The Supreme Election Board (YSK) of Türkiye released updated figures on the number of lawmakers each of the 81 provinces can have, two months before the scheduled date of general elections. The number, based on official 2022 population figures, was published on Friday in Official Gazette.
Kocaeli and Sakarya, two northwestern provinces, will elect one more lawmaker, based on their population rise, while Tunceli and Bayburt, two small provinces in the east and northeastern Türkiye, saw the number of lawmakers they can elect drop from two each to one.
Kocaeli and Sakarya can now send 14 and eight lawmakers to Parliament, respectively.
Turkish voters will go to polls to elect 600 lawmakers from a vast number of parties. The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) currently holds the most seats, closely followed by the Republican People's Party (CHP) in the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM).
In the upcoming elections, the capital Ankara will have 36 lawmakers elected into parliamentary seats, while Istanbul will have 98 lawmakers. Türkiye's third largest province Izmir will elect 28 lawmakers into Parliament.
The YSK recently sent a delegation to 11 provinces affected by the Feb. 6 earthquakes to examine how to properly organize the vote there.
The board announced Friday that the number of lawmakers eligible to be elected from the 11 affected provinces did not change. The YSK is looking to bolster its presence in the earthquake-hit provinces where an unknown number of election materials from ballot boxes to voting seals remain buried under the rubble.
It will also likely arrange polling stations at tent and container cities set up for survivors in a disaster zone where thousands of buildings collapsed.
The board is also expected to implement new regulations to facilitate the registration process for those whose residences were destroyed in the earthquake and those who had to leave their hometowns and settle in other cities. According to reports, survivors who moved elsewhere will be registered where they relocated.
The number of lawmakers is usually based on the size of the population. The bigger the population is, the more candidates are eligible to be elected.
