Painful Birth Of Democracy In Turkey: The 1946 Elections

The first general election of the Republic of Turkey on 21 July 1946 was not fairly concluded and was badly reminded because of some collusions and pressures before, during and after the election. For the first time, the Turkish people were given some pledges for “their only one vote”; they tried to be persuaded and their situation was asked by the political parties as a part of election campaigns in July 1946. Thus they began to realize their role in the society and to understand the state’s new and embracing attitude in order to get their “only one vote”. As a reaction against the negative developments before the election, the some supporters of the Democrat Party (DP) wanted to defend their vote that they gave for the first time and they organized meetings and demonstrations from immediately after the announcement of the election results to the opening of the Assembly on 5 August 1946. Thus they tried to show their reactions in the frame of democratic borders. This proved that a part of the Turkish people began to assume such democratic principles as free criticism and competition and the system was becoming more dynamic. However, pressures and collusions experienced during the 1946 elections determined the characteristics of newly developing Turkish democracy which was hurt and could not recover.

Keywords

the 1946 Elections, Republican People’s Party (CHP), Democrat Party (DP), Democracy