Electoral Systems in Turkey since 1923 and the Comparison of Current Electoral System of Turkey with France and Italy
Electoral Systems in Turkey since 1923 and the Comparison of Current Electoral System of Turkey with France and Italy
Since 1923 there have been several electoral systems took place in Turkish political process. When all of the elections considered there are three main types of electoral systems applied in Turkey. These are largest remainders method, highest averages method and transferable vote method. Within these main types of systems Turkey has experienced simple proportional representation with party lists, d’honts method with threshold and without threshold and national transferable vote method. This paper aims to explain these electoral systems and the comparison of the current electoral system in Turkey with France and Italy.
Firstly, after the shift of Turkey to multi-party system at elections of 1946,1950,1954 and 1957 party list proportional representation was the electoral system in Turkey.[1] This is one way of allocating seats proportionally for representative assemblies with party list voting systems. Within this system whoever gets the larger number of votes that party has more seats in the parliament. According to Ergun Özbudun since this system is not able to represent the society fairly this method is no longer used.[2]The reason is that the system increases the enhances the power of the dominant parties while it is decreasing the power of small parties. Therefore, this system creates a threat for consolidation of democracy. Secondly, after the establishment of 1961 constitution electoral system of Turkey has changed. Rather than party list PR d’hont method with national threshold, as one of the highest averages methods, was used at 1964. According to d’hont method political parties prepares the list of candidates as usual. At the elections the winners determined by the local votes as well as national votes. The number of votes is determined at the end of the elections and it is divided by the number of parliament members and it is called
Since 1923 there have been several electoral systems took place in Turkish political process. When all of the elections considered there are three main types of electoral systems applied in Turkey. These are largest remainders method, highest averages method and transferable vote method. Within these main types of systems Turkey has experienced simple proportional representation with party lists, d’honts method with threshold and without threshold and national transferable vote method. This paper aims to explain these electoral systems and the comparison of the current electoral system in Turkey with France and Italy.
Firstly, after the shift of Turkey to multi-party system at elections of 1946,1950,1954 and 1957 party list proportional representation was the electoral system in Turkey.[1] This is one way of allocating seats proportionally for representative assemblies with party list voting systems. Within this system whoever gets the larger number of votes that party has more seats in the parliament. According to Ergun Özbudun since this system is not able to represent the society fairly this method is no longer used.[2]The reason is that the system increases the enhances the power of the dominant parties while it is decreasing the power of small parties. Therefore, this system creates a threat for consolidation of democracy. Secondly, after the establishment of 1961 constitution electoral system of Turkey has changed. Rather than party list PR d’hont method with national threshold, as one of the highest averages methods, was used at 1964. According to d’hont method political parties prepares the list of candidates as usual. At the elections the winners determined by the local votes as well as national votes. The number of votes is determined at the end of the elections and it is divided by the number of parliament members and it is called