Dressed in a snappy suit in the colors of the Turkish flag, Meral Aksener, the forceful leader of the right-wing Iyi Party, brought a stadium of women to a standing ovation. “They’ll get used to women as political actors,” she pledged, referring to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) government. 

“They’ll get used to women living and laughing freely, devoid of fear.” The all-female audience that filled the stadium in the Turkish capital cheered as Aksener declared that “Prime Minister Meral” was on her way. Her words allude to Turkey’s return to a parliamentary system in which the head of the executive is the prime minister, one of the key promises of the alliance of six opposition parties. Aksener, who is emerging as a kingmaker in determining the opposition’s candidate to challenge Erdogan, repeatedly says she will not be a presidential candidate but will become prime minister once the executive presidential system has changed. 

Aksener, whose five-year-old Iyi Party has formed a strategic alliance with the social democratic Republican People’s Party (CHP), rarely plays the feminist card in her political discourse. Therefore, her appearances to all-women audiences are few and far between, mostly limited to March 8, international women’s day. But last week, her party organized the “Great Women’s Gathering,” for which women supporters across Turkey were taken to the capital and non-governmental organizations advocating women’s and LGBT+ rights were invited. 

Aksener is not alone in efforts to garner female votes as Turkey approaches elections supposed to take place between April and June 2023. Center-right DEVA, an offshoot of the AKP, also flaunted its women’s policies this week. On the part of the government, Derya Yanik, the family and social affairs minister bruised by last month’s bloodcurdling child abuse case, has been going from city to city to explain the government’s progress on the status of women and children.