Abstract

There are many problems about gender inequality at almost every stage of everyday life. One of the main areas where these problems are experienced is the problems of women's access to the political mechanism. Women's participation in various levels of politics is low worldwide. Compared to other countries, there are many handicaps about the participation of women in politics in our country, which has already taken a step in this regard quite early in 1934. The political parties ' proposals to increase women's participation in the political mechanism, such as the quota of women and positive discrimination, have not reached the desired point.

This study addresses an assessment in Kırklareli province on the scale of the 31 March 2019 local elections as it reveals that women are not adequately represented in political mechanisms. In this context, Kırklareli's 31 March 2019 local elections results and candidate lists were presented using the data announced by the High Election Board; then, the representation rates of women in the province running for central and district mayor, candidate for municipal councillor and candidate for Provincial General Assembly membership were discussed.

The hypothesis of the study is that women's representation in local politics is very low in Kırklareli province. In the case of Kırklareli, women could not get the right to representation before the mayor in the central and district municipalities. While only 2 women candidates in the Lüleburgaz district have the right to represent in the Provincial General Assembly, there are no women representatives in the provincial general assemblies in the other districts. Women's representation is not at the desired level as regards Municipal Council membership, but is at a level of about 20%. Therefore, the thesis that women in Turkey have a problem of representation in local politics has been confirmed by the data in Kırklareli province. Women's local representation rates are not expected to rise unless mechanisms to increase women's representation in local politics are operated.