The Significance of The 2014 Local Elections in Turkey for Decentralisation and Local Autonomy

Abstract

30 March 2014 Local Elections were held in Turkey at the end of an extraordinarily political process and in a highly polarized atmosphere. The election exceeded the limits of the characteristic of “being local” due to such developments recorded in the pre-election period as anti-government social opposition raised against Justice and Development Party (JDP) by Gezi Park protests, tension between judicial and executive organs resulting from the power struggle between the political, social and economic interest groups and corruption investigations opened against the ministers. Ruling JDP Government turned the election into a confidence vote and Turkey entered into the local election process with the new metropolitan model (“Whole City” model). Colorful, vivid and costly election process ended up with a political geography of local election, which should be subjected to new and important analyses. Thus this chapter discusses the issue of local autonomy over pre-election propaganda process, new metropolitan municipality model, election results and political geography analyses.