Democratic Party (Turkey, 1970)

Democratic Party

Demokratik Parti
Democratic Party Demokratik Parti
Leader	Ferruh Bozbeyli
Founded	18 December 1970
Dissolved	4 May 1980
Split from	Justice Party
Headquarters	Ankara
Ideology	Liberal conservatism; Economic liberalism; Anti-corruption
Political position	Centre-right
Party flag
	Politics of Turkey; Political parties; Elections;

Democratic Party (

historical Democrat Party or the current Democrat Party in Turkey. The party advocated economic liberalism and individual rights with heavy emphasis on the rule of law. Although liberal on economic and social issues, the party, especially Ferruh Bozbeyli

, strongly emphasized that one must strive to uphold their national and cultural identity.

Background

The historical

Celal Bayar, third president of Turkey), broke away from the Justice Party and founded the new Democratic Party, accusing them of condoning the rise of extremist movements. The Islamists had also left the party, founding the National Order Party

.

History

DP was founded on 18 December 1970. The former parliament speaker Ferruh Bozbeyli was the chairman. Saadettin Bilgiç as well as the relatives of the former Democrat Party members were among the other important MPs.^[1] The main competitors of the party were Justice Party and National Salvation Party (or its predecessor National Order Party). In the 1973 elections, the Democratic Party received 11.9% of votes and sent 45 representatives to the lower house of the parliament. (It was the third party in terms of the vote percentage and fourth party in terms of the number of representatives.) Republican People's Party (CHP) was the winner. But CHP needed coalition partners to form the government. DP refused to form the coalition with CHP. Later in 1975 DP refused to participate in another coalition government led by Justice Party (4th government of Süleyman Demirel) . However, after this last decision, the big names in the party returned to Justice Party on 9 March 1975.^[2] In the 1977 election, the Democratic Party received only 1.1% of votes. On 4 May 1980, the party dissolved itself.