Multi-party period of the Republic of Turkey
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The multi-party period of the Republic of Turkey started with the establishment of the opposition Liberal Republican Party (Serbest Cumhuriyet Fırkası) by Ali Fethi Okyar in 1930, which, however, was soon closed. This was followed by the National Development Party (Milli Kalkınma Partisi), founded by Nuri Demirağ, in 1945. Later on, the Democrat Party was established the next year, and was elected in 1950. Very popular at first, the government, led by prime minister Adnan Menderes, relaxed the restrictions on Islam and presided over a booming economy. In the later half of the decade, however, the government introduced censorship laws limiting dissent, while it became plagued by high inflation and a massive debt. Ankara also attempted to use the army to suppress its political rivals.
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[edit] 1960 coup
However, the army balked at the government's instrumentalization of it, and on May 27, 1960 General Cemal Gürsel led a military coup d'état removing President Celal Bayar and Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, the second of whom was executed. In October 1961, the military junta returned the power to civilians. The political system that emerged in the wake of the 1960 coup was a fractured one, producing a series of unstable government coalitions in parliament. In 1965, however, the Justice Party of Süleyman Demirel won an absolute majority, which it increased in 1969, but there was increasing polarization between the Justice Party on the right and the Republican People's Party of İsmet İnönü and Bülent Ecevit on the left. In 1969, Alparslan Türkeş, a member of the Counter-Guerrilla (Turkish branch of NATO's stay-behind army, known as Gladio), founded the right-wing Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), whose youth organizations became known as the Grey Wolves.
[edit] 1971 coup
A memorandum from the Military on March 12, 1971 threatened intervention, forcing the Demirel government to resign. After a period of interim government, Bülent Ecevit became Prime Minister and governed in a coalition with the religious National Salvation Party.
The fractured political scene and poor economy led to mounting violence between ultranationalists and communists in the streets of Turkey's cities. The NATO stay-behind army Counter-Guerrilla, related to the Millî İstihbarat Teşkilâtı (MIT), the Turkish intelligence agency, engaged itself in domestic terror and killed hundreds. As in Italy, it engaged itself in a strategy of tension [1] The overall death-toll of the terror of the 1970s in estimated at 5 000, with right-wing and terrorism responsible for the most part. According to statistics published by the British Searchlight magazine (n°47, May 1979, p.6), in 1978 there were 3 319 fascist attacks, in which 831 were killed and 3 121 wounded.
[edit] Invasion of Cyprus
When the Greek military junta, who had taken power in a coup in 1974, supported a coup in Cyprus led by extremist Greek Cypriots hostile to Makarios for his pro-communist leanings, Prime minister Bülent Ecevit invaded Cyprus on July 20, 1974 to counter it.
[edit] Left-right clashes
[edit] 1980 coup
Out of the rubble of the previous political system came one-party governance under Turgut Özal's Motherland Party, which combined a globally-oriented economic program with conservative social values. Under Özal, the economy boomed, converting towns like Gaziantep from small provincial capitals into mid-sized economic boomtowns.
Upon the retirement of President Kenan Evren, the leader of the 1980 coup, Özal was elected President, leaving parliament in the hands of the feckless Yıldırım Akbulut, and then, in 1991, to Mesut Yılmaz. Yılmaz redoubled Turkey's economic profile and renewed its orientation toward Europe. But political instability followed as the host of banned politicians reentered politics, fracturing the vote, and the Motherland Party became increasingly corrupt. Özal died of a heart attack in 1993 and Süleyman Demirel was elected president.
[edit] Administrative reforms
- Further information: Administrative reforms against terrorism
[edit] 1995 elections
The 1995 elections brought a short-lived coalition between Yılmaz's Motherland Party and The True Path Party, now with Tansu Çiller at the helm. Çiller then turned to the Welfare Party (RP), headed by Necmettin Erbakan, the former leader of the National Salvation Party, allowing Erbakan to enter the Prime Ministry. In 1998, the military, citing his government's support for religious policies deemed dangerous to Turkey's secular nature, sent a memorandum to Erbakan requesting that he resign, which he did. Shortly thereafter, the RP was banned and re-born under the name Virtue Party (FP). A new government was formed by ANAP and Ecevit's Democratic Left Party (DSP) supported from the outside by the center-left Republican People's Party (CHP), led by Deniz Baykal. Under this government, Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdish separatist organisation PKK, was captured in 1999 in Kenya. Imprisonned in the prison-island of İmralı in the Marmara Sea, Öcalan was tried for treason and sentenced to death, but he has since sent the case to the European Court of Human Rights.
[edit] 1999 elections
The DSP won big in the 1999 elections on the strength of the Öcalan abduction. Second place went, surprisingly, to the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). These two parties, alongside Yılmaz's ANAP formed a government. The popular perception was that it would fail; these were, after all, the inheritors of the two groups that were fighting so violently in the streets during the 1970s. However, the government was somewhat effective, if not harmonious, bringing about much-needed economic reform, instituting human rights legislation, and bringing Turkey ever closer to the European Union (EU).
[edit] 2002 elections
A series of economic shocks led to new elections in 2002, bringing into power the religiously conservative Justice and Development Party of former mayor of Istanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The Erdoğan government started negotiations with the EU on October 3, 2005.
[edit] References
- ^ See Daniele Ganser, NATO's Secret Armies. Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe, Frank Cass, London, 2005. Extracts and documents available here.
[edit] See also
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