Abstract
During the 83 years of the history of the Turkish Republic, 82 women were elected mayors. From 1930 to 2014, there were 42 provinces which never had a woman governor: these are the statistics of Kadın Koalisyonu (Turkish NGO) which were released prior to the municipal elections in 2014.
Even if women representation in local politics grew after the elections, Turkey has still a worldwide specificity: there is less women in local than in national politics. Şirin Tekeli, a leading figure of the Turkish feminist movement, considers that "under-representation" does not capture the situation well enough and she prefers to talk about the "absence syndrome" (of women in local politics). Based on this observation, it is necessary to analyze the profiles as well as trajectories of women municipal councilors and mayors.