Low number of women MP candidates in Turkey

The recently announced MP candidate lists of Turkey’s political parties bring to mind the popular book, “The Woman Has No Name,” by the late author Duygu Asena.

The proportions of women and men on the lists of candidates have been thoroughly outlined by the news website Bianet.

According to Bianet, just 904 candidates out of 4,200 are women, compared with 3,296 men. That means women make up just 21.5 percent of the candidates.

The Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) has the highest proportion of woman candidates with 37 percent. The Homeland (Vatan) Party follows with 25 percent.

The proportions of women MP candidates for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) are both around 21 percent.

The proportion of women candidates is 22 percent for the İYİ (Good) Party, 13 percent for the Felicity (Saadet) Party, and 11 percent for the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

Meanwhile, only 49 woman candidates - or 5.4 percent of the 904 women - are nominated at the top of the parties’ provincial candidate lists.

The AKP has nominated only four women at the top of its provincial candidate lists. Six women topped the candidate lists of the CHP and the İYİ Party, while the HDP has nominated 18 women at the top of its lists.

In terms of promoting woman candidates, the HDP far outscores other parties. It should perhaps not be surprising, as Kurdish issue-focused parties such as the HDP have long targeted a 40 percent woman candidate quota.

Meanwhile, it is worth pointing out here that the candidate lists of the CHP have created discontent among various circles. Among the criticized points is the exclusion of a number of prominent women figures. In particular, not nominating Gülay Yedekçi, who is well-known for her efforts against construction projects threatening the future of Istanbul, is considered a big loss for the metropolis.

From the aviation sector to the cosmetic sector

Mustafa Tolga Demirci is a successful businessperson.

After graduating from Istanbul Technical University as an electrical engineer and studying in the United States, he returned to Turkey in 2004, deciding to follow in the footsteps of his father who spent 40 years in the aviation sector.

Demirci has chosen a very special field in the sector: Aviation fuel brokering on the global scale.

The Cortex Group, founded by Demirci 14 years ago, now provides fuel at more than 1,000 airports worldwide, including 25 airports in Turkey. The Cortex Group has offices in Russia, Britain, Dubai and Cyprus.

After an exploration of two years to make investment into another sector, Demirci met the Ganassini Group, which has been involved in pharmaceutics for 82 years in Italy.

“The aviation sector is very vulnerable to global crises. But I believe in Turkey’s future. That is why I decided to invest in a different sector from aviation,” he said.

Cortex Pharma, founded by Demirci in 2017, had an initial investment of 1 million euro.

It has already delivered 300 products of six brands to 250 pharmacy stores across Turkey.

Demirci has said they are planning to grab a 25 percent share of the dermocosmetics market in Turkey, which constitutes 10 percent of the country’s $3 billion cosmetics market.

“The dermocosmetics sector has been expanding 15-20 percent annually. So there is a huge growth potential,” he added.