Aug 19, 2014

On Aug. 13, A&G Research Center, one of the most prestigious research centers in Turkey, announced that 55% of women and 48% of men voted for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Aug. 10 presidential election. This was an important revelation for three reasons. First, the opposition parties and pundits in Turkey are still investigating why Erdogan won in the first round so easily. They are looking for someone to blame for Erdogan’s victory. The usual suspects are those who did not vote, particularly those on vacation who had the resources to come back to vote but not the willpower. Next was the revelation that some right-wing voters indeed preferred Erdogan to the joint candidate. Particularly, it was observed that many Nationalist Action Party (MHP) constituents opted for Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP). Now the latest suspect is “women voters.” How did Erdogan charm the female constituency?

The director of A&G, Adil Gur, told Al-Monitor that on Aug. 10, election day, his center conducted exit polls in 49 cities. The exit poll findings concurred with the three surveys the center did during the presidential campaign; in all of them, a higher percentage of women said they would vote for Erdogan than men. Another research center that has a reputation for accuracy and a high level of transparency is Metropoll. Ozer Sencar, director of the Metropoll Strategic and Social Research Center, told Al-Monitor that his center conducted five separate surveys during the presidential election campaign that consistently observed a gender gap. Sencar told Al-Monitor that about 53-54% of women said they would vote for Erdogan. Metropoll also found a reverse gender gap for presidential candidate Selahattin Demirtas, head of the pro-Kurdish People's Democracy Party. In all five surveys, almost twice as many men as women preferred Demirtas. This was intriguing because Demirtas’ rhetoric was quite supportive of women’s rights and liberties.

Given all the controversial rhetoric and policies about women, why do women prefer the AKP and Erdogan more than men do? Adil Gur told Al-Monitor, “This is not a new phenomenon. In the last decade or so, it has always been women who voted for the AKP more than men.” Other research centers publications have concurred with Metropoll and A&G’s findings on the gender gap as well.

Political science research has told us that by the end of the 1970s and in the early 1980s women in developed countries began identifying themselves more with left-wing parties and voting to the left of men. As women’s education levels, participation in the labor force and divorce rates increase and feminist ideas take deeper roots, more women are expected to vote to the left of men — all else being equal. Most research focuses on developed countries because developing countries' lack of transparency and reliable data cause significant hurdles for credible analysis. Hence, currently in Turkey there is yet another crisis of “polling agencies” that had to go on the record to apologize for incorrect election surveys. Some pundits view the polling results with a grain of salt, because manipulation is common. In one of the “tapes” released during the Dec. 17 corruption probe, it was alleged that a prominent TV anchor was collaborating with the director of the TV channel to rig poll results in favor of Erdogan. It is wise to be cautious.

That said, there is a consistent, significant gender gap in voting in Turkey and we can summarize four main causes why women vote to the right of men.