Turkey Politics Turkey’s main opposition occupies Parliament rostrum, crisis deepens
Turkey’s main opposition occupies Parliament rostrum, crisis deepens
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Turkish main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) physically occupied Parliament's rostrum Wednesday night in outrage over a parliamentary bylaw sponsored by the ruling party that the CHP claims is designed to silence opposition.
The government's recent effort to amend the parliamentary bylaw created chaos in Parliament last week which escalated on Wednesday as members of the main opposition party occupied the rostrum in protest of the new amendment.
Late last month, 50 CHP deputies rushed furiously into the hall where the parliamentary Constitutional Commission was discussing the bill to amend the bylaw and stated that they were determined to block the amendments. After the bill to amend the bylaw was sent to Parliament's plenary session for approval, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) threw in their support behind the CHP as well, completely blocking parliamentary proceedings.
Seeing the ruling party's determination to pass the bill at all costs, the opposition camp further intensified its efforts to produce more confrontation and resorted to every filibustering method available. One of the main objections voiced by the opposition was changes to parliamentary bylaws simply upon the initiative of a single party. They argued that all parties should reach a consensus on any changes to bylaws, as was the case with the bid to amend the Constitution.
On the last day of 2011 the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) introduced a new motion in Parliament to amend parliamentary bylaws. The opposition reacted harshly to the proposal, arguing that the amendment mainly shorten the time allotted for opposition parties to talk about their groups' legal proposals.
(source: www.todayszaman.com)
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