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ty from arrest while increasing the penalties for arrested non-politicians. In the same year, a law was passed requiring all political meetings to be permitted by local authorities, increasing the DP’s authority against political opposition. The DP further exercised their authority in 1957 by enacting a law to force all opposing parties to have as many candidates as the number of seats they were entitled to, thereby causing a great amount of competition within other parties, while the DP became even more dominant. With the help of this law, the DP won more than two thirds of the seats in the 1957 elections while winning less than half of the vote. Finally, in 1960, the DP went too far with its spree of unjust law-passing. After passing a law calling for a thorough investigation of all activities of opposing parties, a student rebellion broke out. The CHP would not agree to the terms of the commission on the grounds that “it crushed the constitutional rights of the citizens (Eren, 37).” The DP countered by passing a law causing the censure and suppression of all forms of media. This was the last straw, and a military coup erupted. The Presidential Palace, the prime ministry and the parliament were all immediately occupied by Turkish military forces. The president, the prime minister and his cabinet were apprehended, and all parliamentary members of the DP were arrested (Eren, 38). The Democratic Party had been overthrown after a decade of dominance. The military government announced that it intended to create a new, more democratic government in Turkey, and it formed a National Unity Committee to handle the burden of drafting the new Turkish Constitution. The new Constitution put an emphasis on natural human rights, thrusting them into the forefront, much like other successful successful constitutions such as the U.S. Constitution. The new Constitution reformed the weaknesses in the parliamentary system that had led to a one party dictatorship. It also formed a Constitutional Court to maintain justice and a Senate to keep the power of the National Assembly in check. These new additions greatly imitated the bicameral legislature and judicial branch of the U.S. Constitution. The Turkish Constitution declares, in its first two articles, that, “The Turkish state is a Republic. The Turkish Republic is a national democratic, secular and social state governed by the rule of law, based on human rights (Eren, 39).” The Constitution was approved by the Turkish public in a vote which took place July 9, 1961. Thus, a new government in Turkey began. The political parties now consisted of the CHP, the Justice Party (Adalet Partisi – AP), the heir of the DP, the New Turkey Party and the Nationalist Action Party. The CHP held 173 out of 450 seats in the National Assembly and thirty-six out of 150 in the senate while the AP held 158 in the National assembly and seventy in the Senate. The New Turkey Party and the Justice Party shared the rest of the seats (Metz, 43). The Republic prospered in subsequent years until 1970, when economic and social distress, combined with general unrest caused by the slowness of reform caused the threat military coup to loom once again over Turkey. Politically-inspired acts of violence occurred all over the nation in response to these problems. The National Assembly was forced to convene in 1973 to elect successors to the heads of the Turkish Republic in an attempt to bring about reform. Fahri Koruturk took office as president as the seats in the National Assembly and the Senate were redistributed during the 1973 elections. The newly-formed National Salvation Party and the Democratic Party gained the most seats. But this administration was ineffective for the most part. Subsequent attempts at reform also failed and in 1978, the government proclaimed martial law to calm the numerous outbreaks of violence. Martial law subsequently evolved into a coup d’etat in 1980 when the Turkish army took control. The new military regime’s primary objective was to bring law and order to the chaotic nation by destroying and rebuilding. The Grand National assembly was dissolved and all political parties were abolished. The new constitution was presented in 1982. It emphasized the power of the president, borrowing from the constitution of France’s Fifth Republic. The grand majority of the Turkish public approved the document, desperately hoping that it would bring about reform (Metz, 62). All politicians from before 1980 were banned from politics, making the government completely new. New parties formed, including the Motherland Party, the Populist Party, the True Path Party and the Nationalist Democracy Party. Because of its image as the party most distant from the military and the general dislike of the martial rule in Turkey, the Motherland Party was a favorite of the people after the coup ended. Turgut Ozal emerged as the party’s leader and worked to gain the acceptance of the people, intending to run for president in 1989. Ozal was elected president by the parliament that year and took office just as Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait was causing a crisis in the Persian Gulf. Turkey was hit hard by UN sanctions against Iraq, which stagnated Turkey’s oil supply from Iraq. Ozal decisively moved to help the United States’ efforts in the Middle East in the hopes that it would improve Turkey’s image among foreign nations and possibly gain the nation admission into the EC. As the 1991 elections approached, the nation of Turkey was anxious to see what would happen with the new elections. Would chaos erupt in the nation again? The Turkish people were relieved as power passed from the Motherland Party to its arch rival, the True Path Party without any incident. Following this new relative political stability were reforms in roads and telecommunications. But Turkey from the 1990s until the present day has been far from stable. Efforts in the 1980s help Turkey’s struggling economy only served to increase inflation to 70 percent and raise the government’s deficit. In addition, the threat of social revolution is omnipresent. As a result of the great amounts of arrests of revolutionaries and unjust mass trials stemming from the 1980 coup, many harbor resentment against the Turkish government. The following is an excerpt from the pamphlet, “We Are Right And We Will Win,” written recently by Turkish revolutionaries, outlining plans for what they believe is an inevitable revolution in Turkey:
What path will the revolution in Turkey take? Will the revolution in Turkey resemble the military coup of the oligarchy, occupying the streets and squares with tanks in the morning, confining the people to their houses? Will it resemble the "ballotbox socialism" of Chile where Allende, in the moment he believed he "had made it", became the victim of the tanks and the cannons which surrounded the presidential palace? No, the revolution in Turkey will not resemble any of these events. We're neither putschists, nor conspirators. Putsch and conspiracy belong to the bourgeoisie. We're no dreamers either. The hope of achieving the revolution by means of the ballot boxes is the hope of petit-bourgeois dreamers, not the hope of the revolutionaries.
The path of the revolution in Turkey is determined by Marxism-Leninism. The revolution in Turkey will be no copy of a revolution in another country. A revolution which copies a revolution in another country cannot be successful. The differences in the objective conditions can suffocate such a struggle in its beginning. And we are not people of dogmas and conventions, just as we are no putschists or dreamers. Marxism is opposed to dogmas and set conventions, that's why it is revolutionary. Revolutionary Marxism can only be shown in a revolutionary struggle which applies the forms of struggle and means which are according to the conditions of the country where the struggle is waged. Dogmatism and thinking in set conventions are contrary to a revolutionary view of the struggle (DHKC Information Bureau).
The events after Ataturk’s death have shown that Turkey is yet to find a government to please all of its people. The revolution cycle, much like the Chinese Dynastic Cycle, seems due to repeat itself until a jarring event in the form of the creation of a prosperous, capitalistic, democratic, republican, unorthodox society.
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