This weekend's parliamentary elections in Turkey provide an interesting example of the problems inherent in a party-list proportional voting method with a large
threshold. Compare the votes for the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the Grand National Assembly elections from 2002 and 2007:
| AKP | 2002 | 2007 |
| Popular vote | 10,762,131 | 16,340,534 |
| % of Popular vote | 34.28 | 46.66 |
| Seats in Parliament | 363 | 340 |
| % of Seats | 66.0 | 61.8 |
Yes, that's right, in the last five years, the AKP increased their plurality in the popular vote by 12.38%, and yet they lost 23 seats in the 550-seat Grand National Assembly.
The runner-up Republican People's Party (CHP) saw something similar. For the CHP, a meager 1% increase in the popular vote meant they lost 12% of the Assembly:
| CHP | 2002 | 2007 |
| Popular vote | 6,090,883 | 7,300,234 |
| % of Popular vote | 19.4 | 20.85 |
| Seats in Parliament | 178 | 112 |
| % of Seats | 32.4 | 20.4 |
How can this be? In Turkey, for a party to receive any seats in the Grand National Assembly, it must receive at least ten percent of the popular vote. In 2002, on the AKP and the CHP received more than the threshold, with third through eighth places getting 9.55%, 8.34%, 7.25%, 6.23%, and 5.13%. Thus, the main player in this year's election proved to be fourth place finisher in 2002, the National Movement Party (MHP). This year, they jumped into third place, and more importantly jumped over the ten percent threshold:
| MHP | 2002 | 2007 |
| Popular vote | 2,619,450 | 5,004,003 |
| % of Popular vote | 8.34 | 14.29 |
| Seats in Parliament | 0 | 71 |
| % of Seats | 0.0 | 12.9 |
(All statistics from Wikipedia.)
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