Women in Turkey have an active participation in national politics, and the number of women in the Turkish parliament has been increasing steadily in recent elections.
Background
The Republic of Turkey was founded on the heartland of the disintegrating Ottoman Empire on 29 October 1923. Although the political influence of some Valide Sultans (queen mothers) over the Ottoman Sultans was considerable, especially during the era known as the Sultanate of Women, women had no chance to serve in any official political post in the Ottoman era.
One notable female political activist in the first days of the Republican era was Nezihe Muhiddin, who founded the first women's party in Turkey in June 1923; however, it was never legalized because the Republic was not officially declared yet. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic initiated a series of reforms to modernize the country, including civil and political equality for women for the first time. On 17 February 1926, Turkey adopted a new civil code by which the rights of Turkish women and men were declared equal except in suffrage. Turkish women achieved voting rights in local elections by Act no. 1580 on 3 April 1930. Four years later, through legislation enacted on 5 December 1934, they gained full universal suffrage, earlier than many other countries.
President
There have been no female president to date.
Speaker of Parliament
Up to the present, there have been no female Speakers of Grand National Assembly in Turkey.
Vice president
The post of vice President was established in 2018 and there have been no female Vice Presidents in Turkey.
Prime Minister (1920–2018)
Tansu Çiller, a Turkish career professor of economics since 1983, entered politics in November 1990, joining the conservative True Path Party (DYP). On June 13, 1993, she was elected the party's leader, and on 25 June the same year, Çiller was appointed the Prime Minister of a coalition government, becoming Turkey's first and only female prime minister to date. She served at this post until 6 March 1996 in the 50th, 51st and the 52nd government of Turkey.
Prime Minister office was abolished in Turkey in 2018.
Government ministers
The first female Turkish government minister was Türkân Akyol, in 1971. She was the Minister of Health in Nihat Erim's technocratic government.(33rd government of Turkey) In 1983, she was one of the founders of SODEP, short for Social Democracy Party, a new party which went on to become one of the major political parties of Turkey in 1980s.