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Ömer Faruk Akbulut & Edanur Duran
In the 2011 general elections, which took place after the age of candidacy was low-
ered from 30 to 25 in 2006, young parliamentarians were elected to the Turkish Grand
National Assembly. According to the number of parliamentary members whose total
number of proxy is 550 according to the data of the 24th term TBMM 2011, just one
member of the parliament is over 75 years of age, 23 of them between the ages of 65-
74, 359 in the ages of 45-64, 143 in the ages of 35-44 and the youngest is 27-years
old from the AK Party.
With the enactment of the 1982 Constitution, the age of candidacy has always been
at the focus of political debate. The 1982 Constitution was assumed to be a source of
problems in the social and political environment (Coskun, 2017). In this context, many
political parties have expressed during the election process that they want to change
this constitution. After the 2011 general elections, political parties in the parliament
held talks for a constitutional amendment, but no steps were taken about constitu-
tional amendment due to some disputes. Towards the end of 2016 the AK Party and
the Nationalist Movement Party reached a compromise on constitutional amendment
and presented this amendment package to the public on April 16, 2017 referendum.
One of the most important changes of this constitutional amendment package is the
lowering of the age of candidacy from 25 to 18. The aim of such a change is that Tur-
key will have a young population and politics need to become younger and more dy-
namic with the active role of this young population in politics. Another reason was the
desire to avoid the discrepancy between the age of voting and the age of candidacy.
Opposition parties have argued that 18-year-old people are not equipped to be a
deputy and such a difficult task, such as becoming a deputy, is very difficult for an
18-year-old person. As a result of the public vote held on April 16, 2017, the constitu-
tional amendment package was accepted by 51.41% of population.
As the work done by Parliamentary Research Center regarding the election ages in
the world shows in some 45 countries such as Germany, Australia, Austria, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, China, Denmark, France, Finland, South Africa, Netherlands, Spain,
Sweden, Switzerland, Cuba, Hungary, Macedonia, Serbia, Mozambique, Norway,
Portugal, Uganda, New Zealand, the age of candidacy is 18. In some others (60 coun-
tries) the age of candidacy is 25, and 30 in 8 countries (News 7, 2012).
Because the age of candidacy in many developed countries is 18 and Turkey is among
the developing countries, we can claim that the decision about the ages of candidacy
is in place. And also, many young people in the history of Turkey led the government
and had great victories. In addition, the great effort and victory that young people
have shown and grasped in the July 15 Coup Attempt has created the belief that
