Parliamentary Elections: Advantage, Nation Alliance

TURKEY - In Brief 11 Apr 2023 by Atilla Yesilada

---

Do you believe in fate? Personally, I’m on the fence about her, because I feel my life has been more of a “random walk” then guided by a divine power. Yet, if such a force were to exist, I’d say it is carrying Kemal Kilicdaroglu (KK) and the Nation Alliance (NA) to power. With no major changes in April polls vs the first quarter of the year, MHP’s decision to go solo in the parliamentary elections appear to have handed the more cooperative NA 10-43 free Members of the Parliament (MPs), significantly increasing its chances of becoming the largest caucus. I’ve waited until midnight 11 April to pen this Market Brief, because of my rather silly faith in human rationality. Apparently, it doesn’t work in politics because past the deadline for the High Election Council to whet the candidates, and for parties to submit last-minute substitutions to their rosters, there is no news about AKP and MHP agreeing to merge lists even in a few districts. As it stands, AKP has assimilated Kurdish separatist and pro-Sharia HUDA-PAR and almost non-existent center-left DSP into its lists, with Islamist New Welfare Party (NWP), BBP and MHP running separate lists. At the NA camp, CHP absorbed candidates from SP, DEVA, Gelecek and DP, as well as cooperating with IYIP in fifteen provinces and nominating former CHP heavyweight and Sisli (Istanbul) mayor Mr. Mustafa Sarigul from the Eastern province of Erzincan. To recap, Turkey’s hybrid D’Hondt system grants a huge advantage to the largest party in each district, by essentially adding all the votes for smaller parties which fail to produce an MP, to the largest. When AKP and MHP amended the Electoral Law about a year ago, to gerrymander the syst...