Republican People's Party—Turkey
Founded in 1922 by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881–1938), the Republican People's Party (RPP) was the ruling party of the Turkish Republic from 1923 to 1950 and held power in coalition governments in the 1960s and 1970s. After the military coup of 1980, all political parties were banned, but the Republican People's Party was reestablished in 1992.
During the Turkish War of Independence (1919–1923) the Grand National Assembly in Ankara opposed the Allied occupation and the Ottoman government, and this opposition united former members of the Committee of Union and Progress, which held power in the Ottoman government from 1912 to 1918, and the nationalist landowning and religious elites. Hoping to gain more support and to bring more discipline to the Assembly, Ataturk, the leader of the nationalist forces, organized his supporters into the Republican People's Party. With the exception of the Progressive Republican Party (1924–1925) and the Free Party (1930), the RPP was Turkey's sole party until 1945, when a multiparty system came into being.
In 1931 an RPP congress enunciated a program of reform with six points: nationalism, republicanism, secularism, populism, reformism, and statism. These became known as the six arrows of Kemalism, an ideological justification for legal, political, economic, and social reforms aimed at modernizing and Westernizing the Turkish state and society. Party leaders, including Ataturk, the prime minister Ismet Inonu (1884–1973), and the general secretary Recep Peker (1888–1950), saw the role of the RPP as one of educating the new Turkish Republic and envisioned a prolonged period of single-party rule. Following Ataturk's death in November 1938, a special RPP congress named Ataturk "eternal chief" of the party and resolved that his reforms would forever be the party's guiding principle. Ismet Inonu was named permanent leader of the RPP. In 1945 responding to demands for change, Inonu called for the creation of a multiparty system. In the 1950 election the RPP lost by a landslide to the Democrat Party, which had been formed by Celal Bayar (1884–1987) and other former members of the RPP in 1946.
Out of power throughout the 1950s, the RPP regained power after the military coup in 1960, joining a series of coalition governments. In 1972 Bulent Ecevit launched a successful challenge to the leadership of Inonu and then led the RPP in a series of coalition governments during the 1970s.
After the military took power in 1980, all parties were shut down, and all active politicians were banned from politics. Three new center-left parties, the People's Party, the Social Democratic Party, and the Democratic Left Party, put forth programs similar to that of the RPP. In 1992 the old parties were allowed to be reestablished, and the RPP reemerged, led by Deniz Baykal. Throughout the 1990s the RPP won around 20 percent of the popular vote and joined coalitions with other center-left parties.
Further Reading
Berkes, Niyazi. (1964) The Development of Secularism in Turkey. Montreal, Canada: McGill University Press.
Heper, Metin, and Jacob Landau, eds. (1991) Political Parties and Democracy in Turkey. London: I. B. Tauris.
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