site.btaRecord Number of Women Win Mayoral Posts in Turkiye

Until recently, Gaziantep Mayor Fatma Sahin was one of the few female mayors of a province in Turkiye. In Sunday's local elections, mayoral posts in 11 of Turkiye's 81 provinces were won by women, according to provisional results.

Most of the new female mayors are from the Kemalist Republican People’s Party (CHP), followed by the pro-Kurdish DEM party.

This is happening for the first time in Turkiye's history.

Among the newly elected mayors is the Bulgarian-born Melek Mizrak Subasi of CHP, who won the vote for Bilecik Mayor.

She was born in Razgrad (northeastern Bulgaria) and moved with her family to Turkiye in 1989. She graduated from the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy in Sofia. Before the elections, she was Bilecik Deputy Mayor.

For the first time, the provinces of Edirne and Tekirdag (both in Northwest Turkiye) will be led by women. In Edirne, the election was won by the CHP's Filiz Gencan Akin, while CHP’s Candan Yuceer won in Tekirdag.

Fatma Sahin of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) won the vote for the mayoral position in Gaziantep for the third time. CHP’s Ozlem Cercioglu was elected for a third term as mayor of the Aydin Province.

In Eskisehir, which has the reputation of being Turkiye's most European city, CHP candidate Ayse Yunlu won over her AK Party opponent Nebi Hatipoglu, who is a descendant from a family of Bulgarian migrants.