The Stars vs. Nominees of Locals: Who Wins the Primaries in the Turkish Context

When the primary election is the candidate selection method, which qualities of candidates increases their chance to be elected for general elections? To answer this question, primaries that was held by Republican Peoples Party, the main opposition party in Turkey, before election on June 7, 2015 will be analyzed in detail. In the Turkish politics, primary election is a rare method for the candidate selection and it has only used by RPP for several national elections. Before the election on June 7, 2015, RPP held primaries in 55 out of 85 electoral districts, which makes these primaries one of the most comprehensive one in RPP’s history, to decide candidates who compete for the parliamentary elections. The statistical analysis of original dataset which contains various information about candidates that were collected from the promotion YouTube videos of candidates in Istanbul, official webpages, social media accounts and local newspapers shows that, specific qualities of candidates increase their chance to achieve a seat on the party list for the general elections. Even though candidates from local party organizations can attract voters in their own sub-districts, in remaining sub-districts, they cannot get enough vote to gain a seat in national elections. However, candidates that have specific qualities such as standing as a public figure, serving in İstanbul party organization, are known better by voters in all sub-districts. This condition increases their chance of getting a seat in national elections when votes from all sub-districts are aggregated.