A Sample of the Relationship Between Ruling and Opposition Parties: Ataturk Protection Law

The call for “democratized countries” at the San Francisco Conference by the capitalist forces which won the Second World War also made a broad impact in Turkey. This impact showed its effects by setting the ground for the establishment of political parties. It can be claimed that Ismet Inonu personally or the political environment that was formed under the influence of existing conditions, helped to shape the phenomenon of the opposition in Turkey. In the frame of the Law of Land for Farmers, some of the parliament members such as Adnan Menderes, Fuat Köprülü, Refik Koraltan and Emin Sazak resigned from the ruling party, Republican People’s Party, and started to opposition by setting up Democratic Party under the leadership of Celal Bayar. The foundation of the Democratic Party as the third attempt for multi-party system was a kind of play on the relationship between ruling and opposition parties performed at the theatre stage. In this play, the actor was government and the opposition party was in the role of pawn. In this study, the struggles of the political parties which were established after Second Constitutionalist Period, an argument of Turkish modernism, will be discussed including the period until 1950. The main thesis of the paper is based on Ataturk Conservation Law which was enacted in 1951. Ataturk Conservation Law is a regulation which was made due to the virtual attacks on Ataturk’s busts and statues. The psychological action of ruling and opposition party representatives toward search other during the arrangement of the regulation is going to be presented on the ruling-opposition party ground. As a result of the findings deduced from the study, it will be realized that the democracy culture in Turkey has not become established yet, and the groups merely act with the purpose of overcoming each other.

Keywords

Ataturk Protection Law, Democracy, Statesmanship, Modernization