MILLIYET- Columnist Fikret Bila writes on the heated debate evolving around forming alliances in November’s elections. A summary of his column is as follows:
Negotiations between political parties on possible alliances in elections continue. As the Elections Law in Turkey does not allow forming alliances openly, one party’s deputy candidates compete in elections through another one’s candidate list. What prompts them to do this is the 10% threshold. Those political parties which are very close to the threshold but unable to cross it on their own are willing to bargain even with the tiniest parties in order to take their getting into parliament for granted. This creates somehow a weird picture in Turkish politics. While parties with almost a 10% support are faced with the threat of exclusion from parliament, parties even with marginal support suddenly become the focus of utmost attention and, by taking advantage of this they get a number of seats more than they deserve, thus being over-represented in parliament. This is unacceptable. Besides representation, alliances formed this way promote political inconsistency. We witness the quests for alliances between those parties which, under normal conditions, cannot even come together. Consequently, ideologies and party programs as well as worldviews become meaningless. Cooperation in elections is much more different from forming coalitions. It takes a more close relationship and more common values to get into alliance in elections. However, the only value in our way of forming alliances is entering parliament at the expense of all other ones.
SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION