Inter-party vote movements in Turkey between 1999 and 2002: A statistical analysis using cross-provincial election data

In the 2002 Turkish parliamentary election, more than half of the voters cast their ballots for a party different than the one they chose in 1999. The outcomes of these elections are analyzed at the provincial level, through a system of regression equations. The results obtained indicate that votes moved from the Virtue, Nationalist Action, Motherland and True Path parties to the Justice and Development Party, from the Democratic Left Party to the Republican People’s and Young parties, and from the Democratic Left, Nationalist Action and Motherland parties to the True Path Party. The Justice and Development Party, the ruling party since 2002, is found to have captured all of the far-right Islamist, about half of the far-right nationalist, and half of the center-right votes.