election threshold for parliament to 7 pct . 2 April 2022 . www.xinhuanet.com . 1 April 2022.
  5. Web site: Crossing the threshold – the Turkish election. www.electoral-reform.org.uk. en-US. 3 March 2020.
  6. News: Yeni seçim yasası ve ittifaklar: Kritik değişiklikler! . 19 May 2023 . www.ntv.com.tr . 3 April 2023 . tr.
  7. News: Sarıkaya . Muharrem . İttifakın ayrıcalığı kalmayacak . 2 April 2022 . www.haberturk.com . 15 March 2022 . tr.
  8. News: Yüksek Seçim Kurulunun 02/03/2023 Tarihli ve 71 Sayılı Kararı . 24 March 2023 . . 32121 . 3 March 2023.