principles, four deputies led by the late Adnan Menderes founded the party in 1946. It came to power in 1950 on a platform of opposition to the RPP and promised to reorganize the country's economy.

By stressing the interests of the peasants in general and by appealing for peasant votes, the party involved the hitherto passive rural majority as active participants in the political process. In power the DP proved to be conservative in the matter of constitutional reform, although it controlled the Assembly and had the power to amend the constitution.

With the exception of Koprülü, who resigned from the party in 1957, the founders of the party remained its leaders. Bayar continued as the theoretical chairman of the party, while Menderes as vice-chairman and de facto chairman more and more brought the party under his personal control. Not since Atatürk had a Turkish politican combined in his person as much power as did Menderes. As acting head of the party he was able to build within it a machine loyal to himself and could force the ouster or induce the resignation of critical fellow Democrats. He dominated the political scene as Prime Minister.

Landowners, especially those with larger holdings, were among the pillars of the party. Under the Kemalist government, the old leaders of the rural areas felt little identity with the distant national government and the party in power. The Kemalists sought to enforce the new urban Turkish culture on such rural areas as they could reach; antitraditionalists in outlook, they had no use for the traditional rural leaders. Under the Democrats the traditional leaders gained more importance and identified themselves more closely with the national government.

Only in the field of religion did the Democrats depart significantly from the RPP's Kemalist policies. Kemalism was never antireligious, but it denied to religion any institutional role in the national politics. Rather than restricting personal religious observance it aimed at secularizing government and abolishing any direct connection between Islam and the state. The line, however, was hard to draw. For instance, the government outlawed the practices of certain sects and required that Moslem liturgy be recited in Turkish rather than Arabic (see ch. 11, Religion). It sanctioned the erection in public places of statues of Atatürk and other patriots, despite the common Moslem belief against representation of the human figure.

After the death of Atatürk the restraints on religion were slowly relaxed. Young people who grew to adulthood in the 1940's were influenced by a Westernized Turkish environment rather than by the direct borrowing of secular ideas from Europe. This

made them less doctrinaire than their elders; they had never lived under the Ottoman theocracy to which Atatürk reforms were a reaction. During the late 1940's religious activities—public worship, pilgrimages to Mecca, and the building of mosques— steadily increased. In 1949 optional religious instruction was introduced in elementary schools; funds from the evkaf (religious endowments) could again be used for purely religious purposes, and a Faculty of Theology was established at the University of Ankara.

The Democrat government reestablished and expanded the Imam-Hatip Schools, where imams were trained at government expense. In 1950 the law pertaining to religious education in the school system was changed so that parents who did not want their children to receive instruction in the tenets of Islam had to indicate that option. Previously, they had to register their wishes only if they desired that a child attend religious class (see ch. 11, Religion).

As its economic measures failed to take effective root and the country experienced poor harvests after the first very good years of the 1950's, the DP became more repressive in its attempts to control opposition. It used its overwhelming majority in the parliament to pass laws controlling judges, civil servants, the press, and eventually the party supported intervention in university affairs.

After 1958 Turkey moved closer to violence and the DP. lost intellectual support. The visits of the RPP leader Inönü to various parts of the country in 1959 were met by arranged demonstrations, including the Kayseri incident when the government ordered the army to obstruct Inönü's progress as he was campaigning. Student protests were met with violence in both Ankara and Istanbul but large demonstrations took place in spite of it. Ankara and Istanbul were put under martial law and the universities were closed. The climax came on May 27, 1960, with the overthrow of the DP government by the NUC, which immediately banned the party and put its leaders in jail to await trial.

Justice Party

The Justice Party was founded in February 1961 by General Ragip Gümüşpala. Gümüşpala was the highest-ranking officer retired by the NUC, and after his retirement he was quick to express, by his political activity, his lack of enthusiasm for the military government. Many former Democrats joined the JP and were successful in achieving one of the aims of its platform, amnesty for arrested DP officials. The party position emphasized private rather than public enterprise and democratic principles,

favoring the transfer of some state monopolies to private hands. Its platform stresses increased concentration on governmentprovided health services and education.

Gümüşpala was not an experienced politician, but General Gürsel's moderating influence prevented disputes with leaders of other parties that might have threatened the continued existence of the party. Strife within the party was indicative of the disparity of viewpoints, and factions gradually split off, leaving a central group. This group was organized in 1968 around Süleyman Demirel, who was elected party president after the death of Gümüşpala and subsequently became Prime Minister after the JP victory in the 1965 elections. Demirel proved his ability by uniting the party. His acceptability to the military was demonstrated during the brief Ürgüplü government of 1965, when he served as deputy prime minister.

The Justice Party has organizations throughout Turkey, and attracted much the same support won by the Democrats among the rural and business classes. It is closely identified with the interests of private enterprise, but this commitment is balanced by the political need to satisfy the peasants without overcommitting itself at the expense of other segments of the population.

The New Turkey Party

The New Turkey Party (NTP-Yeni Turkiye Partisi) is a liberal party led by Ekrem Alican, an economist, who was formerly a DP deputy until he was expelled in 1955. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the Freedom Party in 1957, and served as finance minister in the nonparty cabinet set up by the NUC between the date of the coup and December 1960. The NTP was founded in 1961 by leaders who had left the DP or RPP.

Its program generally follows the lines of the Atatürk revolution with strong support for secularism, advocacy of the right to strike, and the extension of compulsory education to the level of about the ninth grade. It favors state planning of the economy, but more as an aid to individual initiative than as a means for control by the central administration.

The NTP managed to obtain some of the DP votes in the 1961 election, but has failed to gain wide support at the grass roots level. In 1961, it received 13 percent of the total vote; in 1965, only 4 percent.

Republican Peasants National Party

What later became the Republican Peasants National Party (RPNP-Cumhuriyetçi Köylü Millet Partisi) was organized in 1948 from among dissidents in the DP. It attracted the leadership

of Marshal Fevzi Çakmak, but managed to win only one seat in 1950. It became increasingly right-wing, and was dissolved by the government in 1953 for being anti-Kemalist. In 1954 it was reestablished under the leadership of Osman Bölükbaşi, and in 1955 merged with the Peasant's Party. It obtained 7.7 percent of the vote in 1957, 14.0 percent in 1960, but only 2.3 percent in 1965. Its strength has been located in the conservative provinces east of Ankara, but much of this strength has been due to the personal appeal of Bolukbasi. It has attacked the programs of the RPP.

In 1963 Bölükbaşi broke with the RPNP to form the Nation Party which opposes all leftist tendencies and appeals to the middle class. It has failed to gain much support (6 percent of the popular vote in 1965), and has succeeded only in diverting votes from the RPNP which is now headed by Colonel Alparslan Türkeş, one of the ousted members of the NUC. Under Türkeş the RPNP has stated its program as one favoring a mixed economy based on social justice and scientific planning, limiting private enterprise to a clearly designated field.

Turkish Labor Party

The Turkish Labor Party (TLP-Türk Isçi Partisi) was formed in 1960 as the Socialist Party, but after 1962 attracted the leadership of Mehmet Ali Aybar and became the TLP. It started as an effort of labor people, but was soon taken over by intellectuals who are still its main supporters. The TLP is also supported by students who favor the party's advocacy of socialism as a way out of Turkey's pressing economic problems. It calls for land reform and the nationalization of industry, foreign trade, banking, and insurance companies. It stresses that the immediate elimination of the private sector is not necessary, and that the mixed economy may continue for some time.

The TLP is only reluctantly accepted by many of Turkey's people, who have a long distrust of anything that has Russian association. The Communist Party is officially banned, but the leaders of the TLP sometimes openly proclaim their sympathy with Russia's methods. At present the labor base on which the TLP would like to build its political strength does not exist, because of the divided loyalities of many workers. The TLP has managed to obtain just enough support (3 percent of the votes in 1965) to have representation in the Assembly.

COMPETITION FOR POLITICAL POWER

Elections

Since the Ottomans reluctantly permitted an election in 1876, 18 national elections have taken place in Turkey. In half of them

only one political party was represented, the Union and Progress Party in the early period, and later the Republican People's Party.

Elections are held about once every 4 years to choose the Grand National Assembly which is both the legislative and the presidential electoral college (the President is chosen by the Senate). The Constitution enfranchises every citizen over 21 years of age, and details of voting procedure are provided by legislature.

Two significant changes in the election laws were made by the RPP before the 1946 elections: the electoral system in which electoral colleges had formerly selected the deputies from party lists was made direct and the Law of Associations was liberalized to permit the formation of new political parties. In February 1950 a comprehensive new election law was passed which remained in force until the 1960 coup. Under it each province elected one deputy for the first 55,000 population, and one for each additional 40,000 or portion thereof.

Voting was by secret ballot at designated polling places. Voters had to identify themselves by signature or fingerprints, and on the day of a national election the sale of intoxicants as well as the unauthorized bearing of firearms was forbidden.

The sealed ballots were counted by precinct boards at the close of the elections and the tally transmitted upward through the higher board to the Supreme Election Board, which confirmed and announced the higher totals. Complaints were dealt with by this board, which reported its decision to the Grand National Assembly.

New Election Law 1961

The election law of 1961 incorporated a new system of proportional representation, necessitated by the fact that the new Constitution limited the number of deputies to 450 and senators to 150. Under its provisions the total population of the country is divided by 450 to determine the number of people each deputy is to represent (see ch. 13, The Governmental System). Since the province is considered the basic electoral unit, the population of each province is divided by the number of votes required for one deputy in order to determine the number of deputies the province may elect. Any remaining votes are listed by province, and the unassigned deputies are apportioned according to the size of the remainder.

To determine the number of seats won by each party in a province, the total number of votes cast is divided by the number of seats assigned to the constituency. For example, if 75,000 votes are cast and five deputies are to be elected, the coefficient is 15,000.