THE ACTUAL TEST THAT PARTIES HAVE FAILED TO PASS IN TURKEY: WOMEN CANDIDATES

As Turkey goes to early election, the candidateship of 3 thousand 269 male and 937 female candidates has been accepted by Supreme Committee.

With the upcoming election, which will be held on June 24 Sunday, 600 congressmen will get into the T.B.M.M in the 27th period.

Almost all of the parties had begun to implement the “women quotas” in order to increase the number of female parliamentarians by making statements that emphasized the importance of women’s existence in politics during the 2015 elections. However, the existence of women quotas does not mean that the female parliamentarians can evenly get into the council. So, how much the parties have placed importance on the gender mainstreaming while designating their candidates?

Women who make up the 50% of the population and 51% of the voters take place only in 22% of the lists in the upcoming elections.

AKP has only nominated 126 female candidates out of their 600 mp candidates across Turkey. While AKP presented only 4 female mp as candidates from the first row, they decided not to show any female candidate in 29 cities.

CHP increased the quota for women, which was 25% in 1989, to 33% in 2015. CHP presented 6 female candidates from the first row out of 137 candidates (22,67% of the total) who were designated for upcoming election. But CHP didn’t nominate any female candidate from other 33 cities.

In the regulations of HDP, there’s a statement as “in all decision making mechanism, equality of women is taken as the main principal. Based on this statement, HDP has selected 226 female mp candidates, 19 of who are from the first row. The party managing bodies make a significant contribute to the gender equality by bringing co-president system to their committees and commissions.

MHP presented 2 female mps for the first row out of their 69 female candidates. Out of the total candidate numbers, only 12% are women.

Although Saadet Party has selected 79 female mp candidates, they haven’t presented any of them for the first row. 11,67% of the candidates are women out of the total candidate number.

Along with having a female general president, İyi Party has a statement as “at least %25 of candidates will conform to this quota for July 24 elections. 6 candidates out of this number are first row candidates.

Vatan Party has presented 150 female mp candidates who are for the first row in 13 cities.

Hür-Dava Party has not nominated any female candidate for the first row out of 43.

It’s clear that parties presenting female candidates for July 24 election is nothing more than a symbolic action. And the biggest indicators of this theory can be supported by the presentation of less female candidates, being not presented from the first row which is naturally because these candidates find their ways in the rows that is a low possibility for them to be elected. All other parties except HDP has not presented any female candidates in 3 major cities: Ankara, İzmir and İstanbul.