Ankara’s popular mayor, Mansur Yavaş, who has earned wide praise for his successful municipal governance in the Turkish capital and retained his seat with a landslide victory in Sunday’s elections, will have free hygiene products distributed to women in the city every month, according a statement from the municipality.
The decision was announced by the Ankara Metropolitan Municipality Women’s Support Center on X. Access to free hygiene products is a “fundamental right for every woman,” the center said, adding that the municipality will provide women in the city with one packet of sanitary pads per month.
Hijyenik ped erişimi her kadının hakkı.💜
📣 Aylık Döngünüze 1 Paket Hijyenik Ped Desteği Bizden!
Ankara Büyükşehir Belediyesi Kadın Danışma Merkezi olarak kadınlara "Ayda Bir Defa 1 Paket Hijyenik Ped" desteği sağlıyoruz. Hijyenik pedinizi ücretsiz bir şekilde alabilirsiniz. pic.twitter.com/fXszPn2epc— Ankara Büyükşehir Belediyesi Kadın Danışma Merkezi (@abb_kadin) April 3, 2024
In January 2022, the Children and Women First Association brought the plight of women unable to purchase sanitary pads in Turkey due to a high VAT and price hikes to the Presidential Communications Center (CİMER). The association requested that the health and trade ministries provide women with 20 free sanitary pads per month and that it enhance quality control on the pads available for sale to lower their prices.
Turks have difficulty even in accessing their basic necessities due to the high inflation in the country, which stands around 70 percent.
Many praised Yavaş, from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), for his move to provide free sanitary pads to women, describing it as his post-election “favor.”
Yavaş enjoys growing popularity
A lawyer by profession, Yavaş, who had growing public support due to his fight against corruption and efforts aimed at saving taxpayer dollars, retained his seat with a stunning 28-point difference over his challenger, Turgut Altınok of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Sunday’s local elections, garnering 60.4 percent of the vote.
The CHP won in 16 out of 25 districts, including AKP stronghold Keçiören, which was won by the party for the first time since 1989.
He actually comes from a nationalist background and had been elected the mayor of Ankara’s Beypazarı district from the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) in the 1999 local elections.
He left the MHP in 2013 and joined the CHP the same year. As the candidate of an alliance including the CHP, he was elected as Ankara mayor with 50.9 percent of the vote in the 2019 local elections and ended the 25-year rule in the city of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s AKP and its predecessors.
Yavaş claimed victory in front of large crowds of supporters in the capital on Sunday, declaring, “The elections are over, we will continue to serve Ankara.”
Yavaş previously received praise for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ankara, where he announced that wages for municipal workers would continue being paid and that street cats and dogs would continue to be fed despite the closure of restaurants and cafes. He has also been credited with substantially reducing the municipality’s budget deficit by eradicating spending seen as wasteful.
Taking steps to address the issue of access to free sanitary pads, which has been commonly raised in many parts of the world and in Turkey, is important in demonstrating Yavaş’s approach to municipal governance.
After Sunday’s victory, Yavaş said in an interview with Cumhuriyet daily that municipal governance should not be measured solely by the amount of money spent on asphalt and constructing sidewalks in the city.
“You must be vigilant while walking down the street, ready to intervene immediately when you see any problem anywhere. That’s what municipal governance is all about,” he said.
The mayor also promised before the elections that women under 30 who need financial assistance will be offered free HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccinations in Ankara, which help prevent cervical cancer.
Yavaş refrains from using an official vehicle and said is annoyed by the personal glorification of politicians. He also said on many occasions that he wants to be perceived as a public servant so that it wouldn’t be challenging for locals to approach him for the necessities of their neighborhoods and districts.
In September of the same year, Yavaş was named winner of the 2021 World Mayor Capital Award by the London-based City Mayors Foundation, an international think tank dedicated to urban affairs, for his “efforts and vision to build a metropolis that will equal the great capitals of Europe and Asia” as well as his support for “the poor and the most vulnerable segments of the society.”
A number of surveys conducted in 2021 and 2022 showed President Erdoğan being defeated by Yavaş in a possible presidential election scenario in which Yavaş is running against the incumbent president.
