The Turkish local elections of 2004 were held throughout the eighty-one Provinces of

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

on 28 March 2004 in order to elect both mayors and councillors to local government positions. All 16 metropolitan and 3,193 district municipalities were up for election, while 3,208 provincial and 34,477 municipal councillors were also elected. More than 50,000 neighbourhood presidents ''(muhtars)'' were also elected, though these do not have any political affiliations. With almost 42 percent of votes across the country, the ruling AKP increased the 34 percent it won in the 2002 national parliamentary elections by an extra 8 percent. The only opposition party with representation in

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

, the

Kemalist Kemalism ( tr, Kemalizm, also archaically ''Kamâlizm''), also known as Atatürkism ( tr, Atatürkçülük, Atatürkçü düşünce), or The Six Arrows ( tr, Altı Ok), is the founding official ideology of the Republic of Turkey.Eric J. Zurche ...

Republican People's Party (CHP), received 19 percent of the votes. The traditional parties of the Turkish establishment lost further ground. The

Nationalist Movement Party The Nationalist Movement Party (alternatively translated as Nationalist Action Party; tr, Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP) is a Turkish far-right and ultranationalist political party. The group is often described as neo-fascist, and has bee ...

(MHP), despite suffering a loss of 6% in their popular vote share, won above 10% of the votes. This bode well for their 2007 general election prospects, since 10% is the

election threshold The electoral threshold, or election threshold, is the minimum share of the primary vote that a candidate or political party requires to achieve before they become entitled to representation or additional seats in a legislature. This limit can ...

needed to win seats in

. In the event, the CHP was only able to maintain a degree of support in the provincial regions on the Turkish west coast. Among the four major cities the party was only able to win Izmir, with the AKP winning a majority in the cities of

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

Adana Adana (; ; ) is a major city in southern Turkey. It is situated on the Seyhan River, inland from the Mediterranean Sea. The administrative seat of Adana province, it has a population of 2.26 million. Adana lies in the heart of Cilicia, wh ...

and the Turkish capital,

Ankara Ankara ( , ; ), historically known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey. Located in the central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5.1 million in its urban center and over 5.7 million in Ankara Province, maki ...

. The AKP also took the tourist centre

Antalya la, Attalensis grc, Ἀτταλειώτης , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 07xxx , area_code = (+90) 242 , registration_plate = 07 , blank_name = Licence plate ...

, where the head of the CHP,

Deniz Baykal Deniz Baykal (born 20 July 1938) is a Turkish politician at the Republican People's Party (Turkish: Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, abbreviated CHP) who served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1995 to 1996. Having served in ...

, was the party’s candidate. The main political arm of the Kurdish nationalist movement, the Democratic People's Party (DEHAP), entered these elections in a coalition with five small socialist parties, yet together these parties received fewer votes (5 percent) than the DEHAP received alone in the 2002 elections (6.1 percent).Local Elections in Turkey: A Landslide Victory for the Incumbent AKP
Soner Cagaptay 2004 Turkish elections

Results by province

Metropolitan provinces are in bold. AKP denotes provinces won by the Justice & Development Party, CHP denotes provinces won by the Republican People's Party, MHP denotes provinces won by the

, DSP denotes provinces won by the Democratic Left Party, DYP denotes provinces won by the

True Path Party The True Path Party ( tr, Doğru Yol Partisi, DYP) was a centre-right political party in Turkey, active from 1983 to 2007. For most of its history, the party's central figure was Süleyman Demirel, a former Prime Minister of Turkey who previously ...

and SP denotes provinces won by the

Felicity Party The Felicity Party ( tr, Saadet Partisi, SP) is an Islamist Turkish political party. It was founded in 2001, and mainly supported by conservative Muslims in Turkey. It was founded on 20 July 2001 after the Virtue Party (FP) was banned by the ...

References

{{Recep Tayyip Erdoğan 2004 2004 elections in Turkey March 2004 events in Turkey