A quick glance at the history of elections in Turkey.

• Author: Dalmis, Ibrahim
• Position: COMMENTARY - Report

In the months leading up to the local elections on March 30, 2014, Turkey's political scene set the stage for an unusually intense debate. During this period, various anti-government media outlets expressed their firm belief that the country's political landscape was on the brink of a major transformation. So strong was their conviction that opposition commentators had begun to speculate that the ruling AK Party government would have no choice but to call for early elections and possibly find itself removed from power. The elections, however, yielded unsurprising results as the balance of power between the political parties remained largely unaltered. Thus, it became clear that the glorified projections were more in line with wishful thinking and pipe dreams rather than real-life facts. As soon as the election results started flowing in, the opposition began sharing anecdotes about the late Aziz Nesin, a secularist writer and humorist who once famously claimed that 60 percent of Turkish citizens were idiots. Timeless classics such as how terribly ignorant the voters were and that the country indeed was suffering from Stockholm syndrome began to quickly circulate around social media outlets.

As a matter of fact, the pre-election overexcitement and post-election emotions of this nature have traditionally been common features of elections in Turkey. Furthermore, there is no indication that the current situation will change in the foreseeable future. Generally speaking, two traditions--right-wing politics and the Left--have dominated Turkish politics over the years. This study aims to analyze historic election results in order to determine roughly how much popular support each political movement enjoys in the country.

The Ottoman Empire's gradual disintegration and its failure to compete with the West gave rise to two political traditions, which evolved into distinctly opposite camps as a result of numerous developments in the late 19th and early 20th century. In general terms, one of the groups aspired to reach the ideal of Western values through a centralized administration, a fundamentally secularist brand of politics, social liberalism and a statist economic policy. Having attained considerable popularity in the final years of the Ottoman Empire, this political tradition had a serious following among the elites who founded the Republic in 1923. Their adversaries, understandably enough, made the case for a decentralized administrative structure that would bolster local values, social conservatism and economic liberalism, with a particular emphasis on democracy and political liberties.

From the Republic's establishment until its transition to a multi-party system in 1946, the Republican People's Party (CHP) single-handedly ruled the country as a handful of attempts to facilitate opposition parties proved futile and occasionally bloody. It was in this context that the Democrat Party (DP), which emerged immediately after the adoption of multi-party politics, was founded by none other than former CHP politicians, including Celal Bayar, Adnan Menderes, Fuad Koprulu and Refik Koraltan. For the purposes of this study, however, we shall ignore otherwise significant nuances and describe the CHP and its successors as the Left, while political parties tracing their heritage to the DP will be referred to as the Right.

Figure 1 provides a list of political parties that participated in parliamentary elections since 1950 and identifies their position within the broader Left-Right dichotomy:

Figure 1: A categorization of political parties in parliamentary elections since 19501 LEFT RIGHT CENTER FAR CENTER FAR 1950 CHP DP MP 1954 CHP DP CMP, TKP 1957 CHP, HP DP CMP 1961 CHP AP, YTP CKMP 1965 CHP TIP AP, YTP MP, CKMP 1969 CHP BP, TIP AP, YTP GP, MP, MHP 1973 CHP TBP AP, DP MSP,CGP, MHP, MP 1977 CHP TBP,TIP AP, DP MSP, MHP, CGP 1983 HP ANAP, MDP 1987 SHP, DSP ANAP, DYP RP, MCP, IDP 1991 SHP, DSP SP ANAP, DYP RP 1995 CHP, DSP IP ANAP, DYP RP, MHP, MP, YDP,YP 1999 CHP, DSP ODP, BP, IP, ANAP, DYP, MHP, FP, BBP, EMEP,SIP, DTP DP, MP,YDP DEPAR, DBP 2002 CHP, DSP, IP, ODP, TKP ANAP, DYP AKP, MHP, SP, YTP BBP, YP, BTP, MP 2007 CHP HYP, IP, TKP, DP AKP, MHP, SP, ODP, EMEP BTP, ATP 2011 CHP, DSP TKP, EMEP DP, DYP AKP, MHP, SP, HAS, BBP, MP, MMP OTHER 1950 Independents 1954 Independents 1957 Independents 1961 Independents 1965 Independents 1969 Independents 1973 Independents 1977 Independents 1983 Independents 1987 Independents 1991 Independents 1995 HADEP, Independents, YDH 1999 HADEP, Independents, LDP 2002 GP, DEHAP, Independents, LDP 2007 Independents, GP...