Turkish local elections, 2014

Background

Turkish local elections are held every five years in order to elect mayors to 30 metropolitan municipalities, 1,008 district municipalities and 2,187 town municipalities. In addition, an excess of 53,450 neighbourhood leaders (muhtars) are elected, though most are non-partisan and do not have any declared political allegiance. Elderly and municipal council compositions were also elected through a separate ballot. The previous elections were held on 29 March 2009 and were won by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's AKP with 38.8% of the vote.

Local government reform

Before the elections, the numbers of councillors and mayors were reduced during the 2013 Turkish local government reorganisation. During the reorganisation, 1,040 beldes were abolished, leaving the number of small town municipalities at 394 and contributing to the reduction in the number of mayors elected in 2014 in comparison to 2009.

The following table shows the numbers of metropolitan and district municipalities, as well as provincial and municipal councillors elected in 2009 and in 2014. In local elections, municipal mayors and councillors are the only partisan officials elected.

2013–2014 anti-government protests

In 2013, a spate of anti-government protests and counter measures took place. The 2014 local elections are the first elections since the protests, and have thus been seen as a test for the government's popularity following a criticism both domestically and internationally for what was perceived to be a crackdown on peaceful protestors. The controversy surrounding the police response resulted in Germany seeking to delay European Union accession talks with Turkey.

17 December corruption scandal

On 17 December 2013, police arrested several close associates and family members of government ministers as part of a corruption investigation. Prime Minister Erdoğan responded by either dismissing or reassigning thousands of police and judicial personnel while denying all allegations of wrongdoing.

A string of recorded phone calls between government ministers and close supporters allegedly discussing corruption were made public following the start of the corruption scandal. On 24 February 2014, a 10-minute phone call between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his son Necmettin Bilal Erdoğan were made public, in which the Prime Minister was warning his son of police searches in other government ministers' residences and telling him to "nullify" any cash which might be stored in their own. The tape caused particular damnation, after which CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu advised the Prime Minister to "flee by helicopter." The Prime Minister responded by calling the tape a "montage," though this claim could not be verified by the national scientific development agency TÜBİTAK. It was reported that six people were removed from their roles at TÜBİTAK for refusing to falsify the recording, with one reporting that he was openly asked by superiors to manipulate reports related to the recordings.

Following the release, thousands took to the streets demanding the government's resignation. Protesters threw fake money in the air and also left empty shoe boxes near AKP offices, symbolising the US$4.5 million found stuffed into shoe-boxes at the home of Halkbank's former manager Süleyman Aslan Though protests were not as large as the June 2013 Gezi protests, the police were again criticised for a brutal crackdown.

Judiciary, Internet & MİT laws

The government responded to the tape revelations by pushing through three controversial laws which would tighten the AKP's grip on the judiciary, allow greater control over internet access, and increase the powers of Turkey's intelligence services (MİT). While some saw these laws as necessary to restore peace throughout the country and increase internet safety, the opposition accused the government for openly attempting to increase their powers in order to further defame the rule of law. Regardless, the AKP's sizeable parliamentary majority led to all laws being passed by the Turkish Grand National Assembly. The laws also caused a rift between Prime Minister Erdoğan and President Abdullah Gül, who criticised some aspects of the laws. Regardless of their differences, the President signed the bills into law despite speculation that he might veto them.

The new laws drew criticism from the public, with several demonstrators taking to the streets accusing the government of encroachments against their rights and privacy. Protestors again clashed with police, though the protests failed to materialise back to June 2013 levels.

Twitter and YouTube bans

On 20 March 2014, ten days before the elections, Prime Minister Erdoğan threatened to "wipe out" Twitter during an election rally in Bursa. Thousands of Turkish web users found that they could not access the site hours after the speech, with the government claiming that Twitter had failed repeatedly to adhere to Turkish court orders requiring the removal of some links. Despite causing outrage, the Twitter ban was almost completely overcome by users simply changing DNS settings. The government retaliated just a few days before the elections by blocking Google's DNS service, making defiance more difficult. Regardless, #erdoganblockedtwitter, #twitterisblockedinturkey and #turkeyblockedtwitter began trending worldwide soon after news of the ban was made public.

On 21 March 2014, Ankara's Attorney General issued a statement denying the government's claims that they had a court order validating the ban on Twitter. The ban's practical failure and its violation of internet freedoms received criticism, and the US House of Representatives was presented with two resolutions condemning the Turkish government for blocking Twitter and YouTube. On 2 April, 3 days after the elections, the Turkish Constitutional Court issued a verdict annulling the Twitter ban for its violation of Article 26 (Freedom of Expression) of the Turkish Constitution.

On 28 March 2014, the telecommunications regulator (TİB) made use of the government's new controversial internet law by blocking YouTube without court order. The ban occurred shortly after the release and placing on YouTube of a recorded conversation allegedly between the deputy armed forces chief of staff Yaşar Güler, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, Foreign Ministry undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioğlu and Ministry of Intelligence Undersecretary Hakan Fidan. In the conversation, Fidan was allegedly recorded considering a deliberate act of military aggression against Syria in order to spark a war. While not confirming the validity of the recording, Prime Minister Erdoğan claimed that the making of the recording was "treacherous," and that YouTube had subsequently been blocked due to concerns for national security.

Pre-election rigging controversies

In the lead-up to elections, both the ruling AKP and opposition parties warned that preparations for substantial electoral fraud were being taken.

In December 2013, it emerged that several voters had been made members of different political parties without their approval in an attempt to bolster support without their consent. Voters affected appealed to the Prosecutor General's office after it emerged that their details had been used to register them.

On 29 February 2014, a recording of a phone call between Ankara metropolitan mayor Melih Gökçek and the Prime Minister's secretary Mustafa Varank allegedly depicted both agreeing to censor the opposition CHP's election posters. The recording has not yet been proven to be either legitimate or fake.

Concerns were raised in Ankara as CHP metropolitan mayoral candidate Mansur Yavaş claimed that there were 58,000 duplicate records in Ankara alone that would allow select voters to vote twice. He also announced that his election team would do everything to prevent such manipulation. The MHP candidate Mevlüt Karakaya also called for voters and ballot officials to remain vigilant. Meanwhile, the incumbent AKP candidate Melih Gökçek accused "marginal groups" of plotting to rig the elections, blaming them for the AKP's losses in Ankara's Yenimahalle, Etimesgut and Gölbaşı districts in the 2009 elections. The provisional results in Ankara, which initially showed a 0.9% lead for the AKP, were widely criticised by the opposition and caused a massive recounting campaign by the CHP.

Turkish Newspaper Cumhuriyet claimed that the Supreme Electoral Council of Turkey (YSK) had printed 141,654,161 ballot papers despite an electorate formed of 52,695,831 voters. Some sources, including the YSK itself, put the number of ballot papers printed to between 144 and 151 million. The YSK responded by defending its decision, saying that it was required by law to send 15% more ballot papers extra to each ballot box. The YSK also re-iterated that more than one ballot paper was required per voter since different ballots were used to elect municipal mayors, muhtars and city councils. Nevertheless, members of the opposition raised concern on how the extra ballot papers would be utilised, with MHP MPs warning that the spare ballot papers would be used by the PKK to increase the votes of the pro-Kurdish BDP in the south-east.

Several controversies following the distribution of ballot papers to voter's residences before the elections raised concern about the validity of the YSK's voter records. Upon receiving extra ballot papers, several families complained to the YSK, claiming to have received more ballot papers than necessary. It was also observed that dead citizens were on the electoral roll, and several ballot papers had been sent to persons who had been dead for a considerable amount of time or false addresses which did not exist. On 15 March 2014, Ankara's AKP mayor Melih Gökçek spoke on live television regarding the possible use of Chinese temporary tattoo pens whilst recording the results from each ballot box. This would allegedly mean that some results would completely disappear shortly after being recorded, allowing "some groups" to edit the numbers while transporting the ballot result papers to the YSK. The opposition CHP candidate Mansur Yavaş replied by calling the mayor "paranoid," adding that he was a "mayor from the ruling party. Rather than announcing these allegations on television, he should be taking legal action."

On 29 March 2014, the police received a tip-off that large numbers of fake ballot papers were being stored at a printing press in the district of Gaziemir in Izmir. Despite conducting a detailed search of the compound, the police failed to find any fake votes. Despite reports by several news agencies, the allegations that a van full of ballot papers with a pre-printed "yes" vote for the AKP was impounded on in Izmir's Çınarlı district could not be verified due to a similar situation being reported before the 2011 general elections.

Another debate was on the voting rights of the 250,000 Syrian refugees living in Turkey due to the Syrian Civil War. The controversy began in late 2013 after the CHP's deputy leader Gürsel Tekin claimed that several refugees had been registered on the electoral roll. The Ministry of the Interior responded by stating that a non-citizen within Turkey had to wait five years before being eligible to vote. However, it emerged that several Syrian refugees had been made Turkish citizens already. While the opposition claimed that Syrian votes would be used to bolster AKP support due to their lax border policies, the government and the Association for Solidarity with Refugees denied these claims. Nevertheless, three Syrians were caught attempting to cast votes during the elections.

Parties

The incumbent national party is the Justice and Development Party (AKP), and its principal opposition parties are the Republican People's Party (CHP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). The Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) is a Kurdish party; the new left wing party, the Peoples' Democratic Party, is allied with it.

Campaign

Large-scale election rallies dominated the pre-election political scene, mostly being held by the governing AKP and the main opposition CHP.

Conduct

About 50 million people were eligible to vote in 1379 electoral sees. On election day, violence resulted in eight deaths. The Doğan news agency reported six deaths and four injuries in the village of Yuvacık in Şanlıurfa. It also reported that in Hatay rival families fought with clubs, knives and guns in support of their respective candidates resulting in two deaths and nine injuries. In the early hours of 31 March, 1,418 claims of electoral fraud were reported. Power cuts during the counting process in some provinces, as well as the publication of widely different results by different news agencies, also caused controversy.

Results

Below are the results for the elected councillors and municipal mayors. It should be noted that the number of councillor and mayoral positions up for election in 2014 vary widely in comparison to 2009 (See the local government reform section or 2013 Turkish local government reorganisation). For this reason, the changes per party in terms of officials elected between 2009 and 2014 are not representative of party performance. Rather, the change in proportion of officials held per party is a more accurate comparison between party performances since 2009, however it should also be taken into account that the abolition or introduction of several elected officials in certain areas where particular parties are the strongest has also led to disproportionate changes.

Results by province

The following results show winners by province as of 1 April 2014. Metropolitan provinces are in bold. AKP denotes provinces won by the Justice & Development Party, CHP denotes provinces won by the Republican People's Party, MHP denotes provinces won by the Nationalist Movement Party and BDP denotes provinces won by the Peace and Democracy Party.

Complaints & recounts

Provisional results in several districts were contested by all major parties, including the governing AKP, claiming misconduct during the counting process and thus demanding a recount. Applications for recounts were made to the YSK shortly after the elections concluded. Turkey's Constitutional Court has rejected an individual application filed by Mansur Yavaş, the Republican People's Party's (CHP) candidate for mayor in Ankara.

Metropolitan municipalities

The following articles document the results within the three main provinces of Turkey.

District municipalities