Last week we looked at İstanbul. Now the capital: between the same two parliamentary elections, Ankara's overall picture shifted — but the real movement was once again in the neighborhoods, and in a pattern different from İstanbul's.
Across Ankara, the parliamentary vote shifted from 2018 to 2023 as follows (as a percentage of valid votes):
Parliamentary election. Right = rose, left = fell.
As in İstanbul, in Ankara too there is not a single neighborhood where AK Parti meaningfully increased its share. The place it "rose" the most is Etimesgut/Erler, +0.8 points; the rest is flat or declining. The decline is sharpest in its own stronghold neighborhoods — the places where the party took 57-70% in 2018:
| District · Neighborhood | 2018 | 2023 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ayaş · Oltan | 56.6% | 31.3% | −25.3 |
| Gölbaşı · Emirler | 61.9% | 38.6% | −23.3 |
| Pursaklar · Saray Osmangazi | 69.8% | 48.4% | −21.4 |
| Güdül · Güneyce | 69.7% | 51.8% | −17.9 |
| Mamak · Ortaköy | 59.1% | 41.9% | −17.3 |
| Çankaya · Karataş | 46.0% | 28.8% | −17.2 |
The neighborhoods where CHP increased its share the most are concentrated in a single district: Çankaya — Ankara's central, relatively upper-income district. Here the party's share jumped by 9-12 points at once.
Çankaya's most-changed neighborhoods · CHP vote share (points).
İYİ Parti was almost flat across Ankara (12.3% → 13.0%). But at the neighborhood level one place stands out: Beypazarı. In this western district İYİ's share rose by 10-15 points in some neighborhoods (Kırbaşı 21%→37%, Hacıkara 17%→30%) — a rise confined to a geography, pointing to the effect of a local candidate/organization.
MHP, meanwhile, declined across Ankara (13.3% → 10.1%). At the neighborhood level it formed no clear geographic pattern; its losses are scattered (most of all in Çamlıdere, Keçiören/Gümüşdere). There are small gains in some semi-rural neighborhoods, but the overall picture trends downward.
The shared element: in both cities there is no neighborhood where AK Parti grew, and CHP concentrated in central/upper-income districts (Şişli-Beyoğlu-Kadıköy in İstanbul, Çankaya in Ankara).
The difference is this: İstanbul's headline was the same-neighborhood mirror in which Yeşil Sol/HDP fell and CHP rose in central districts (HDP was strong there). In Ankara, HDP is already small (6% → 3%); the story here is more about AK Parti's erosion in its own strongholds and CHP taking it over more clearly in Çankaya. Two cities, two different mechanics — but the same overall direction.
Data and method. Source: Supreme Election Council (YSK) (acikveri.ysk.gov.tr), neighborhood level. Elections: 24 June 2018 and 14 May 2023 parliamentary. Metric: the percentage-point change in each party's valid-vote share in a neighborhood between the two elections. Neighborhoods included: those with ≥500 voters in both elections and a voter-count change below 15%; institutional units such as prisons excluded (368 neighborhoods). Alliance total rows were excluded to avoid double counting. Yeşil Sol/HDP were merged as a single lineage across 2018 (HDP) and 2023 (Yeşil Sol Parti). Individual vote switching cannot be inferred from aggregate data.
← Read the İstanbul article · Analysis of the Week · Sandık Atlası