“The parties with the least women MPs on the candidate lists are AKP and MHP”

Women’s Platform for Equality (EŞİK) studied the lists of deputy candidates of the parties in the upcoming Turkish elections. The platform states that its research “reveals that the new Parliament will again be far from equal representation”. According to the study, although there were many women candidates for nomination, very few women were included in the final lists of many parties. It is also stated that the proportion of women in the lists is artificially increased by placing most of them in places where they cannot be elected. The parliamentary lists that EŞİK examined belongs to the Justice and Development Party (AKP), the Republican People’s Party (CHP), the Good Party (IYI parti), the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the Workers’ Party of Türkiye (TIP), and the Green Left Party (YSP).

Since the Supreme Board of Elections does not specify gender in the lists, the women’s platform, which had to carry out the study by checking the names of all deputies one by one, states that collecting data disaggregated by gender is one of the main duties of the state and all relevant public or private institutions. The organization considers persistent failure to fulfill this duty as ‘a clear discrimination against women’. Paying regard to the 2018 election results, some remarkable points stand out in the conclusions of the research. One of these outcomes is that the Green Left Party (YSP) is the party with the highest rate of women in electable places in the lists (41.54%).

According to the survey, the party with the highest rate of women in the parliamentary lists is YSP, and the second party is TİP. The party with the least number of women candidates is MHP, followed by AKP. The party that put the least number of women in the first place in the candidate lists is AKP (4.60%). The platform indicates that although the AKP has the largest number of women deputies to enter the parliament, with 56 women deputies, when evaluated proportionally, this is not a high rate.

Another matter revealed by the research was the absence of women representatives in 33 provinces. It is emphasized that 18 of the 20 provinces that have not had a women representative throughout the history of the Turkish Republic will once again not have women representatives in this election. It is estimated that 117 women deputies will enter the Parliament and the rate of women in the Parliament will be 19.50%.