TURKEY: Parliamentary Elections
On June 12th Turkey will be holding parliamentary elections.
At stake in this election:
550 seats in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (Turkiye Buyuk Millet Meclisi)
Description of government structure:
Chief of State: President Abdullah GUL *
Head of Government: Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ERDOGAN
Assembly: Turkey has a unicameral Grand National Assembly of Turkey (Turkiye Buyuk Millet Meclisi) with 550 seats.
* Candidates must be members of the Grand National Assembly supported by 20 of its members, or nominees by political parties that have attained more than 10 percent of votes in the last legislative election. Candidates must be 40 years of age and have completed higher education.
Description of electoral system:
The President is elected by absolute majority vote through a two-round system to serve a 5-year term.
The Prime Minister is appointed by the President.
In the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (Turkiye Buyuk Millet Meclisi) 550 members are elected through a closed-list proportional representation system to serve 4-year terms.***
*** There are 79 MMD corresponding to the provinces. Each party must clear a national threshold of 10 percent and at least one D'Hondt quotient in the district from which it is elected. Additionally, a candidate may be seated only if his party is organized in one-third of districts within each of half of the provinces, and has nominated two candidates for each seat in at least half of provinces.
For more information, please visit IFES Election Guide's Turkey page.
To share your views on the role and experiences of women throughout this election process, please use the comment section below.
Women's Political status in Turkey
Women's political representation and participation has been a challenge in Turkey. Women in Turkey gained the right to vote in 1934. In 1935, the year of the first elections in which this right was used women entered parliament at the rate of 4.6 percent. This rate was not achieved again until the parliamentary elections of 2007. The rate of number of women's representation (4.36 percent before elections) , doubled reaching 9,1 percent of total seats in parliament.
Although, Turkey has adopted the gender equality law (in 2004) and established the equal Opportunity Commission in the Parliament the country has been postponing the adoption of the quota system.
Even though the results of the 12 June elections, are very successful, with the historical score for women's representative 14,18 percent of seats of parliament (the rate raised by 6 percent since 2007) this falls far beyond 30 percent target of the Beijing Platform for Action.
The leading government party, Justice and Development Party (AKP), has not adopted quota, Only 45 (13.8%) of elected candidates are women out of 326 elected candidates.
The main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) has a 25 percent quota for all city, district councils, as well as the highest Party Council. 19 of elected candidates are women out of 135 elected candidates (14.07%), The national action party (MHP) Only 3 (5.6%) women candidates were elected out of 53 elected candidates.
Other small independent political parties have 11 (30.5%)elected women candidates out of the 35 elected candidates. Interestingly most of the independent parties such as pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) have introduced the quota.
Women's Political status in Turkey
Women's political representation and participation has been a challenge in Turkey. Women in Turkey gained the right to vote in 1934. In 1935, the year of the first elections in which this right was used women entered parliament at the rate of 4.6 percent. This rate was not achieved again until the parliamentary elections of 2007. The rate of number of women's representation (4.36 percent before elections) , doubled reaching 9,1 percent of total seats in parliament.
Although, Turkey has adopted the gender equality law (in 2004) and established the equal Opportunity Commission in the Parliament the country has been postponing the adoption of the quota system.
Even though the results of the 12 June elections, are very successful, with the historical score for women's representative 14,18 percent of seats of parliament (the rate raised by 6 percent since 2007) this falls far beyond 30 percent target of the Beijing Platform for Action.
The leading government party, Justice and Development Party (AKP), has not adopted quota, Only 45 (13.8%) of elected candidates are women out of 326 elected candidates.
The main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) has a 25 percent quota for all city, district councils, as well as the highest Party Council. 19 of elected candidates are women out of 135 elected candidates (14.07%), The national action party (MHP) Only 3 (5.6%) women candidates were elected out of 53 elected candidates.
Other small independent political parties have 11 (30.5%)elected women candidates out of the 35 elected candidates. Interestingly most of the independent parties such as pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) have introduced the quota.