The winner of Sunday's polls, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), which in a landslide victory got 49.9 percent of the national vote, was the party with the most female deputies elected in the elections. A total of 45 out of the AK Party's 326 deputies are women, while 19 female deputies were elected from the main opposition Republican People's Party's (CHP), which secured 25.9 percent of the vote and obtained 135 seats. Eleven of the 36 independent deputy candidates backed by the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) are also female. Three female deputies will enter Parliament from the opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which received 13 percent of the vote.
Although Sunday's elections show that the number of female deputies will significantly increase, the figure is still below the expectations of women's organizations. They expected half of Parliament's 550 seats to be occupied by female deputies after the elections.
The AK Party included 78 female candidates on its deputy candidate list while the CHP included 109 and the MHP 68 women on its list. The BDP, on the other hand, included 13 women as independent candidates.
