Necmettin Erbakan

Necmettin Erbakan
Orhan Eyüboğlu
Succeeded by	Orhan Eyüboğlu
In office 31 March 1975 – 21 June 1977 serving alongside Turhan Feyzioğlu and Alparslan Türkeş
Prime Minister	Süleyman Demirel
Preceded by	Zeyyat Baykara
Succeeded by	Orhan Eyüboğlu
In office 26 January 1974 – 17 November 1974
Prime Minister	Bülent Ecevit
Preceded by	Sadi Koçaş
Succeeded by	Zeyyat Baykara
Leader of the Felicity Party
In office 17 October 2010 – 27 February 2011
Preceded by	Numan Kurtulmuş
Succeeded by	Mustafa Kamalak
In office 11 May 2003 – 30 January 2004
Preceded by	Recai Kutan
Succeeded by	Recai Kutan
Leader of the Welfare Party
In office 11 October 1987 – 19 January 1998
Preceded by	Ahmet Tekdal
Succeeded by	Party abolished
Leader of the National Salvation Party
In office 20 October 1973 – 12 September 1980
Preceded by	Süleyman Arif Emre
Succeeded by	Party abolished
Leader of the National Order Party
In office 26 January 1970 – 20 May 1971
Preceded by	Party established
Succeeded by	Party abolished (Süleyman Arif Emre as leader of the National Salvation Party)
Member of the Grand National Assembly
In office 6 November 1991 – 22 February 1998
Constituency	Konya (1991, 1995)
In office 12 October 1969 – 12 September 1980
Constituency	Konya (1969, 1973, 1977)
Personal details
Born	(1926-10-29)29 October 1926 Çankaya, Ankara, Turkey
Political party	National Order Party (1970–71) National Salvation Party (1972–1981) Welfare Party (1987–1998) Virtue Party (1998–2001) Felicity Party (2003–2011)
Spouse	Nermin Saatçioğlu ​ ​ (m. 1967; died 2005)​
Children	Zeynep Elif Fatih
Alma mater	Istanbul High School Istanbul Technical University RWTH Aachen University
Signature

Necmettin Erbakan (29 October 1926 – 27 February 2011) was a Turkish politician, engineer, and academic who was the Prime Minister of Turkey from 1996 to 1997. He was pressured by the military to step down as prime minister and was later banned from politics by the Constitutional Court of Turkey for allegedly violating the separation of religion and state as mandated by the constitution.^[1][2]

The political ideology and movement founded by Erbakan, Millî Görüş, argues that Turkey can develop with its own power by protecting its religious values and moving forward with faster steps by rivaling the Western countries in favor of closer relations to Muslim countries.^[3] With the Millî Görüş ideology, Erbakan was the founder and leader of several prominent Islamic political parties in Turkey from the 1960s to the 2010s, namely the National Order Party (MNP), the National Salvation Party (MSP), the Welfare Party (RP), the Virtue Party (FP), and the Felicity Party (SP).

Early life and education

Erbakan was born in Sinop, at the coast of Black Sea in northern Turkey.^[4] His father was Mehmet Sabri, a judge from the prominent Kozanoğlu family of Cilicia and his mother Kamer was a Circassian from a known family in Sinop^[5][6] and the second wife of Mehmet Sabri.^[7]

After high school education in

In the wake of the 1980 military coup, Erbakan and his party were banned from politics.^[4] He reemerged following a referendum to lift the ban in 1987 and became the leader of the Welfare Party.^[4] His party benefited in the 1990s from the acrimony between the leaders of Turkey's two most prominent conservative parties, Mesut Yılmaz and Tansu Çiller, leading his party to a surprise success in the general elections of 1995.

Since the tensions between the military and the Islamists led to a civil war in Algeria, Erbakan said "Turkey will not turn into Algeria" in 1992^[9] and 1997.^[10] But on May 10, 1997 Welfare Party Şanlıurfa MP İbrahim Halil Çelik threatened that "If you try to close the İmam Hatip schools, blood will be spilled. It would be worse than Algeria."^[11] Erbakan and his associates developed ties with the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) in Algeria and when Erbakan visited the American Muslim Council in October 1994, he engaged with FIS representatives.^[12]

Premiership

After the short premiership of Mesut Yılmaz after the 1995 elections collapsed in 1996 due to a censure motion by the Welfare Party, Erbakan became the prime minister in coalition with Çiller's

Erbakan's image was damaged by his famous speech making fun of the nightly demonstrations against the Susurluk scandal. He was widely blamed at the time for his indifference. The Turkish military gradually increased the urgency^{[clarification needed]} and frequency of its public warnings to Erbakan's government, eventually prompting Erbakan to step down in 1997. At the time there was a formal rotation deal between Erbakan and Tansu Çiller, the leaders of the coalition — Erbakan was to act as the prime minister for a certain period (a fixed amount of time, which was not publicized), then he would step down in favour of Çiller. However, Çiller's party was the third-largest in the parliament, and when Erbakan stepped down, President Süleyman Demirel asked Mesut Yılmaz, leader of the second-largest party, to form a new government instead.^[15][16][17]

Post-premiership

In an unprecedented move, Erbakan's ruling Welfare Party was subsequently banned by the courts, which held that the party had an agenda to promote Islamic fundamentalism in the state, and Erbakan was barred once again from active politics.^[18] He had argued that a truly democratic country should not shut down a political party for its beliefs. He was tried and sentenced to two years and four months imprisonment in the so-called Lost Trillion Case, which involved the use of forged documents to prevent the return of Treasury grants in the amount of around one trillion old Turkish lira, $3.3MM in today's currency^[when?], following the ban of the party in 1997.^[19][20]

Despite often being under political ban, Erbakan nonetheless acted as a mentor and informal advisor to former Welfare Party members who founded the Virtue Party in 1997, among them being the future Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The Virtue Party was found unconstitutional in 2001 and forcibly banned; by that time, Erbakan's ban on political activities had ended, and he founded the Felicity Party, of which he was the leader in 2003–2004 and again from 2010^[21] until his death.

Death

Erbakan died on 27 February 2011 at 11:40 local time of

Erbakan's ideology is set forth in a manifesto, entitled Millî Görüş (National View), which he published in 1969.^[4] The organisation of the same name, which he founded and of which he was the leader, upholds nowadays that the word "national" is to be understood in the sense of monotheistic ecumenism.^[26][27] According to The Economist, at his death Erbakan was acknowledged as a moderating force on Turkey's Islamists, and made Turkey as a possible model for the Arab world as well.^[28]

His foreign policy had two main pillars:

Although a rigorous Islamist and avid opposer of secularism, Erbakan developed a friendship with Jean-Marie Le Pen, due to their shared belief that Christian and Islamic civilization were incompatible and their similar right-wing ideologies.^[29][30]

References