Women in Turkey have an active participation in national politics, and the number of women in the Turkish parliament has been increasing steadily in recent elections.
Background
Hatı Çırpan, one of the first women in the Parliament of Turkey, 1935.
The Republic of Turkey was founded on the heartland of the disintegrating Ottoman Empire on 29 October 1923. Although the political influence of some Valide Sultans (queen mothers) over the Ottoman Sultans was considerable, especially during the era known as the Sultanate of Women, women had no chance to serve in any official political post in the Ottoman era.
One notable female political activist in the first days of the Republican era was Nezihe Muhiddin, who founded the first women's party in Turkey in June 1923; however, it was never legalized because the Republic was not officially declared yet. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic initiated a series of reforms to modernize the country, including civil and political equality for women for the first time. On 17 February 1926, Turkey adopted a new civil code by which the rights of Turkish women and men were declared equal except in suffrage.[1] Turkish women achieved voting rights in local elections by Act no. 1580 on 3 April 1930.[2] Four years later, through legislation enacted on 5 December 1934, they gained full universal suffrage, earlier than many other countries.[2]
Tansu Çiller, a Turkish career professor of economics since 1983, entered politics in November 1990, joining the conservative True Path Party (DYP). On June 13, 1993, she was elected the party's leader, and on 25 June the same year, Çiller was appointed the Prime Minister of a coalition government, becoming Turkey's first and only female prime minister to date. She served at this post until 6 March 1996 in the 50th, 51st and the 52nd government of Turkey.
According to the Turkish constitution, each party with over twenty seats forms a parliamentary group and each group is represented by 1–3 group vice chairpersons (Turkish: grup başkanvekili) who are authorized to represent, in general terms, the relevant party in the parliament both in relation to the parliament administration and in relations with other party groups, as well as presiding the parliamentary group in the absence of the party president. The first female group vice chairperson in Turkish parliament was Oya Araslı of the Republican People's Party between 1996 and 1999.[13] Later, there were two parliamentary group chairwomen in parliament: Emine Ülker Tarhan of the Republican People's Party and Pervin Buldan of the Peace and Democracy Party.[14]
The first female MPs of the Turkish Parliament, elected with the 8 February 1935 general elections.
1935–1999 elections
Following the promising 1935 start, however, the number of women in the parliament began to decrease.[15] Especially in the 1950 and 1961 elections, only 3 women were able to enter the parliament, and since history has been given women the right to vote and be elected, it has been the least women entered into parliament.
Since 1995, the number of women in the parliament has been continually on the rise. The 1935 percentage of women, the first year that women were able to be elected to parliament, was surpassed no earlier than in 1999.[16] However, the female representation rate did not fall below 10 percent after the 2011 elections.[17]
Turkey's first female governor was Lale Aytaman. Aytaman, who served as the governor of Muğla between 1991 and 1995, was appointed to this position by President Turgut Özal. Meanwhile, Turkey's first female district governor is Özlem Bozkurt Gevrek. She served in the Orta district of Çankırı in 1995. After these years, the number of female governors and district governors increased rapidly.[23]
Local governments
The first Turkish female mayor was Sadiye Hanım who was elected as the mayor of the town of Kılıçkaya in 1930.
The first female muhtar (village head) in Turkey was Gülkız Ürbül, who became the muhtar of Demircidere village (now Karpuzlu) in the Çine district of Aydın Province in 1933. In the elections, she ran against seven male candidates.[24] The first female major city mayor was Müfide İlhan, who was elected as the mayor of Mersin in 1950.
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