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HISTORY OF THE REPUBLIC PERIOD
At the end of the World War I, the empires were scattered and
instead new nation - states were founded. After the collapsing of
the Ottoman Empire, The Republic of Turkey was founded as a nation -
state. At the presidency of Atatürk, The Government of Great
National Assembly had saved the land from the invasion of foreign
forces with the Independence War and with the Lozan Treaty the
existence of the new Turkish Republic was approved by the nations of
the world.
The months following the Lozan Treaty had passed with the
preparations of a new political formation. In order to take the
leadership, the Cumhuriyet Halk Fırkası (Partisi) (National Republic
Party) had been founded ( September 9,1923). Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
was appointed for the presidency of the party. The military
personnel who were in charge at the Independence War and the senior
bureaucrats were appointed for the administration staff of the
party. The party was defending the subjects like continuance of the
national strife in a civilian medium, the modernization of the
country and execution of the Western system, institutions and life
style which was chosen as a model. In order to shape the government
according to the democratic and modern facts declaration of Republic
was realized in September 29,1923. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who was
the great and successful leader of the national strife was elected
to become the first President of the Turkish Republic by a unanimous
vote. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk had appointed İsmet İnönü as the first
Prime Minister. Four months later, the caliphate organization, which
was not concordant with the principle of republicanism, was removed
and the members of the Ottoman Dynasty were deported from the
country. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was fully aware that for the
foundation of a modern community, the religious and the governmental
tasks should be separated from each other, so he had realized the
most important social deviation by the principle of "secularism". As
the caliphate organization was removed, a series of severe reforms
were realized at the associations bounded to this organization.
Major steps in the subject of the Women Rights were realized. The
marriage with several women was prohibited and the necessity of
legal marriage was obliged. The law for divorcement right by the
court is issued. Before most of the European countries, the women
had attained the rights of election and electing for the
municipalities in 1930, village elder committees in 1933 and TBMM in
1934. One of the major steps realized in the path of modernization
was executed in the field of Turkish language. A new Turkish
alphabet was prepared by the Ministry of National Education and the
law suggesting the usage of Latin letters was approved by TBMM in
November 1,1928. The former weight and length measures were changed
in 1931.
The "Law of Surnames" was issued in June 21,1934, and the founder of
the Turkish Government and Republic Mustafa Kemal had been granted
the surname "Atatürk" by TBMM. He was now the ancestor of the entire
Turks.
The endeavors for creating a modern country on the basis of
secularism was reflected to the constitution level and with a
modification in 1928, the "the religion of the Turkish Republic is
Islam" verdict was removed from the constitution. In 1937, the
verdict stating that the Turkey is a secular government was
inscribed in the constitution. Atatürk has executed the evolutions
under the leadership of the National Republic Party, which was
founded as a party representing the entire nation, and he had
inspired this evolutions and principles to the entire nation.
The Government of the Republic had adopted a model primarily based
on private enterprises in order to develop the collapsed economy
taken as a heritage but obliged to apply state control policy
growing in time.
A foreign policy depending on peace and the borders of Milli Misak
(National Borders) during the period of Atatürk. With the
application of a successful diplomacy, Istanbul and Çanakkale
Straits remained inside the national defense system (Montreux
Treaty, 1936). With the Balkan (1934) and Sadabad (1937) pacts, the
amity policy displayed towards the entire neighboring nations were
widespread. Peaceful policies directed towards Europe and the
utilization of the international conditions had allowed the
reunification of Hatay, which was abandoned to the French before,
with the motherland.
With all of his dynamism, strong intuitions, ability to truly
calculate the power balances, the true evaluation of the inner and
foreign conditions, Atatürk had passed away in November 10,1938
leaving big traces in the direction of the Western model behind. His
descendant country had adopted his principles.
After the death of Atatürk, İsmet İnönü was elected to become the
second President of the Turkish Republic. He was the "single chief"
of his period as the President of the Government and the political
party. He was in the service during the most depressed period of the
world and Turkey. During his Prime Minister service, he tried to
resist to the economic crisis of the world with the policy of state
control. He attempted to improve the industry by the assistance of
Public Financial Enterprises (KİT) and executed major reforms in
this fact.
The most important achievement of İsmet İnönü was the success to
exclude Turkey from the World War II. His policies concerning this
fact were being executed in the ways of obtaining the balance
between various powers at the same time and the securing this
situation of the country in some directions. Turkey was invited to
San Francisco Summit in March 5,1945 and was located among the
countries founding the United Nations. Turkey had not participated
to the World Wear II but was affected in negative way.
İnönü was a farsighted man of politics, so he could not be a mere
spectator either to the winds of freedom and democracy starting to
blow in the world after the World War II or to the social reactions
aroused from the depressions of war. As a matter of fact, he talked
about the necessity of the "liberalization of the regime" in 1945.
And later, he vocalized "the necessity for an opposition party".
From this path he cleared he tolerantly watched the foundation of
Demokrat Parti (Democrat Party) from the CHP, and in 1950 DP had
gained the governmental power as a result of the countrywide
elections.
DP who speaks in the favor of democracy and a liberal economy had
developed rapidly, managed to participate to the General Assembly
in1946 and to attain the power of government alone in the elections
of May 14,1950. Thus the period of the single party in Turkey was
ended and the first change of power by the vote of nation was
realized. DP had increased the number of the votes in the 1954
elections, therefore riveted its status of power. Although the votes
of the party had greatly decreased in 1957, the party had attained
the status of power until 27 May 1960.
During his ten-year period of ruler ship, DP had brought a
significant vigor to the economy and the daily life of the
community. The economy expanded, the income of the people had
increased and numerous villages had attained the services like
roads, infrastructure and electricity. New cultivation fields were
arranged, the mechanization in agriculture field was initiated,
there was a significant increase in trade and major steps were taken
in the field of Industry. The process of transference of foreign and
commerce capital to industry had started.
After 1954, the public support to the DP government began to weaken
and because of the political and economic factors in Turkey, the
Turkish Armed Forces had seized the power in the morning of May
27,1960.
The Adalet Partisi (Justice Party) which effected the political life
of Turkey between 1960 and 1970 was founded in February 11,1961. The
retired full general Ragıp Gümüşpala was elected as the first
general chairman of the party. After the death of Gümüşpala in 1964,
The Government Water Processes Former General Director Süleyman
Demirel was elected to the position of the General Chairman. The
government period of AP between the years 1965 - 1971 was one of the
brightest periods of Turkey in economic, social and political
aspects.
The student actions and movements initiated in France in 1968 and
spread throughout the world had entered to the agenda of Turkey from
the first place by the end of 1960's. These student actions
initially had the characteristics of revolt against the education
and examination system in universities but would gain the political
and ideological content afterwards. The freedom medium of the 1960's
ended with the March 12,1971 memorandum. At the 1972 General
Assembly, Ecevit and friends had stated their candidacy for the
party administration against the group of İnönü. After the
succession of the list of Ecevit, İnönü had resigned from the
general director position, deputy position and CHP membership. At
the urgent assembly of the extraordinary General Assembly, Ecevit
was elected for the position of General Chairman. A new period was
started for CHP. In the 1973 elections, CHP had gathered the highest
vote amount. After long negotiations CHP General Chairman Ecevit had
established a coalition government with the Milli Selamet Partisi
(National Security Party) (MSP) displaying the Islamic movements.
Although this extraordinary coalition had resulted in some positive
outcomes, the effects of petroleum crisis occurring throughout the
world had been reflected to Turkey.
After the stroke of ENOSIS against the Makarios government in Cyprus
in 1974 June, Turkey was forced to use its rights of guarantorship
arising from the London Treaty and 1960 Cyprus Constitution and had
executed a military intervention against the island. In this period,
the economic problems become much heavier. The basic nutriment
materials, petroleum and gas were out of stock. The queues and the
black market begin to exist. Although the January 24,Decisions
issued by the Demirel government had positive consequences in the
short term, the terror actions continued. In order to continue the
liberation and economic stability programs initiated with the 24
January Decisions, the Anavatan Parti (Motherland Party) (ANAP) was
founded by the demand of power. The parties to participate the 6
November 1983 elections was ANAP, MDP and HP and ANAP was elected
with the vote ratio of 45.1 percent and attained the power alone.
The first ANAP government was founded in 13 December at the
presidency of Turgut Özal.
ANAP had attained the power alone in the 1983 elections under the
presidency of Turgut Özal and continued the succession of being in
power in the 1987 elections. The most important characteristic of
the Özal Period was the transformation of the economy into a brand
new direction with the brave and resolute reforms. Özal had
described this liberal transformation as "Big Transformation", and
in this transformation the Law of Preserving The Value of the
Turkish Money and the foreign exchange regime was totally altered,
the import and export policies become free, the "free exchange rate
system" in foreign exchange was adopted. A new economic model
granting priority to exportation replaced the "import establishment"
model, which is an economic model closed to the foreign countries.
The most important development in the foreign policy was the
relative improvement of the relations with the European countries.
As a matter of fact, the European Committee Consultation Council had
accepted the participation of Turkish parliamentary to this
committee in May 1984. In addition, Turkey had attained a neutral
policy during the war of Iran and Iraq and therefore the trade
relations with these countries had improved in positive way. The
income obtained from export and tourism processes had greatly
increased in this period as a result of the increasing interaction
of Turkey with the countries of Middle East and Europe.
After the separation of the Soviet United Nations in 1991, Turkey
had improved its relations with the recent Independent Central Asian
Republics as a result of the enterprises executed by President Özal
and the government. Therefore, the new horizons for Turkey of being
a "Regional government" had been set. The Black Sea Economic
Cooperation, which became an institution by a summit meeting in
June1992 and including the total area of Black Sea Basin as the
Caucasia and Balkans had increased the importance of Turkey in the
Region. Turkey had also played an important and active role in the
subjects of Bosnia - Herzegovina and Somali.
After the death of Turgut Özal in April 17,1993, Süleyman Demirel
was elected to the position of the President of the Turkish
Republic. As a result of the power of the coalition governments of
various political parties between the years 1993 - 2000 the
political structure had gained a new multi dimensional structure.
After the formation of this particular new political intellect
assisting the settlement of democracy culture in the country, Turkey
had taken major steps among the path leading to the European
Community.
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