Local elections (formal: local authority general elections, Turkish: ''Mahalli İdareler Genel Seçimi'' or simply ''Yerel Seçimleri'') were held in

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

on 30 March 2014, with some repeated on 1 June 2014. Metropolitan and district mayors as well as their municipal council members in cities, and muhtars and "elderly councils" in

rural areas In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry are typically descri ...

(and also in

mahalle is an Arabic word variously translated as district, quarter, ward, or neighborhood in many parts of the Arab world, the Balkans, Western Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and nearby nations. History Historically, mahallas were autonomous social ins ...

s within urban areas) were elected. In light of the controversy around the elections, it was viewed as a referendum on the government of Prime Minister

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician who is the 12th and current president of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as the 25th prime minister of Turkey, prime minister from 2003 to 2014 as part of the Jus ...

. About 50 million people were eligible to vote. A local government re-organisation took place before the election, lowering the total number of elected officials from 38,592 to 23,132. Almost 1,500 (small municipal towns) had their municipalities abolished, meaning that a significantly fewer number of mayors were elected compared to the 2009 local elections. Most

provinces A province is an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outside Italy. The term ''provi ...

no longer elect any provincial councillors. The number of metropolitan municipalities, however, rose from 16 to 30. The elections were marred by allegations of electoral fraud and violence, with both opposition and ruling party candidates alike refusing to recognise a wide variety of results. Significant cases of fraud in

Ankara Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and List of national capitals by area, the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the Central Anatolia Region, central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( ...

and

Yalova Yalova is a market-gardening town located in northwestern Turkey on the eastern coast of the Sea of Marmara. It is the seat of Yalova Province and Yalova District.Supreme Electoral Council of Turkey for reviewal. Allegations of misconduct included the untimely power cuts in several areas while the votes were being counted (claimed to be caused by cats entering

transformer In electrical engineering, a transformer is a passive component that transfers electrical energy from one electrical circuit to another circuit, or multiple Electrical network, circuits. A varying current in any coil of the transformer produces ...

s), intimidation by government forces such as the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and the Anatolian Agency in electorally strategic districts, the theft and burning of votes cast for opposition candidates and the recording of opposition votes as invalid or blank. The elections had been controversial due to allegations of

government corruption Political corruption is the use of powers by government officials or their network contacts for illegitimate private gain. Forms of corruption vary but can include bribery, lobbying, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, parochialism, patronage, influen ...

, voter bribery and the lack of up-to-date voter records beforehand. Regardless, the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) declared victory in the early hours of 31 March, gaining 42.89% of the vote, 818 municipalities and 11,309 councillors. The opposition

Republican People's Party The Republican People's Party (RPP; , CHP ) is a Kemalism, Kemalist and Social democracy, social democratic political party in Turkey. It is the oldest List of political parties in Turkey, political party in Turkey, founded by Mustafa Kemal ...

(CHP) came second with 26.34%, 232 municipalities and 4,320 councillors, announcing that it would be filing complaints against alleged electoral manipulation. By 4 April 2014, numerous municipalities changed mayors following recounts. Gradual post-election revelations of alleged widespread irregularities in several cities sparked pro-democracy protests after provisional results were announced, while the Electoral Council declared results in some areas null and void. A repeat of the elections in these areas took place on 1 June. These most notably occurred in Yalova and

Ağrı Ağrı (; ) is a city in eastern Turkey, near the border with Iran. It is the seat of Ağrı Province and Ağrı District.

, in which the ruling AKP had lost by a small margin to the CHP and BDP respectively on March 30. In a first of a series of trials relating to electoral fraud claims, a returning officer was sentenced to five years in prison in June 2015 after being found guilty of transferring CHP votes to the AKP. It was the first time that women were elected as mayors to metropolitan areas in Turkey, namely Gültan Kışanak to Diyarbakir, Fatma Sahin to

Gaziantep Gaziantep, historically Aintab and still informally called Antep, is a major city in south-central Turkey. It is the capital of the Gaziantep Province, in the westernmost part of Turkey's Southeastern Anatolia Region and partially in the Medi ...

and Özlem Çerçioğlu to

Aydın Aydın ( ''EYE-din''; ; formerly named ''Güzelhisar; Greek: Τράλλεις)'' is a city in and the seat of Aydın Province in Turkey's Aegean Region. The city is located at the heart of the lower valley of Büyük Menderes River (ancient ...

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 Municipalities () are the basic units of local government in Turkey. According to the Turkish Statistical Institute the population of Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asi ...

. During the reorganisation, 1,040 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 councilors 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 Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

seeking to delay

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 The Scientific and Technological Research Institution of Turkey (, TÜBİTAK) is a national agency of Turkey whose stated goal is to develop "science, technology and innovation" (STI) policies, support and conduct research and development, and to ...

. 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 Halkbank () is a Turkish bank, first incorporated in 1933 as a Public bank, state-owned bank. After growing throughout much of the twentieth century, it began absorbing smaller-sized state banks around the turn of the millennium. Halkbank is now ...

'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 Abdullah Gül (; ; born 29 October 1950) is a Turkish politician who served as the 11th president of Turkey from 2007 to 2014. He previously served for four months as Prime Minister of Turkey, Prime Minister from 2002 to 2003, and concurrently s ...

, 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 Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

during an election rally in

Bursa Bursa () is a city in northwestern Turkey and the administrative center of Bursa Province. The fourth-most populous city in Turkey and second-most populous in the Marmara Region, Bursa is one of the industrial centers of the country. Most of ...

. 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 The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed name service that provides a naming system for computers, services, and other resources on the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various informatio ...

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 The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of th ...

was presented with two resolutions condemning the Turkish government for blocking Twitter and YouTube. On 2 April, 3 days after the elections, the

Constitutional Court of Turkey The Constitutional Court of Turkey ( Turkish: ''Anayasa Mahkemesi'', sometimes abbreviated as ''AYM'') is the highest legal body for constitutional review in Turkey. It "examines the constitutionality, in respect of both form and substance, of law ...

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 YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

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 The title chief of staff (or head of staff) identifies the leader of a complex organization such as the armed forces, institution, or body of persons and it also may identify a principal staff officer (PSO), who is the coordinator of the supportin ...

Yaşar Güler Yaşar Güler (born 18 September 1954) is a retired Turkish general currently serving as the Minister of National Defense. He previously served as the 30th Chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces from 2018 to 2023. Career He en ...

Foreign Minister In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and relations, diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral r ...

Ahmet Davutoğlu Ahmet Davutoğlu (; born 26 February 1959) is a Turkish academic, politician and former diplomat who served as the List of Prime Ministers of Turkey, 26th Prime Minister of Turkey and Leader of the Justice and Development Party (Turkey), Justice ...

, Foreign Ministry undersecretary

Feridun Sinirlioğlu Feridun Hadi Sinirlioğlu (born 30 January 1956) is a Turkish diplomat and politician serving as the Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) since 6 December 2024. Previously, he served as permanent ...

and Ministry of Intelligence Undersecretary Hakan Fidan. In the conversation, Fidan was allegedly recorded considering a deliberate act of military aggression against

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

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. Turkish local elections 2014 electricity cuts

Turkish local elections 2014 electricity cuts

On 29 February 2014, a recording of a phone call between

metropolitan mayor

Melih Gökçek İbrahim Melih Gökçek (; born 20 October 1948) is a Turkish politician who served as the mayor of Ankara from 1994 to 2017. From 1991 to 1994, he was an MP. Gökçek has won municipal elections in 1994, 1999, 2004, 2009, and was controversial ...

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 Mansur Yavaş (; born 23 May 1955) is a Turkish lawyer and politician who is currently the Mayor of Ankara, holding the office since April 2019. He was elected in the 2019 Ankara mayoral election as the candidate of the Nation Alliance (Turkey), ...

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 ''Cumhuriyet'' (; English: "Republic") is the oldest up-market Turkish daily newspaper. It has been described as "the most important independent public interest newspaper in contemporary Turkey". The newspaper was awarded the ''Freedom of Press ...

'' 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

İzmir İzmir is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, third most populous city in Turkey, after Istanbul and Ankara. It is on the Aegean Sea, Aegean coast of Anatolia, and is the capital of İzmir Province. In 2024, the city of İzmir had ...

. 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 İzmir'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

n 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 An interior ministry or ministry of the interior (also called ministry of home affairs or ministry of internal affairs) is a government department that is responsible for domestic policy, public security and law enforcement. In some states, the ...

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

(CHP) and

Nationalist Movement Party The Nationalist Movement Party, or alternatively translated as Nationalist Action Party (, MHP), is a Turkish Far-right politics, far-right, ultranationalism, ultranationalist Political parties in Turkey, political party. The group is often de ...

(MHP). The

Peace and Democracy Party The Peace and Democracy Party (, , BDP) was a Kurdish political party in Turkey existing from 2008 to 2014. Development BDP succeeded the Democratic Society Party (DTP) in 2008, following the closure of the latter party for its alleged conne ...

(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 Urfa, officially called Şanlıurfa (), is a city in southeastern Turkey and the capital of Şanlıurfa Province. The city was known as Edessa from Hellenistic times and into Christian times. Urfa is situated on a plain about east of the Eup ...

. It also reported that in

Hatay Hatay Province (, ) is the southernmost Provinces of Turkey, province and Metropolitan municipalities in Turkey, metropolitan municipality of Turkey. Its area is , and its population is 1,686,043 (2022). It is situated mostly outside Anatolia, ...

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. 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

). 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.

Metropolitan municipality results

District municipality results

Municipal councillor results

Provincial councillor results

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

, MHP denotes provinces won by the

and BDP denotes provinces won by the

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.

Electorate demographics

Detailed results by province

Metropolitan municipalities

The following articles document the results within the three main provinces of Turkey. * 2014 Ankara mayoral election * 2014 Istanbul mayoral election * 2014 İzmir mayoral election

District municipalities

* 2014 Yalova mayoral election * 2014 Hakkari mayoral election

Notes

References

External links

{{Turkish elections

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

2014 elections in Turkey March 2014 in Turkey