Election threshold

The 300 MPs elected on May 21 were sworn in Sunday afternoon.

The new Parliament, in which no party achieved an overall majority, will elect a Speaker and deputy speakers Monday. It will then be dissolved by presidential decree, either Monday or Tuesday, and new elections proclaimed, for June 25.

As four presidential candidates have been confirmed to run for the presidency, the political alliances have now intensified works to find a best formulation to increase the number of seats they will get in the parliament in the May 14 elections. The ultimate lists of potential members of parliament will need to be submitted to the Supreme Election Board (YSK) at the latest on April 9.

Greece will hold a parliamentary election in May, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Tuesday, with the country gearing up for a vote which is unlikely to produce an outright winner immediately.

The conservative leader, whose term ends officially in July, said a national election will be held on May 21.

Turkey's four oppositional parties have agreed to take part in the upcoming parliamentary elections under an alliance in a bid to overcome the 10 percent threshold and to increase their participation in the Turkish Parliament.

A draft law making changes to the current electoral regulations will see that Turkey’s current 10 percent national election threshold is also valid for the alliance formed between political parties in the country, sources have revealed.

İYİ (Good) Party leader Meral Akşener has said Turkey’s 10 percent election threshold is no concern for her newly founded movement, adding that she did not expect the lowering of the threshold.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has signaled a legal amendment could be put forth to allow political parties to form alliances before the upcoming parliamentary elections, amid discussions on a potential decrease of the current 10 percent electoral threshold.

Osman Baydemir, the spokesperson for the Kurdish issue-focused Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), has warned that Turkey's election threshold would "increase to 50 percent" if the constitutional changes are passed in the referendum on April 16, Doğan News Agency has reported.

The 10 percent election threshold may be changed if the constitutional amendment passes at the referendum, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım said, noting that because the new system will "provide stability," there will no longer be reason to fear potential instability - the ostensible reason the threshold was inserted in the 1982 Constitution. 

Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu has said his coalition talks with opposition parties will certainly include lowering the 10 percent national election threshold, but the level of the drop will be decided with any governing partner.