Electoral system debate is opened

I have been arguing against the current electoral system and striving to design alternatives in numerous reports for more than 15 years.
The readers of this column are partly aware of my efforts. In January, Bahçeşehir University's Center for Economic and Social Research (BETAM) published my latest report on the issue which suggested an electoral system with narrowed electoral constituencies (maximum six seats) but which simultaneously cancelled the electoral threshold of 10 percent. While announcing the impatiently awaited democratization package today, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erodoğan gave priority to electoral system reform. I hope Turkey will finally be successful in changing the existing electoral system inherited from the military coup of Sept. 12, 1980. The prime minister suggested three alternatives: Keep the electoral system intact, lower the threshold to 5 percent along with narrowing electoral constituencies to five seats, or finally, cancel the electoral threshold and establish single seat constituencies. Keeping the actual system intact is certainly not a reform alternative, and I do not know why the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) leader even suggested this possibility. I guess and I hope he wants to force the Republican People's Party (CHP) and the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) to accept one of the two other choices. In the coming weeks, electoral reform will be extensively debated. Certainly I will come back to the issue in this column many times before and after a new electoral system is accepted. Today, I will share with you my first comments on the proposed alternatives. Let's begin with the second alternative. Lowering the electoral threshold to 5 percent could solve the problem of BDP representation in Parliament rather than the party being obliged to present independent candidates, as was the case in the last two general elections. Indeed, the BDP's share of the vote in the last elections has been over 5 percent, and recent surveys estimate its current likely share at over 6 percent. Narrowing constituencies to five seats would have little impact on the potential number of eligible deputies from the BDP, since it is placed first or second in the constituencies of the East and Southeast. It will lose one or two seats in the west, particularly in İstanbul, but those losses will be easily compensated for with additional seats in the Southeast, thanks to narrowed constituencies. My simulation model forecasts 32-33 seats for the BDP at 6 percent of the vote. Furthermore, the prime minister announced that the threshold for party financing from the public budget will be lowered from 7 percent to 3 percent. So, this thorny problem would also be solved. I must say that without the political pressure created by the settlement process, electoral reform would never have been on the government agenda. So much the better!The beneficiary of this new arrangement would be, as expected, the AK Party, since it is the first ranked party in the majority of constituencies. I forecast more than 330 seats for it at 45 percent of votes cast. This is a critical outcome, since the AK Party will obtain the referendum majority in the next elections as long as its vote share does not decrease below 45 percent. Let me remind readers that with 49.9 percent the AK Party could not obtain this majority in the elections of June 2011. In this new model, the CHP's number of seats would likely be slightly diminished compared to the current system. The real loser would be the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). Its number of seats would probably be cut dramatically. For the sake of comparison, I prepared the table below with my estimation of the distribution of parliamentary seats in the existing system and in the reformed system. I assume that the Felicity Party (SP), the Democrat Party (DP), the Islamist and the center-right parties will not be able to overcome the threshold of 5 percent. As for the third alternative system, the single seat setup, Erdoğan was not precise as to if the AK Party envisions one tour, like in the British system of the “first past the post,” or a double tour, like in the French system. The number of tours is crucial concerning the political outcome and the shaping of the party system, as well as the formation of political alliances. I do not know if this alternative will be seriously debated and if the AK Party has a preference regarding the number of tours. However, I can say that the single seat system could allow the BDP to be represented in Parliament with more than 30 deputies. As for the MHP, it will be simply decimated if the “first past the post” system is adopted. Table: Comparison of seats distiribution in the acutal electoral system and the alternative one AKP BDP CHP MHP Votes’shares (%) 45 6 26 13 Actual system 308 35 147 60 Reformed system 337 32 141 40

Electoral threshold becomes a critical issue

This is my third article on the electoral threshold issue. Some readers may find my insistence boring. I will try to convince them that they are mistaken.
What does make Mr. Erdoğan so worrying?  Last weekend, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared in his speech at the opening ceremony of Şırnak Şerafettin Elçi Airport -- and by the way, it was a courageous decision and an important political gesture to name this new airport in the Southeast for the late Şerafettin Elçi, who was a great defender of the Kurdish cause -- that the 10 percent electoral threshold will be maintained. I said in my previous column: “I am impatient to see the AK Party's final decision regarding the electoral threshold.” I've got my answer in spades. Thank you, Mr. Erdoğan. The prime minister defended this extremely important decision with the following arguments: “Our view with regard to the election threshold is this: In systems where there are no election thresholds, you do not find confidence and stability. Over the past decade, we have obtained stability and confidence in our country, which were possible thanks to a government structure without coalitions. We cannot ignore this. … We don't want to ruin the performance of our country.” I do not agree with these arguments. It is true that Turkey lost the 1990s because of inconsistent and unstable coalition governments. Nevertheless, there is actually no danger of coalitions, considering the high support that exists for the Justice and Development Party (AK Party). Even in the worst case scenario, in the next general elections it can easily obtain over 40 percent of the vote. A comparison of the current electoral system with the suggested new one based on a lower threshold and narrowed constituencies shows that the reformed system serves the AK Party's interests better as long as the AK Party's share of the vote does not go below 40 percent. So, why is there such a fear of a low threshold? As I explained, Mr. Erdoğan does not want to take the risk of losing some of the AK Party's electors who might decide to vote for the Felicity Party (SP) and the Democrat Party (DP) if there is a lower threshold. Even the threshold of 7 percent that has been considered among AK Party management was not enough to appease the fears of Mr. Erdoğan. However, the prime minister does not seem to have abandoned the idea of narrowing the constituencies. If the electoral system reform is limited to narrowed constituencies without touching the 10 percent threshold, the electoral system will become more unfair and more advantageous to the incumbent party and at the same time, less defensible. Indeed, maintaining the threshold at 10 percent can prevent loss of electors to the SP and DP, but this will also prevent the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) from entering Parliament. This time, I am impatient to hear what the AK Party will say to the BDP. One can still suggest that they present independent candidates as they already have. But in that case, the BDP will still be unable to benefit from the public funds accorded to parties. Or, one can suggest, as was insinuated by the prime minister some time ago, that “they must work harder” to get more than 10 percent. However, the AK Party has not forgotten that any increase of electoral support for the BDP will be at its own expense. I believe that the AK Party took a serious risk regarding the settlement process by deciding to maintain the electoral threshold at 10 percent. I am still unable to fully understand the AK Party's goals. I think the AK Party is trying to guarantee having a referendum majority (330 + seats) in the next general elections, which will be held in May 2015. This is the only way or hope for Mr. Erdoğan to institute a presidential system and most probably be elected president of the republic next year. So, he needs every single vote. The simulations I presented in a report last February [Bahçeşehir University Center for Economic and Social Research (BETAM)] prove that in an election with narrowed constituencies, the AK Party is able to reach the referendum majority of over 46 percent, but it needs at least 50 percent under the existing system simply because the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) will be the only loser, assuming that the BDP will not meet the 10 percent threshold because of independent candidates. Narrowing the constituencies cannot be detrimental for the BDP, thanks to the concentration of its electors in a small number of constituencies. This could be the reason why Mr. Erdoğan has decided to take large risks regarding the settlement process.

Electoral threshold is key for AK Party vote support

The headline of my column on Tuesday asked “Why does AK Party fear lowering electoral threshold?” Before I gave my suggested answer to this question, I explained how the excessively high electoral threshold of 10 percent is not only unacceptable from the point of view of fair representation, but at the same time detrimental to the settlement process regarding the Kurdish problem.
I cannot believe that the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government would be willing to confront the political risks of maintaining the threshold at 10 percent, despite some declarations from AK Party managers insinuating that maintaining it is among the options being considered. Still, according to those declarations, hopefully lowering the threshold to 7 percent is also on the table.  Edoğan fears to loose electors by lowering the thershold Obviously, the AK Party is facing a difficult choice regarding the electoral threshold. But why? I do not think that the intention of the AK Party is to continue preventing the Kurdish Party (actually the Peace and Democracy Party [BDP]) from entering Parliament under its party label instead of presenting independent candidates, as is the case actually. I was quite explicit in my last article, referring to the results of my work on an electoral system reform, on some apparent paradoxes. I asserted in this work that even if the threshold is reduced, if this reduction is combined with narrowing electoral constituencies in such a way that the biggest ones will be limited to six seats, the number of AK Party deputies for the same vote distribution would be higher in this new electoral system than in the current one but with a critical condition: the AK Party vote's share must be higher than 40 percent. Voter intention surveys are regularly published in the press by a number of survey centers. Up until now I have not seen any of them suggesting that intended votes for the AK Party might be below 40 percent. In fact, AK Party electoral support still appears to be quite far from this fateful threshold. So why is the AK Party hesitating to make a radical electoral reform? Lowering the threshold but still maintaining it at a relatively high level, like 7 percent, does not seem, at first glance, meaningful. A 7 percent threshold, compared with the intended votes for the BDP varying around 6.5 percent, is playable for this party. The BDP may accept this challenge since some electoral analysts -- Tarhan Erdem, the chief executive officer of the Konda research center, for example -- believe that the BDP can easily receive more than 7 percent. This is also my opinion. If the threshold is lowered to 7 percent, some angry Kurdish voters of the AK Party can vote for the BDP along with the dissatisfied Turkish electors of the AK Party who are not at all happy with the hesitations of the AK Party concerning democratic reforms. Then what could be the fear that might explain the AK Party's hesitations regarding lowering the electoral threshold? I think that the explanation must be searched for in the AK Party's electoral base. It is well-known that the AK Party has very heteroclite voters constituted mainly by voters sensitive to political Islam, Turkish nationalism and the traditional center right, to enumerate the main streams. The number of independent electors who vote for the AK Party simply because they believe that it is the best party available at the moment should be added to this coalition. The traditional party of political Islam, represented actually by the Felicity Party (SP), as well as the party representing the traditional center right, the Democrat Party (DP), have in fact been marginalized because of the high electoral threshold that pushed important voters close to these two historic political movements to vote for the AK Party strategically. We can also say that for those electors, voting for the AK Party is the second best option. Indeed, voting for the SP or the DP means voting indirectly for the opposition since the SP and the DP cannot get enough votes to enter Parliament. I think that if the threshold is canceled or lowered to quite a low level, the share of votes of the SP and the DP might be easily and sizably increased at the expense of AK Party votes. I think that the AK Party cannot simply support this eventuality. I am impatient to see the AK Party's final decision regarding the electoral threshold.

Electoral system reform

The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) will hold a critical party congress this Sunday. An important part of its managerial team will be renewed as the result of the “no mandate more than three times” rule.
This is the first time such a rule will be applied in Turkey and probably in the world. I am not sure of the accuracy of this rule, but anyway, Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the uncontested leader of the governing party, does not want to retreat from his promise. I hope that Mr. Erdoğan will stand firm on other promises as well, and I come to my purpose. Will he stand firmn on his promise? One of the most important promises of the AK Party was political system reform. I am not talking here about the new constitution that is anyway out of the capacity of the AK Party alone, but about changing electoral and political parties' laws. These laws, inherited from the military era following the Sept. 12, 1980 coup, could have been easily changed since this requires a simple majority vote, but the AK Party preferred not to touch them. Now, the good news is that the AK Party Chairman is getting ready to release in the Sunday congress a comprehensive package of reforms, including political system reforms. My personal interest goes towards electoral system reform because I have tried to promote a new electoral system in this country for more than 10 years. I prepared three reports for the Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen's Association (TÜSİAD) and wrote many articles for academic journals as well as newspapers analyzing the problems created by the current electoral system and suggesting some alternatives to it to minimize these problems. So did many other political scientists, but the crude truth is that we did not succeed at all. However, this time it seems that there is a very good chance of having a new electoral law. Indeed, the Zaman daily gave the first news that Mr. Erdoğan will announce electoral system reform, among others, during the AK Party congress. According to Ahmet Dönmez (Zaman, Sept. 14), the 10 percent threshold will be canceled, electoral constituencies will be narrowed, and 100 deputies will be elected at the national level through a proportional system. For the moment this is probably just a proposal still under debate, but I think that we have enough to hope for. Moreover, what delights me in this information is that the proposal in question is quite similar to the electoral reform that I proposed. In April 2010 in Görüş, the monthly review of TÜSİAD, I published an article (“Electoral system is awaiting reform”) that summarized my point of view concerning an alternative electoral system. I should note that my latest proposal is not my first choice, but kind of second best -- albeit politically feasible. This proposal is based on four principles: 1) Cancel the 10 percent threshold completely; 2) As the absence of a threshold would increase the risk of fractionalization and increase the risk of political instability, narrow the constituencies so that the largest ones would have a maximum of five to six seats; 3) Increase the number of seats in Parliament from 550 to 600 and elect 500 of them in narrowed constituencies through the current D'Hondt method and elect 100 of them in a national constituency though the proportional method; 4) As the new electoral system will be a mixed one, give two votes to each voter like in the German electoral system. Can a new electoral system based on these principles minimize the main defaults of the current one? I see three main faults that have already caused a lot of damage to our democracy: 1) Unfair representation; 2) Political instability arising either through a legitimacy crisis or through a grand fractionalization of the party system; 3) Limitation of political plurality among Kurds. It is obvious that the current electoral system with its dramatically high threshold is far from a fair representation. But at the same time fair representation requires very large constituencies with proportional voting. Such a system would unavoidably open the way to extreme fractionalization that would increase the risk of political instability at an unacceptable level. Personally, I prefer to give greater weight to stability than to fair representation. For this reason, if the national threshold is canceled, it is a must to narrow the constituencies in order to avoid fractionalization. In the new system unfair representation would be alleviated through the 100 seats elected at the national level through proportional voting; so, even a small party with 1 percent of the votes could get a seat. Having said that, do not forget that the current electoral system can give the majority of seats to the first party with a very low minority vote. So, the absence of a threshold -- augmented by the 100 seats -- would give fair representation to a Kurdish party and would prevent the system producing legitimacy problems as was the case following the elections of November 2002, in which the AK Party got the majority with only 34 percent of the votes. On the other hand, the absence of a threshold is crucial for a plurality for the Kurdish political movement. Imagine that the threshold is lowered to 3-4 percent. This would give an absolute monopoly to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) through its legal political party over the Kurdish opposition, since another Kurdish opposition party can never hope to reach even this low national threshold. So, if you want to encourage plurality among Kurdish voters, forget the national threshold. I do not know if the AK Party has finally decided to change the electoral system, but if so, I hope that it will be done in the right way.