In the 1987 election the MP was returned to power. Its share of the vote fell to slightly more than one-third, but it expanded its representation in parliament. Prior to the election, the political rights of the old politicians had been restored, and they figured prominently in the campaign. Demirel reemerged as the leader of the True Path Party (TPP; founded 1983), which won about one-fifth of the vote. Erdal İnönü, the son of İsmet İnönü, led the Social Democratic and Populist Party (SDPP; founded 1985), which gained one-fourth of the vote. Erbakan’s new Welfare Party (WP; an Islamic party) and Türkeş’s right-wing National Endeavour Party (NEP) also took part, although they failed to obtain at least 10 percent of the vote and thus were not represented in parliament.
After 1987 the popularity of the MP fell rapidly. Fractures developed—especially between liberals and Islamists—and Özal was heavily criticized for nepotism and corruption. In October 1989 Özal was elected president, succeeding Evren, while within the MP the internal struggle continued and was eventually decided in favour of the liberals, whose young leader, Mesut Yılmaz, became prime minister. The 1990s
Despite considerable fluctuations from year to year, Turkey maintained the economic advance that had begun in 1950. Increasingly, Turkey was becoming an urbanized, industrialized country and a major exporter of manufactured goods, especially to Europe. Yet the pace of economic change was an underlying cause of much of the social and political unrest that beset Turkey during the 1990s.
The MP was defeated in the elections of 1991 but secured about one-fourth of the vote. The remainder of the centre-right vote went to the TPP, which emerged as the largest party in the new assembly. Mainly because of personality differences between Özal and Demirel, the obvious coalition government of the MP and the TPP was not possible; instead, the TPP formed a coalition government with the third largest party, the SDPP. The declining centre-left vote was divided between the SDPP and the Democratic Left Party (DLP) of Ecevit. The program of the new government, with Demirel as prime minister, represented a compromise between the economic liberalism of the TPP and the political liberalism of the SDPP, but the lack of fundamental agreement made it difficult to tackle the economic and political problems that troubled Turkey. In addition to the continuing Kurdish war, there was a recrudescence of the political violence by the radical left and right. After Özal’s death in 1993, Demirel was elected president. Tansu Çiller, a liberal economist, became Turkey’s first woman prime minister. Çiller emphasized more-rapid economic privatization and closer links with the European Union (EU). The coalition government collapsed in September 1995 when the SDPP withdrew from the government after protracted internal divisions. Çiller failed to form a new coalition and called an election for December 1995.
The most-striking feature of the 1995 election was the extent of support for the WP, which emerged as the largest single party, with about one-fifth of the vote. The political success of the WP reflected the increasing role of Islam in Turkish life during the 1980s and ’90s, as evidenced by changes in dress and appearance, segregation of the sexes, the growth of Islamic schools and banks, and support for Sufi orders. Support for the WP came not only from the smaller towns but also from major cities, where the WP drew support from the secular left parties. The WP stood for a greater role for Islam in public life, state-directed economic expansion, and a turning away from Europe and the West toward the Islamic countries of the Middle East. Despite its electoral success, the WP was unable to find a coalition partner to form a government, and in March 1996 a coalition government of the MP and TPP was formed, although it was dependent on voting support from the centre left. Yılmaz and Çiller agreed to share the prime ministership; Yılmaz took the first turn, in 1996.
Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Çiller (left) and Prime Minister-designate Mesut Yılmaz, 1996. Burhan Ozbilici—AP/Shutterstock.com
Malcolm Edward Yapp
In June 1996 Erbakan’s Islamist WP formed a short-lived coalition government, which was opposed by secularists and the armed forces. By mid-1997 Erbakan was succeeded by Yılmaz and the MP. However, two years later the MP lost power to the DLP, still led by Ecevit. The DLP government benefited from the capture of PKK leader Öcalan, who was sentenced to death.
Late in 1997 a pair of powerful earthquakes shook eastern Turkey, killing thousands. Challenges of the 21st century Turkey under the AKP
In 2002 the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi; AKP), a party with Islamist roots, swept the parliamentary elections. It came to power under the ostensible leadership of Abdullah Gül, since party leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was ineligible to serve in parliament or as prime minister because of a 1998 conviction; a constitutional amendment in late 2002 removed this ineligibility. Erdoğan won a seat in parliament in early 2003 and quickly replaced Gül as prime minister. That same year Turkey refused to grant transit through its territory to the U.S. military during the Iraq War, though it did extend rights to air transport.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, 2008.Photo by Serkan Eldeleklioglu-Bora Omerogullari-Ozan Atasoy/Copyright World Economic Forum (www.weforum.org)
In January 2007 Armenian journalist and community leader Hrant Dink was murdered outside his office in Istanbul. Many viewed his assassination as a political attack, as Dink had received a number of death threats for his position on the early 20th-century treatment of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire—long a highly sensitive topic and a source of tension between the Turkish and Armenian communities (see Armenian massacres) and between the governments of Turkey and Armenia. In October 2009 the two countries made a landmark effort to overcome their historical grievances, signing an agreement that would have normalized diplomatic relations, opened the Turkish-Armenian border, and established an international commission to investigate the World War I-era killings. However, support for the reconciliation process soon faltered on both sides, and the agreement was not implemented. Growing confrontation from the secularists
Tensions had simmered again in 2007 when tens of thousands of secularist protesters, wary of Erdoğan’s Islamist roots, demonstrated in Ankara in an attempt to discourage him from seeking the presidency; Erdoğan acquiesced. The AKP then nominated Gül as its candidate, even though he shared a similar political history with Erdoğan: both began their careers in a pro-Islamic party, since banned, and both were married to women who opted to wear the head scarf, a visible marker of religion in a resolutely secular republic and a major source of contention in modern Turkish society. Gül’s marriage to a woman who wore the head scarf was received as but one signal of his Islamist leanings, an unnerving proposition for many voters.
Though many suggested that the Islamist roots of the AKP might represent a challenge to Turkey’s secular democracy, others felt that the periodic intrusion of the military into Turkish politics posed a greater threat. The military, which had maneuvered Turkish political proceedings in the past, issued a memorandum on the Internet criticizing the rising role of Islamists in the government and indicating military readiness to act if an unapproved candidate, such as Gül, won the presidency; this approach was dubbed an “e-coup” by pundits.
Gül went on to receive the majority of the votes in parliament’s election for the presidency, but the CHP opposition boycotted the vote and caused Gül to fall short of the necessary quorum by a narrow margin. Consequently, the election results were later overturned in court, and a stalemate ensued. Erdoğan worked to resolve the standoff by calling for early parliamentary elections, in which the AKP secured a decisive victory. In spite of the previous political standoff, the AKP then once more nominated Gül as its candidate, and in the parliamentary elections that followed he won the presidency by a wide margin.