Via the BBC: New Turkey president poll fails
Turkey’s parliament has failed for a second time to elect the Islamist-rooted governing party’s candidate for president, Abdullah Gul.Mr Gul, the only nominee, withdrew his candidacy after the vote was rendered invalid by an opposition boycott.
Turkey’s governing AK party is now expected to focus its attention on early parliamentary elections in July.
It is also pushing for the president to be elected directly by the Turkish people, instead of by parliament.
They can pursue the ballot for president four times, according to the constitution, but clearly the opposition is not going to allow a quorum to be present, making such moves moot.
In regards to electoral reform, the AK would only benefit from popular election if they could manage to get a plurality system in place, as they do not represent a majority of the voters. One would think that the rest of the parties would block any move to a simple plurality elections system.
In terms of making the overall electoral system more representative (which would remove the AK’s ability to govern), the most pressing electoral reform of need would be to change the disproportional system in place for choosing parliament (as Matthew Shugart noted late last week).
May 6th, 2024 at 11:16 am
As Jonathan explained in his discussion at The Head Heeb, if the AK can get the presidency (under current elect-in-parliament rules) or a two-thirds majority (as a result of the upcoming general election), it will not need the consent of other parties to decide on a new method to elect future presidents.