In Turkey, women still lag far behind in achieving equal representation, particularly in politics. According to advocates for women’s rights, the number of female candidates in the local elections on March 31st remains disappointingly low.
In these elections, out of 15,159 total candidates for metropolitan, provincial, and district mayor positions, only 11%, are women.
In Turkey, women still lag far behind in achieving equal representation, particularly in politics. According to advocates for women’s rights, the number of female candidates in the local elections on March 31st remains disappointingly low.
A notable difference between the 2024 local elections and the 2019 elections is that almost every party is fielding their own candidates this year, leading to a higher overall number of candidates.
Five years ago, statistics from the Supreme Election Board (YSK) revealed that out of over 8,200 mayoral candidates, only 667, or 8.1%, were women.
Of the 33 women who applied for the position of metropolitan municipality mayor, only 3 were elected. Similarly, out of 634 women who applied for other provincial and district municipal mayor positions, only 38 were selected.
In 2019, the representation of women in municipal councils was 11%, while the representation of female muhtars (local leaders) stood at just 2.25%.
What’s the situation like in 2024?
According to data from KA.DER, in the March 31st elections, out of 15,159 total candidates for metropolitan, provincial, and district mayor positions, 11%, are women.
Of the 1,732 candidates for provincial and metropolitan mayor positions, 249, or 14.37%, were women. Additionally, out of the 11,296 district municipal mayor candidates, 1,307, or 11.6%, were women.
When examining the performance of parties in nominating female candidates, the DEM Party (Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party) and TİP (The Workers’ Party of Turkey) show the highest percentages.
According to data compiled by the Ben Seçerim Association from the Supreme Election Board (YSK), TİP has nominated female candidates at a rate of 37.6%, while the DEM Party’s rate stands at 30.9%.
The ruling AKP (Justice and Development Party), which has nominated candidates in nearly every city, province, district, and town, has a female representation rate of just 2.1%. The MHP, which is supporting the AKP candidate in many areas, has a total of 877 candidates, with only 21 being women.
In the CHP (Republican People’s Party), the proportion of female mayoral candidates is 9.2%, and in the DEVA Party (Democracy and Progress Party), it is 15.2%.
The IYI Party (Good Party) has a female mayoral candidate rate of 10.4%, while the Saadet Party (Felicity Party) lags behind at 3.6%.
The percentage of female candidates for metropolitan municipalities stands at 13%
According to an analysis by DW Turkish based on official data from the Supreme Election Board (YSK), out of 734 total candidates running for mayorship in 30 metropolitan municipalities, only 94 are women. This means women constitute approximately 13% of the total candidates, while the number of male candidates is nearly seven times higher than that of female candidates.
The DEM Party has nominated female candidates in 9 metropolitan municipalities, namely Istanbul, Ankara, Diyarbakır, Hatay, Erzurum, Denizli, Aydın, Samsun, and Trabzon. The party also has female co-mayor candidates for Adana, Antalya, Balıkesir, Bursa, Gaziantep, Eskişehir, İzmir, Kahramanmaraş, Kayseri, Kocaeli, Konya, Malatya, Mardin, Muğla, Ordu, Sakarya, Şanlıurfa, Tekirdağ, and Van. However, the DEM Party did not nominate any candidates in Manisa and Mersin.
Out of the 30 metropolitan municipalities where the CHP has nominated candidates, only 5 are women. The CHP has put forward Özlem Çerçioğlu in Aydın, Ayşe Ünlüce in Eskişehir, Mukaddes Zeynep Arıkan in Kahramanmaraş, Azize Çeroğlu in Sakarya, and Candan Yüceer in Tekirdağ as their mayoral candidates.
The ruling AKP, which has nominated candidates for all 28 metropolitan municipalities except Mersin and Manisa, has only one female candidate running for metropolitan mayor: Fatma Şahin, the current Mayor of Gaziantep. Şahin, Turkey’s first female metropolitan mayor, has held this position since 2014.