The 54th government of Turkey governed Turkey from 28 June 1996 to 30 June 1997. It was a coalition government formed by Welfare Party (RP) and True Path Party (DYP), and was known as Refahyol (a portmanteau of the Turkish names of the two parties in the coalition).
After the fall of the 53rd government of Turkey, in which True Path Party (DYP) was one of the participants, Welfare Party (RP) and True Path Party (DYP) formed a coalition government.
Initially, Necmettin Erbakan of Welfare Party was the prime minister and Tansu Çiller of True Path Party was the deputy prime minister. After two years, they were to rotate in the position. However, the DYP was the third-largest in the parliament, and when Erbakan stepped down to begin the rotation, President Süleyman Demirel asked Mesut Yılmaz, leader of the Motherland Party which was the second-largest, to form the new government instead. [1] [2]
In the list below, the serving period of cabinet members who served only a part of the cabinet's lifespan are shown in the column "Notes".
Necmettin Erbakan resigned as prime minister, hoping his coalition partner Tansu Çiller would be the next prime minister and a similar government would be formed. However, president Süleyman Demirel appointed Mesut Yılmaz of Motherland Party as the new prime minister [5] (see Prime ministership of Necmettin Erbakan).
Ahmet Mesut Yılmaz was a Turkish politician. He was the leader of the Motherland Party from 1991 to 2002, and served three times as Prime Minister of Turkey. His first two prime-ministerial terms lasted just months, while the third ran from June 1997 to January 1999. The first was brought to an end by defeat in the 1991 elections, the latter two by the breakdown of Yılmaz' coalition governments.
Tansu Çiller is a Turkish academic, economist, and politician who served as the 22nd Prime Minister of Turkey from 1993 to 1996. She is Turkey's first and only female prime minister to date. As the leader of the True Path Party, she went on to concurrently serve as Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey and as Minister of Foreign Affairs between 1996 and 1997.
The Democrat Party, abbreviated to DP, is a liberal conservative Turkish political party, established by Ahmet Nusret Tuna in 1983 as the True Path Party. It succeeded the historical Democrat Party and the Justice Party, two parties with similar ideologies. Their sister party is the centrist Good Party.
Necmettin Erbakan 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.
The multi-party period of the Republic of Turkey started with the establishment of the opposition Liberal Republican Party by Ali Fethi Okyar in 1930 after President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk asked Okyar to establish the party as part of an attempted transition to multi-party democracy in Turkey. It was soon closed by the Republican People's Party government, however, when Atatürk found the party to be too influenced by Islamist-rooted reactionary elements.
The 1997 military memorandum in Turkey refers to the decisions issued by the Turkish military leadership on a National Security Council meeting on 28 February 1997. This memorandum initiated the process that precipitated the resignation of Islamist prime minister Necmettin Erbakan of the Welfare Party, and the end of his coalition government.
General elections were held in Turkey on Sunday 24 December 1995, triggered by the newly re-established Republican People's Party's (CHP) withdrawal from a coalition government with the True Path Party (DYP). The coalition had been in government for four years, having been formed by the Social Democratic Populist Party, the CHP's predecessor.
The True Path Party was a centre-right political party in Turkey, active from 1983 to 2007. For most of its history, the party's central figure was Süleyman Demirel, a former Prime Minister of Turkey who previously led the Justice Party (AP) before it was shut down in the aftermath of the 1980 military coup. The DYP was widely considered the successor of both the AP and the Democrat Party (DP), active in Turkey's early multi-party period.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Turkey relied heavily on foreign investment for economic growth, with trade above 40% of GNP. The Turkish government and banking systems lacked the financial means to support meaningful economic growth. The government was already running enormous budget deficits, and one of the ways it managed to sustain these was by selling huge quantities of high-interest bonds to Turkish banks. Continuing inflation meant that the government could avoid defaulting on the bonds in the short term. As a consequence, Turkish banks came to rely on these high-yield bonds as a primary investment.
Yıldırım Aktuna was a Turkish psychiatrist, politician, district mayor and government minister in a number of cabinets.
The 49th government of Turkey was a coalition government formed by True Path Party (DYP) and Social Democratic Populist Party (SHP).
The 50th government of Turkey was a coalition government formed by True Path Party (DYP) and Social Democratic Populist Party (SHP).
Events in the year 1993 in Turkey.
Events in the year 1994 in Turkey.
Events in the year 1995 in Turkey.
Events in the year 1996 in Turkey.
Events in the year 1997 in Turkey.
İsmet Sezgin was a Turkish politician who served as the Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey and Minister of National Defense from 1997 to 1999, as the Speaker of the Grand National Assembly in 1995, as the Minister of the Interior from 1991 to 1993, as the Minister of Finance from 1979 to 1980 and as the Minister of Youth and Sports from 1969 to 1971. Between 1999 and 2002, he served as the Leader of the Democrat Turkey Party, but did not contest any elections.
Işılay Saygın was a Turkish architect, politician, and four-time government minister between 1995 and 1999.
From early 1996 until the middle of 1997, Erbakan was prime minister and the Welfare party ruled Turkey, its rural and religious style provoking a strong reaction from much of the metropolitan middle class and the military. In February 1997, the military sent tanks into an Islamist town near Ankara and issued a set of demands. Erbakan decided to step down and allow the junior partner in the coalition to lead the government. But he was wrongfooted when Demirel, now president of the republic, appointed the leader of a third party as prime minister.
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