Rapid urbanization and other changes following World War II created widespread
demands for more political openness. Disgruntled members of the ruling party formed
an opposition party, the Democratic Party, which contested the 1946 parliamentary
elections and won about one-seventh of the total seats, a significant showing for the
country’s first multiparty election. Four years later, in May 1950, the Democratic Party
swept the long-ruling Republican People’s Party from power, an event that appeared
to herald a new era for Turkey as a genuine democracy.
The Democrats won two more elections during the 1950s but proved unable to
adequately deal with rising social discontent when the economy went into a sharp tail-
spin in the latter part of the decade. The government cracked down on dissent by sti-
fling criticism in the news media, attempting to undermine the Republican People’s
Party, and eventually imposing martial law. These repressive measures backfired by
emboldening protesters, including university students and military cadets.
With the country in political crisis, the military intervened. On May 27, 1960,
the army took control of Ankara and Istanbul, ousted the government, and arrested
top Democratic Party leaders, including President Celal Bayar, Prime Minister
Adnan Menderes, and most of the party’s members of parliament. Under Gen.
Cemal Gursel, the military established the Committee of National Unity, which
forcibly halted the civil disorder. The generals also staged trials of nearly 600 politi-
cians from the former government and convicted about three-fourths of them on
various counts of corruption, mismanagement, and other charges. Menderes was
hanged in September 1961.
The military government also drafted a new constitution that drastically reshaped
the government, notably by dividing the legislature into two chambers and by shoring
up civil liberties. The first elections under this constitution took place in October
- The military suffered a setback when voters forced the Republican People’s
Party, which the generals openly favored, to share power in a coalition government.
The right-leaning Justice Party, a successor to the deposed Democratic Party, won
the next elections, in 1965. Suleiman Demirel took office as prime minister, begin-
ning a long career in government that would see him serve repeatedly as head of gov-
ernment and later as president. The Justice Party held power throughout the 1960s,
but it gradually lost members to several splinter parties, part of a broader fracturing
process in which numerous groups created their own parties to represent their special
interests.
In 1971 another wave of civil unrest—involving competition between extreme left-
wing and extreme right-wing groups—led to Turkey’s second military coup. In this
case, military leaders gave President Cevdet Sunay and legislative leaders a three-point
memorandum stating that the parliament and government had “driven our country
into anarchy, fratricidal strife, and social and economic unrest” and demanding the
formation of a “strong and credible government.” It warned that the military would
take power if they failed to act “quickly.”
Prime Minister Demirel and his government immediately resigned, effectively
allowing the military to achieve what observers called a “coup by memorandum.” A
series of unstable coalition cabinets then served throughout the 1970s, marking yet
another period in which Turkish politicians failed to address the country’s underlying
problems (particularly a faltering economy) and to suppress violence by the left and
the right.
640 TURKEY