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1994 Turkish local elections

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1994 Turkish local elections

← 1989 27 March 1994 (1994-03-27) 1999 →

All 3,215 district municipalities and 16 metropolitan municipalities of Turkey
  Majority party Minority party Third party
 
Leader Tansu Çiller Mesut Yılmaz Necmettin Erbakan
Party DYP ANAP RP
Last election 23.13% 21.80% 9.80%
Popular vote 6,027,095 5,937,031 5,388,195
Percentage 21.40% 21.08% 19.13%
Swing Decrease 3.73pp Decrease 0.72pp Increase 9.33pp

  Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party
 
Leader Murat Karayalçın Bülent Ecevit Alparslan Türkeş
Party SHP DSP MHP
Last election 28,69% 9.03%
Popular vote 3,807,921 2,463,853 2,239,117
Percentage 13,52% 8.75% 7.95%
Swing Decrease 15.17pp Decrease 0.27pp New

  Seventh party
 
Leader Deniz Baykal
Party CHP
Last election
Popular vote 1,297,371
Percentage 4,61%
Swing New

Local elections were held in Turkey on 27 March 1994.

Background

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1989 local elections

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In the 1989 Turkish local elections, ANAP suffered a nationwide rout in what many saw as a referendum on the Turgut Özal administration.[1] Nurettin Sözen, a doctor from the center-left Social Democratic People’s Party (SHP) became Istanbul's mayor, creating hopes for the left’s nationwide rise. The SHP promised a break from the past with its platform focused on clean government and anti-corruption. But under the new administration, things only appeared to get worse. For one thing, Istanbul's population nearly doubled in the 1990s, creating massive demand for public services.[1]

Istanbul in the 1990s

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Istanbul had a large garbage problem in the 1990s and it reached a new high with the Üsküdar garbage explosion when a trash heap in a slum neighborhood exploded. Methane gas had built up beneath the filth, finally igniting and causing an avalanche that killed 27 of the hapless poor.[2] Also, that winter the air was filled with soot from the millions of coal-burning ovens that families were using to heat their homes. Many began wearing surgical masks before going outside.[3]

The İSKİ Scandal

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Three years into Sözen’s term, the İSKİ Scandal broke out. Ergün Göknel, a Sözen appointee who ran the Istanbul Water and Sewerage Administration (İSKİ) had divorced his wife in 1992 to marry an İSKİ employee three decades his junior, offering his wife a divorce settlement valued in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.[4] But his former wife was not content to console herself quietly with her new fortune. She went to the press to declare the size of the settlement, which was far too large for a public servant to afford, and to voice her suspicions about her husband’s alleged illicit dealings. This triggered a flurry of speculation in the press about corruption in İSKİ and the SHP, and Turkey’s prosecutors sprang into action, preparing a handful of high-profile cases against leftist leaders.[5] While İSKİ burned, Göknel married his new wife at the Istanbul Hilton, the city’s first American-built deluxe hotel. Mayor Sözen, infuriated, removed Göknel from his post and declared that he would support the harshest disciplinary action against any corrupt dealings uncovered in a criminal investigation.[4] It was a buck too short, a day too late: the Turkish left, already weakened due to anti-leftist measures implemented in the aftermath of the 1980 coup, died in Istanbul in 1994.[1]

Rise of Erdoğan

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The İSKİ Scandal was unfolding during the peak of the local-elections season, and with every detail it seemed to prove what Necmettin Erbakan and his Welfare Party had been saying all along: that the people were suffering because they were governed by elites whose moral fiber had been rotted by Western ways. Turkey’s leaders were too busy fleecing the public and having affairs with each other to bother themselves with the problems of the suffering masses.

Erdogan’s 1994 campaign played upon these themes with tremendous virtuosity. He called the RP the “voice of the silent masses.”[6] While other parties lacked the grassroots infrastructure to communicate directly with the residents of Istanbul’s shanty towns, the RP machine could interact with them at a highly granular level, thanks to its vast database.[7] Populism, too, helped the RP’s cause. The party pledged to keep bread prices low through municipally subsidized bread factories, and RP representatives handed out coal and groceries in poor neighborhoods, once again taking advantage of their computerized database. It was said that one RP lieutenant even handed out gold coins to prospective voters.[8]

Results

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The 1994 nationwide local elections showed that the vast majority of the voting public was still not comfortable with the Islamist RP alternative, even when the establishment parties were at their worst.[1]

Provincial assemblies

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PartyVotes%
True Path Party6,027,09521.41
Motherland Party5,937,03121.09
Welfare Party5,388,19519.14
Social Democratic Populist Party3,807,92113.53
Democratic Left Party2,463,8538.75
Nationalist Movement Party2,239,1177.95
Republican People's Party1,297,3714.61
Great Unity Party355,2711.26
Democratic Party148,7190.53
Nation Party126,1180.45
Rebirth Party104,2850.37
Socialist Unity Party80,7140.29
Workers' Party79,5880.28
Independent96,9130.34
Total28,152,191100.00

Metropolitan municipality mayors

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Metropolitan
municipality
Mayor Party
Adana Aytaç Durak Motherland Party (ANAP)
Ankara Melih Gökçek Welfare Party (RP)
Antalya Hasan Subaşı True Path Party (DYP)
Bursa Erdem Saker Motherland Party (ANAP)
Diyarbakır Ahmet Bilgin Welfare Party (RP)
Erzurum Ersan Gemalmaz Welfare Party (RP)
Eskişehir Aydın Arat True Path Party (DYP)
Gaziantep Celal Doğan Social Democratic Populist Party (SHP)
Istanbul Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Welfare Party (RP)
İzmir Burhan Özfatura True Path Party (DYP)
Kayseri Şükrü Karatepe Welfare Party (RP)
Kocaeli Sefa Sirmen Social Democratic Populist Party (SHP)
Konya Halil Ürün Welfare Party (RP)
Mersin Okan Merzeci Motherland Party (ANAP)
Samsun Muzaffer Önder Republican People's Party (CHP)

Mayor of other municipalities

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Province Party
Adıyaman RP
Afyonkarahisar ANAP
Ağrı RP
Aksaray RP
Amasya MHP
Ardahan DYP
Artvin DYP
Aydın ANAP
Balıkesir DYP
Bartın ANAP
Batman RP
Bayburt RP
Bilecik DYP
Bingöl RP
Bitlis RP
Bolu SHP
 
Province Party
Burdur SHP
Çanakkale CHP
Çankırı MHP
Çorum RP
Denizli CHP
Edirne CHP
Elazığ RP
Erzincan MHP
Giresun ANAP
Gümüşhane DYP
Hakkâri SHP
Hatay ANAP
Iğdır DYP
Isparta DYP
Karaman CHP
 
Province Party
Kars MHP
Kastamonu MHP
Kırıkkale ANAP
Kırklareli SHP
Kırşehir MHP
Kütahya RP
Malatya RP
Manisa ANAP
Kahramanmaraş RP
Mardin DYP
Muğla SHP
Muş RP
Nevşehir RP
Niğde SHP
Ordu ANAP
 
Province Party
Rize RP
Sakarya RP
Siirt RP
Sinop SHP
Şırnak ANAP
Sivas RP
Tekirdağ ANAP
Tokat RP
Trabzon RP
Tunceli SHP
Şanlıurfa RP
Uşak DYP
Van RP
Yozgat MHP
Zonguldak ANAP

References

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  1. ^ a b c d Çaǧaptay, Soner (2017). The new sultan : Erdogan and the crisis of modern Turkey. London. ISBN 978-1-78453-826-2. OCLC 974880239.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  2. ^ Newman, Barry (12 September 1994). "Turning eastward: Islamic party's gains in Istanbul stir fears of a radical Turkey". The Wall Street Journal.
  3. ^ White, Jenny B. (1995). "Islam and democracy: the Turkish experience". Current History. 94 (588). doi:10.1525/curh.1995.94.588.7. S2CID 251858361.
  4. ^ a b Öktener, Aslı (8 February 2001). "Nurdan Erbuğ'un pişmanlığı!". Milliyet.
  5. ^ Montalbano, William (4 November 1994). "The army's prestige is growing amid political scandal". The Guardian.
  6. ^ "Kasımpaşa'dan Çankaya'ya, yoksulluktan yolsuzluk suçlamalarına Erdoğan'ın hayatı". T24. 10 August 2014.
  7. ^ Eligür, Banu (2010). The Mobilization of Political Islam in Turkey. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  8. ^ Akıncı, Uğur (1999). "The Welfare Party's municipal track record: evaluating Islamist municipal activism in Turkey". Middle East Journal. 53 (1): 77.
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