As Turkey heads to the polls for early presidential and parliamentary elections on June 24, Turkey Supreme Election Board (YSK) released Saturday the distribution list of deputies to the country's 81 provinces in line with their population, in addition to the schedule for candidates to follow.
Public servants will need to present their letters of resignation by April 26, 5:00 p.m. local time to run in the upcoming elections. Therefore, next week will be determinant for the candidates and their respective parties.
YSK President Sadi Güven said Sunday that in order to announce the full election calendar, the board currently awaits the adjustment laws concerning the switch to the presidential system to be handled by the parliament.
The YSK also released the list of electoral districts and their respective number of deputies based on the 2017 population data presented to the YSK by the Turkish Statistical Institute (Turkstat) as of Dec. 31, 2017.
According to the changes adopted in the April 16, 2017 constitutional reform and presidential system referendum, the number of deputies in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey has been increased from 550 to 600.
Provinces with up to 18 deputies were designated as one electoral district, while provinces with 19 to 35 deputies were divided in two, and those with 36 or more deputies were divided into three electoral districts.
The number of Ankara's electoral districts increased from two to three with the recent change, as the province will send 36 deputies to the parliament in June 24 elections. Bursa province was divided into two electoral districts for the first time as the number of deputies reached 20.
Istanbul and Izmir, which have 98 and 28 deputies, were divided into three and two electoral districts respectively. Istanbul will have more deputies than the total of 35 provinces combined.
In Ankara, one deputy will be representing 151,250 citizens. This number is 153,359 in Istanbul and 152,845 in Izmir.
The northern province of Bayburt became the smallest electoral district as it will send only one deputy to the parliament in June 24 elections. The province currently has two deputies in the parliament.
