(Amended by Article 46 of Law 2839, on 10 June 1983.) Political parties running for the election may conduct electioneering activities on radio and television after the 7th day prior to the election day until 18:00 hours on the eve of the election, reserving the provisions in exclusive laws. (Amended by Article of Law 3377, on 23 May 1987.) Those who are running for the election have the following rights in terms of electioneering on television or radio; a) Each political party running for the elections have the right for two speeches not more than 10 minutes on the first 10 days and the last day to explain their programs and projects, b) Parties that have a group in the TGNA have an additional 10 minute slot, c) (Amended by Article 4 of Law 4125, on 27 October 1995.) A further 20 minutes are given to the party in power or senior partner in coalition government, with 15 minutes for minor partners, d) The principal party of opposition has the right to an additional 10 minute speech.”15 The regulations under Article 52 of the Law do not provide a level playing field in elections and create inequality amongst political parties as well as between political parties and independent candidates. Provisions in Law No 2839 on Parliamentary Elections: “f) (Additional paragraph: 08/04/2010 – Law 5980/Art. 31.) The special emblems of political parties shall be printed on the joint ballots in accordance with their description in the party statute. The party statute shall be taken as a basis in determining the emblem, the name and abbreviation of the political party to be printed on the joint ballot. Political parties which do not have abbreviated names shall be represented on the joint ballot with their full The fact that there is no opportunity to use identifying symbols for independent candidates on the ballots as well as the practice of writing the names of independent candidates with a smaller font in a smaller area of the ballot in comparison to political parties, amounts to unequal treatment. The Pre-Election Process and Environment As a result of the Parliamentary Elections held on June 7th 2015, four political parties passed the electoral threshold and entered parliament. However, none of the parties were able to secure the majority of seats necessary to form a single-party government. On July 9th, the President gave the mandate to form government to Ahmet Davutoğlu, the leader of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), who had won the highest number of seats. Despite the will of the voters in the elections, the negotiations held to form a coalition government first with the Republican People’s Party (CHP), then the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), were unsuccessful. On August 20th 2015, Ahmet Davutoğlu handed back the mandate he was given to form government. Instead of giving a second mandate, the President decided to repeat the elections. The decision was published in the Official Gazette No. 29455 dated August 24, 2015 and Turkey entered the election process for the second time. The decision of the President to renew the elections led to wide-scale public debate in terms of its compliance with democratic customary practice and the possibility of a rise in social tension due to a second election.