A- 10 PERCENT ELECTORAL TRESHOLD POLICY
As we all know history of democracy dates back to ancient Greek city-state of Athens. In Athenian democracy people were governed directly. But it is merely impossible to apply same direct democracy in today’s societies considering difficulties to interact with the millions of citizens. This practical reality gave birth to notion of representative democracy where political power is used by representatives. It is required to simplify the overall process in order to hand over the power from millions to a limited number of representatives and that is where difficulties begin (Venice Commission 2010). In most countries that are govern under representative parliamentary democracy, it is common to see coalition …show more content…
Because of the threshold, stakeholders that cannot gain 10% of overall national voters cannot be heard in the parliament and they missed a vital chance to express themselves to the wider public in an easy and prestigious manner. As mentioned there are some ways to go around this rule, but they’re difficult and expensive. For example according to regulations, independent candidates have to pay quite amount of deposit and they lose that deposit unless they win a seat. They cannot find a room in the public owned TV and radio stations for their campaigns which have significant ratings. In addition, Turkish citizens living abroad are not allowed to vote for independents. Smaller parties’ method of forming alliances has also disadvantages. They have to overcome so many significant mental, emotional, or practical hardships. In addition to art of compromise, democracy is a race and competition of different opinions that reflected by different parties. But obviously compulsion of relying on another party to be elected, creates negative effects on independence of that political party (Alkin …show more content…
The rate of threshold is of vital importance in order to strike the balance. Threshold may prevent fragmentation in parliament, sacrificing representativeness and fairness. That’s why the threshold is one of the topic that Turkish intellectuals debate fiercely. As the Constitutional Court stated that legislature might be free to adopt any electoral system it considered best for country’s political and social conditions and a threshold might be applicable and acceptable in this sense. But this kind of limitation should be limited and updated in time. Turkey’s threshold is the highest in Europe to the extent that it could push almost half of the voters out of game whereas in a developed democracy, the right to vote, to be elected and to engage in political activities are core values as equal as free speech or equality before law. Even though it was adopted to ensure stability and enhance the common good, it also hampers social developments by restricting different parts of society from expressing their needs and
As we all know history of democracy dates back to ancient Greek city-state of Athens. In Athenian democracy people were governed directly. But it is merely impossible to apply same direct democracy in today’s societies considering difficulties to interact with the millions of citizens. This practical reality gave birth to notion of representative democracy where political power is used by representatives. It is required to simplify the overall process in order to hand over the power from millions to a limited number of representatives and that is where difficulties begin (Venice Commission 2010). In most countries that are govern under representative parliamentary democracy, it is common to see coalition …show more content…
Because of the threshold, stakeholders that cannot gain 10% of overall national voters cannot be heard in the parliament and they missed a vital chance to express themselves to the wider public in an easy and prestigious manner. As mentioned there are some ways to go around this rule, but they’re difficult and expensive. For example according to regulations, independent candidates have to pay quite amount of deposit and they lose that deposit unless they win a seat. They cannot find a room in the public owned TV and radio stations for their campaigns which have significant ratings. In addition, Turkish citizens living abroad are not allowed to vote for independents. Smaller parties’ method of forming alliances has also disadvantages. They have to overcome so many significant mental, emotional, or practical hardships. In addition to art of compromise, democracy is a race and competition of different opinions that reflected by different parties. But obviously compulsion of relying on another party to be elected, creates negative effects on independence of that political party (Alkin …show more content…
The rate of threshold is of vital importance in order to strike the balance. Threshold may prevent fragmentation in parliament, sacrificing representativeness and fairness. That’s why the threshold is one of the topic that Turkish intellectuals debate fiercely. As the Constitutional Court stated that legislature might be free to adopt any electoral system it considered best for country’s political and social conditions and a threshold might be applicable and acceptable in this sense. But this kind of limitation should be limited and updated in time. Turkey’s threshold is the highest in Europe to the extent that it could push almost half of the voters out of game whereas in a developed democracy, the right to vote, to be elected and to engage in political activities are core values as equal as free speech or equality before law. Even though it was adopted to ensure stability and enhance the common good, it also hampers social developments by restricting different parts of society from expressing their needs and