A former member of the Brussels Regional Parliament and councilor in the municipality of Schaarbeek has become a Minister in Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s new Turkish Government. Mahinur Özdemir Göktas is the new Turkish Minister for the Family. She is the only female member of the Turkish cabinet.
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Former Brussels regional MP becomes Minister in the new Turkish Government
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Mahinur Özdemir Göktas (41) was born in Brussels. She studied political science at Brussel French-Medium Free University (ULB). She was a member of the Francophone Christian democrat party CDH (now called Les Engagés) and was elected as one of the party’s representatives on Schaarbeek municipal council.
In 2009 Mahinur Özdemir Göktas was elected as a MP in the Brussels Regional Parliament. She made history becoming the first MP every to wear a hijab while parliament was in session.
She was expelled from her party in 2015 after she refused to recognise that the 1915 Armenian genocide had taken place. She continued to seat both in the Brussels Regional Parliament and on Schaarbeek Council as an independent. However, she no longer stood for reelection to the council in 2018 and the regional parliament in 2019.
Ms Özdemir Göktas then switched her focus to Turkish politics and in 2020 the Erdogan government appointed her ambassador in Algeria. Now she become a minister in the Turkish Government.