AKP and MHP find never-losing formula

The “National Agreement Commission” set up between the AKP and MHP has to a large extent reached an understanding over the nature of the alliance that will be formed in the 2019 presidential elections and parliamentary elections. However, both parties are contemplating studies on “local-election alliance models”.

 The fourth meeting of the National Agreement Commission established between the AKP and MHP was held yesterday.

 If no new last-minute formula is found apart from the formula over which understanding has to a large extent been reached, the alliance parties’ presidential candidate will appear on ballot slips. Both parties along with their emblems will appear beneath the name of the presidential candidate. Voters will thus be able to vote for their own party. With parliamentary elections, as per the formula recommended by the AKP so as not to create confusion in voters’ minds, both parties’ parliamentary candidate lists will appear separately on the ballot slip. With parties forming an alliance being shown in the same colour on the ballot slip, there will be no separate mention of “alliance” on the ballot slip. Parties forming alliances will make notification to the Supreme Election Council. Despite parties forming an alliance being shown separately on ballot slips, the Supreme Election Council will count the parties’ vote together during the count. The vote obtained by both parties will be deemed to be the “alliance vote”. With a consensus reached over the threshold remaining at ten per cent, even if one of the parties forming the alliance remains below the threshold, that party will have crossed the threshold since it is the alliance’s total vote that will apply. As to the distribution of alliance parties’ MPs, this will be determined internally according to the vote they obtain in the provinces.

 Call for a single candidate to appear

 Both parties are working on formulae for a “local-election alliance.” With the view predominating that it is pointless to contest the presidential and parliamentary elections together while both parties act separately at the grass roots in local elections, attention is being given to statutory amendments that would enable something similar to the alliance model envisaged for the presidential and parliamentary elections to be applied in local elections. The MHP is proposing that in the local-election alliance, just as in the presidential alliance, the mayoral candidate of whichever party has the highest vote in a province should appear on the ballot slip. This would mean the AKP’s mayoral candidate appearing on the ballot slip in provinces such as Ankara and Istanbul, and the MHP’s mayoral candidate in provinces such as Adana and Mersin. The names of both the AKP and MHP will appear beneath the mayoral candidate’s name and there will be a list of both party’s municipal assembly candidates. Voters will thus be able, as in the presidential and parliamentary election, to vote for their own party at the poll and both party’s vote will count as the “alliance vote”. Membership of the municipal assembly will be determined in accordance with the share of the vote each party obtains.

 The AKP, for its part, given that the joint candidate formula may make finding candidates problematic in certain provinces, is touting the formula whereby both parties’ mayoral candidates will appear on the ballot slip and which will enable the candidate of whichever party obtains more votes to become mayor. Accordingly, even if there are two candidates, both parties’ votes will be counted together since they will form an alliance. In provinces won by the alliance parties, the candidate of the party that obtains the highest vote will be deemed to have been elected mayor.

http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/siyaset/917286/AKP_ve_MHP_asla_kaybetmemenin_formulunu_buldu.html