JINHA

ISTANBUL – According to the Research Institute on Turkey, if the opposition party Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) overcomes Turkey's electoral threshold, it would bring with it a 20% increase in the percentage of women in Turkey's Parliament.

Turkey comes in 125th out of 142 countries in the World Economic Forum's 2014 Gender Gap Report. It also has a 10% election threshold for parties to enter Parliament, one of the highest in the world. If the opposition party HDP manages to overcome the threshold, the party's policy of total gender parity will mean that the percentage of women in the Parliament will increase by at least 20%. The majority of survey companies have the HDP scraping over 10%. If the HDP falls below the threshold, HDP votes will end up transferred to the next biggest party: likely the AKP, which the researchers say has confined women candidates largely to symbolic positions on its provincial lists in a bid to increase its total votes.

The ruling AKP is running only 18.4% women candidates. The second largest party, the CHP, fares slightly better, at 19.6% women.However, when the researchers took into account the likelihood that women candidates will actually enter Parliament, based on survey results and the candidates' position on the parties' lists, the two parties would each bring approximately the same ratio of women MPs to Parliament: around 15-16% of their total MPs.

The report said that an analysis of the actual distribution of woman candidates in the three largest parties (the AKP, CHP and MHP, which is running the least gender-equal list at 12.4% women) shows that women candidates are often run in positions designed more for election propaganda purposes than for the purpose of actually entering the Parliament. The AKP, for instance, has run women candidates on their lists particularly in the coastal regions and the Kurdish region, locations where they think women candidates are more likely to bring in votes.

Meanwhile, the HDP, which is running women candidates in 76 of Turkey's 81 provinces, is running the most gender-equal parliamentary list by far, in accord with the party policy of gender parity at all levels. If the HDP passes the electoral threshold, around 38-41% of HDPMPsactually entering the Parliament will be women. The HDP's passing of the threshold would bring the ratio of women in Turkey's Parliament from the current percentage of around 13% to 17%. This would represent an increase of 19-21%--if the party passes the threshold.

(fk/cm)