A total of 429 MPs in the 550-seat house voted in favour of the measure while 12 opposed it, parliament speaker Bulent Arinc said.

Under the bill, the names of independent candidates will figure on the same ballot paper as all the parties in the running, contrary to current practice under which their names appear on separate voting slips.

The new procedure is widely seen as a bid to obstruct voters in the mainly Kurdish southeast, where many are illiterate or do not speak Turkish, and are likely to have trouble picking their candidate's name from the long list of parties and other independents.

The amendment needs presidential approval to come into force.

Turkey's main Kurdish party, the Democratic Society Party (DTP), said it will field independents rather than run as a party in the July 22 election to bypass the 10-percent national threshold that allows parties access to parliament.

Once they are voted in as independents, the Kurdish deputies can regroup under the DTP banner.

Many Kurds have become legislators in Turkey as members of mainstream parties, but pro-Kurdish movements failed to overcome the 10-percent national threshold despite usually dominating the Kurdish vote in the southeast, where they routinely win the local elections.

Kurdish parties are routinely accused of being instruments of the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Partry, the PKK, which has led a bloody separatist insurgency in the southeast since 1984.