A Contribution of Democracy Research to Turkish History: Evaluation of The National Turkish Party and Its Program

The National Turkish Party was founded on December 9th, 1919 in Istanbul. The National Turkish Party was founded prior to the 1919 election. In a sense; it aimed at maintaining policies of the National Constitutional Monarchy Party and the movement of Turkism in the period of the armistice and of an occupation and cosmopolitan climate. The party participated in the pre-election work and elections and made some name for itself. The party dissented in opinion from other parties at the National Congress. Abdulhak Adnan (Adıvar), Hamdullah Suphi (Tanrıöver), Mehmet Emin (Erişirgil) and Ahmet Ferit (Tek), party’s nominees, got into parliament in the elections in which the party participated with an independent list. In order to better understand the cosmopolitan pluralistic capital in a political way, we can consider that a newly established party, which formally adopted “Turkish Nationalism”, was able to win a parliamentary seat in armistice Istanbul. The National Turkish Party was not able to open any branch office except in Istanbul. They tried to explain themselves to the masses through the newspaper İfham. The party sent Ahmet Hikmet and Hamdullah Suphi as delegates to the National Congress. They were in conflict with other political organizations because of not taking a harsh attitude towards the Anatolian movement. The Party was strongly criticized especially by the Freedom and Accord Party circles for supporting the movement of the Union for the Defense of Law as well as centralizing the resistance point in Anatolia under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Pasha. After the invasion and abolition of the Ottoman Parliament, the party became unable to work in Istanbul. Ahmet Ferit, Dr. Adnan Adıvar and Hamdullah Suphi, the founders and directors of the party, moved to Ankara and participated in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. Thus, the political life of the National Turkish Party ended.