Nongovernmental organizations and activists struggling for equal representation of women in politics and social life have criticized the low number of women on political parties’ parliamentary candidate lists prepared for the upcoming elections on May 14.
*The People’s Alliance: An electoral alliance in Turkey, between the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), HÜDA PAR and the New Welfare Party.
*The Nation Alliance: An electoral alliance in Turkey, made up of six opposition parties to contest the 2023 Turkish general election against its main rival, the People’s Alliance.
* The Labour and Freedom Alliance: A left-wing electoral alliance in Turkey, formed by Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Workers’ Party of Turkey (TİP), Labour Party (EMEP), Labourist Movement Party (EHP), Social Freedom Party (TÖP) and Federation of Socialist Assemblies (SMF).
Political parties’ candidate lists submitted to the Turkish Supreme Election Council, YSK, contain a record low number of women candidates.
The number of women candidates nominated by the People’s Alliance* and the Nation Alliance* from ‘electable’ seats is only 82. The Green Left Party and the Worker’s Party of Turkey (TİP) have a higher proportion of women candidates.
According to Diken, 702 of the 3,000 parliamentary candidates (23.4 per cent) of the five parties that entered the elections in 2018 were women. After the elections, 103 out of 600 members of parliament we women.
The situation is not much different in the lists of these elections.
The People’s Alliance
Of the 600 AKP candidates, 113 are women. At MHP, the number of female parliamentary candidates remained at 90. Again, only 45 of the 600 candidates of the New Welfare Party, a new member of the People’s Alliance, are women.
The Nation Alliance
156 (26.80 per cent) of the candidates on the CHP list, which also includes the DEVA Party, the Future Party, and the Democratic Party, are women. The Good Party, which did not nominate candidates in nine provinces, has 139 women out of 536 candidates. In other words, the rate is 25.9 per cent.
The Labour and Freedom Alliance
The Green Left Party nominated the most women candidates among other parties. In the Green Left Party, 193 of the 490 candidates reported so far are women. The Workers’ Party of Turkey (TİP) nominated 161 women as MP candidates out of 398 candidates.
Nongovernmental organizations and activists struggling for equal representation of women in politics and social life have criticized the low number of women on political parties’ parliamentary candidate lists, describing it as “dishonorable.”
“Political parties are completely male-dominated playgrounds”
Gülseren Onanç, the founder of SES Equality and Solidarity Association, stated that the parties do not have a policy on equal representation of women and that she was not surprised by the candidate lists: “It was obvious that this situation would come to this. Political field in Turkey is dominated by men. When the alliances developed as male alliances, I started to predict that this would be the case. We did not see a interiorized concept of equality in the discourses of the Nation Alliance.
Political parties are completely male-dominated playgrounds. It is very difficult for a woman to make a place for herself here. The executives had to take a decisive approach and organise this as a political process. Since this was not the case, the result is not surprising.”
Pointing out that it is women who have been resisting oppression and rights violations on the streets for years, Onanç believes that this has not been reflected in the candidate lists as it should: “The civil opposition by women was strongest on the streets. But for some reason this was not reflected in politics. We hear the words ‘women are very strong, they can do it if they want to’, but when it comes to sharing those seats with a woman, men co-operate in order not to make room for women.”
“Democratization cannot be done by excluding women”
The lists of parliamentary candidates were a big disappointment in terms of gender equality, said Nuray Karaoğlu, the head of the Association for Supporting Women Candidates (KA-DER).
“Though 50.7 percent of Türkiye is women, this rate is only 17.2 percent for deputies. We are fighting to get the seats that are already ours,” Karaoğlu said. “The demand of women, who struggle in all areas of life, to govern the country equally was once again ignored by men.”
According to the latest report of KA-DER, there may be female MPs in this election from Giresun, Osmaniye, Ardahan, Burdur and Nevşehir, which are among the 20 provinces that have never had female parliamentarians throughout the history of the republic, she added.
“Democratization cannot be done by excluding women. While women struggle with their own problems, they act with the awareness and responsibility of building a better world and future. In other words, the struggle of women is also a struggle of every citizen in the country to make an equal, fair and free social life possible,” said İlknur Üstün, the coordinator of women’s rights organization Women’s Coalition.
Though there were an unprecedented number of women candidates’ applications for the 2023 elections in the history of the republic, the lists are completely dishonorable, activist Mine Olcay also said.
“Women’s gains are openly targeted”
“Today’s civilization is the product of tens of thousands of years of cooperation between men and women. Now, let’s quickly turn from this mistake and lay the foundation for a happier life together,” she stated.
The fact that women, who make up half of the population, cannot participate in the decision-making processes and are not equally represented in politics is a problem of democracy first and foremost, Aslı Pasinli from the Women’s Platform for Equality (EŞİK) said.
“In this period when women’s gains are openly targeted, we should all think about the inequality picture revealed by the lists,” she added.
According to political scientist Sezin Öney, the low number of women on political parties’ parliamentary candidate lists is a direct result of the erosion of women rights in recent years.
“The number of women in candidate lists of political parties has caused serious disappointment. However, it’s not surprising. Since Turkey exited the ‘Istanbul Convention’ [a European treaty on women and domestic violence] there’s been a backward trend in women’s rights.”
Sources: Hürriyet, Balkan Insight, SES Platform