Bülent Ecevit

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Bülent Ecevit
Bülent Ecevit-Davos 2000 cropped.jpg
16th Prime Minister of Turkey
In office
11 January 1999 – 18 November 2002
PresidentSüleyman Demirel
Ahmet Necdet Sezer
DeputyDevlet Bahçeli
Hüsamettin Özkan
Şükrü Sina Gürel
Mesut Yılmaz
Hikmet Uluğbay
Preceded byMesut Yılmaz
Succeeded byAbdullah Gül
In office
5 January 1978 – 12 November 1979
PresidentFahri Korutürk
DeputyOrhan Eyüboğlu
Turhan Feyzioğlu
Hikmet Çetin
Faruk Sükan
Preceded bySüleyman Demirel
Succeeded bySüleyman Demirel
In office
21 June 1977 – 21 July 1977
PresidentFahri Korutürk
DeputyOrhan Eyüboğlu
Preceded bySüleyman Demirel
Succeeded bySüleyman Demirel
In office
26 January 1974 – 17 November 1974
PresidentFahri Korutürk
DeputyNecmettin Erbakan
Preceded byNaim Talu
Succeeded bySadi Irmak
Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey
In office
30 June 1997 – 11 January 1999
Prime MinisterMesut Yılmaz
Served withİsmet Sezgin
Preceded byTansu Çiller
Succeeded byHikmet Uluğbay
Leader of the Democratic Left Party
In office
15 January 1989 – 25 July 2004
Preceded byNecdet Karababa (acting)
Succeeded byZeki Sezer
In office
13 September 1987 – 7 March 1988
Preceded byRahşan Ecevit
Succeeded byNecdet Karababa
3rd Leader of the Republican People's Party
In office
14 May 1972 – 30 October 1980
Preceded byİsmet İnönü
Succeeded byDeniz Baykal (1992)
Member of the Grand National Assembly
In office
20 October 1991 – 18 November 2002
ConstituencyZonguldak (1991)
Istanbul (1995, 1999)
In office
27 October 1957 – 12 September 1980
ConstituencyAnkara (1957, 1961)
Zonguldak (1965, 1969, 1973, 1977)
Personal details
Born(1925-05-28)28 May 1925
Istanbul, Turkey
Died5 November 2006(2006-11-05) (aged 81)
Ankara, Turkey
Resting placeTurkish State Cemetery, Ankara
Political partyRepublican People's Party
(1957–1980)
Democratic Left Party
(1989–2006)
Spouse(s)
(m. 1946)
RelationsNazlı Ecevit (mother)
Alma materRobert College
School of Oriental and African Studies
Signature

Mustafa Bülent Ecevit (Turkish: [mustaˈfa byˈlænt edʒeˈvit]; 28 May 1925 – 5 November 2006) was a Turkish politician, statesman, poet, writer, scholar, and journalist, who served as the Prime Minister of Turkey four times between 1974 and 2002. He served as prime minister in 1974, 1977, 1978–79, and 1999–2002. Ecevit was the leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP) between 1972 and 1980, and in 1989 he became the leader of the Democratic Left Party (DSP). He is credited for introducing social democratic politics to Turkey by synthesizing Kemalism with social democracy, thus making social democracy a core tenet in modern Kemalist ideology.

Ecevit first came to prominence in national politics as Minister of Labour in İsmet İnönü's cabinets, and represented the rising left-wing faction of the CHP, lead by İnönü. Ecevit would eventually become leader of the CHP in 1972; his leadership rejuvenated the party by reaching out to working class voters and cementing the party as "left of center". In his first premiership Ecevit was responsible for the invasion of Cyprus.

After the 1980 coup, Ecevit, along with the notables of all other parties, was banned from politics for 10 years. During the ban, the DSP was established under the chairmanship of his wife, Rahşan Ecevit. When the political ban was lifted with a referendum held in 1987, he became the head of the DSP. Ecevit would return to the premiership in 1999 in the DSP-MHP-ANAP coalition, and carried out the capture of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan. Following the DSP's expulsion from parliament after being unable to clear the electoral threshold in the 2002 elections, he resigned the chairmanship in 2004. He died on Sunday, November 5, 2006, as a result of circulatory and respiratory failure.

Early life[]

He was born in Istanbul to a middle-class family. Ecevit's father Fahri Ecevit was a professor in Ankara University. His mother, Fatma Nazlı, was among the first women in Turkey to paint professionally.[1] Ecevit said his mother was of Bosniak ancestry.[2] [3] [4]

In 1944, Ecevit graduated from Robert College in Istanbul and started working as a translator at the General Directorate for Press and Publication (Turkish: Basın Yayın Genel Müdürlüğü). In 1946, shortly after marrying his classmate Rahşan Aral in 1946, he moved to London, United Kingdom, to work for Turkey's press attaché. During his stay in London, he studied Bengali, Sanskrit and Art History at the School of Oriental and African Studies, but did not graduate.[5] He later went to the United States in the mid–1950s on a State Department fellowship, and worked at Winston-Salem Journal and Sentinel newspapers in North Carolina.[6][7]

Early political life[]

Ecevit was elected into the Turkish parliament for the first time in 1957. He was a Member of the Parliament between 1960 and 1961 during the 26th, 27th and 28th governments. Ecevit served as the Minister of Labour between 1961 and 1965, contributing to the acceptance of the right to strike and collective agreement. In 1966 he became the secretary general of the Republican People's Party (Turkish: Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP). In 1971 he resigned from the post as a protest to the party decision to support the transitional government established by a military intervention.[citation needed]

Leader of CHP[]

Bulent Ecevit with the President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, at the White House, 31 May 1978.

In 1972, he succeeded İsmet İnönü as the leader of the party. Upon assuming the leadership of the CHP, Ecevit played a major role in redefining the party's political position in the centre-left (Turkish: Ortanın solu), which proved controversial. In the 1973 general election, the CHP won a plurality of the votes and seats in parliament. Despite the party's secular credentials, Ecevit formed a coalition with the Islamist National Salvation Party (MSP) headed by Necmettin Erbakan.[8] Despite lasting only ten months, Ecevit's first government was responsible for the successful Turkish invasion of Cyprus, for which he is nicknamed the 'Conqueror of Cyprus' (Turkish: Kıbrıs Fatihi).[9]

CHP defeated the Justice Party in the 1977 general elections by gathering 41% of the votes (the election came just after the events of 1 May). Despite winning an increased share of the votes and seats in the 1977 general election, Ecevit was unable to form a coalition and instead formed a minority government which lasted just one month. Justice Party leader Süleyman Demirel subsequently took over as Prime Minister and formed a three-party nationalist coalition. Ecevit's CHP was able to bring down Demirel's government by 1978, after which he became Prime Minister for a third time by forming a government supported by some independent MPs. His term was marked by the violence in Kahramanmaraş against Alevis and his supperters and their subsequent reprisals against right wing activists. Following the violence his government issued martial law on at the final days of December 1978 in thirteen provinces mainly in southeastern Turkey, but also in Istanbul and Ankara.[10] Ecevit resigned as Prime Minister in 1979 following an election defeat in the 1979 senate elections.[citation needed]

Bülent Ecevit recalled that he learned for the first time of the existence of Operation Gladio, a secret "stay-behind" NATO army, in 1974. He has also said he suspected "Counter-Guerrilla", the Turkish branch of Gladio, of responsibility for 1 May 1977 Taksim Square massacre in Istanbul, during which snipers fired on a protest rally of 500,000 citizens, killing 38 and injuring hundreds.

Leader of DSP[]

Following the 1980 coup led by General Kenan Evren, Ecevit was incarcerated and suspended from active politics for life along with the other political leaders of the time. A referendum in 1987 lifted his ban from politics, and he became the chairman of the Democratic Left Party (Turkish: Demokratik Sol Parti, DSP), inheriting the position from his wife, Rahşan Ecevit. His party failed to enter the National Assembly at the 1987 national elections, and in spite of passing the electoral barrier in 1991 managed to win only 7 seats in parliament. DSP's fortunes changed after the 1995 elections, when the party won 75 seats, out of possible 550. After two short-lived governments, formed by Mesut Yılmaz and Necmettin Erbakan, respectively, Ecevit became a deputy prime minister in the last government of Mesut Yılmaz. In 1998, he became caretaker Prime Minister in the run-up to the 1999 general elections (56th government of Turkey). In those elections – also helped by the fact that Abdullah Öcalan, head of the separatist (PKK) was apprehended in Kenya and flown to Turkey during this period – Ecevit's party gained the largest number of seats, leading to Ecevit's final term as Prime Minister in a coalition with the Motherland Party (Turkish: Anavatan Partisi, ANAP) of Mesut Yılmaz and the Nationalist Movement Party (Turkish: Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP) of Devlet Bahçeli.[citation needed]

Ecevit's government undertook a number of reforms aimed at stabilizing the Turkish economy in preparation for accession negotiations with the European Union. Despite initial attempts to bring about economic reforms, an argument between Ecevit and President Ahmet Necdet Sezer in 2001 led to a financial crash due to the instability of both the government and the economic situation. The downfall of the government was also speculated to bring an end to an existing bailout package funded by the International Monetary Fund. Despite this, the government made swift progress in bringing about an economic recovery, spearheaded by the new Minister of Economic Affairs Kemal Derviş. Nevertheless, almost half of the DSP group in the parliament defected from the DSP to form İsmail Cem İpekçi's New Turkey Party (YTP). On the other hand, allegations of corruption, the economic crisis, as well as Ecevit's poor health made early elections unavoidable and the DSP faced an electoral wipeout in the 2002 general election, losing all of its MPs. Ecevit resigned as DSP leader in 2004.[8]

As a poet and writer[]

Bülent Ecevit was not only a politician but also a poet and a writer. He translated works by Rabindranath Tagore, T. S. Eliot, and Omer Tarin into Turkish.[8] Ecevit, who also studied at the American Robert College, one of the most prestigious high schools in Istanbul, was successful in these literary endeavors despite never having graduated from a university, a fact that also prevented him from ever running for the Presidency of the Turkish Republic.[citation needed]

Ecevit's tomb at the State Cemetery in Ankara, Turkey.

Illness and death[]

Ecevit was hospitalized in Ankara and placed in a medically induced coma after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage on 18 May 2006, which struck him after he attended a friend's funeral. He died there from respiratory failure on 5 November 2006 at 20:40 (UTC), aged 81. He was buried in the Turkish State Cemetery (Turkish: Devlet Mezarlığı) in Ankara in a state funeral on 11 November 2006. The funeral was attended by approximately a million people from all 81 provinces.[11]

Works[]

Poetry[]

  • Işığı Taştan Oydum (I Carved Light Out of Stone) (1978)
  • El Ele Büyüttük Sevgiyi (We Raised Love Hand in Hand) (1997)

Political[]

  • Ortanın Solu (Left of the Center) (1966)
  • Bu Düzen Değişmelidir (This Order Should Change) (1968)
  • Atatürk ve Devrimcilik (Atatürk and Revolutionism) (1970)
  • Kurultaylar ve Sonrası (Party Congresses and After) (1972)
  • Demokratik Sol ve Hükümet Bunalımı (Democratic Left and Government Crisis) (1974)
  • Demokratik Solda Temel Kavramlar ve Sorunlar (Basic Definitions and Problems in Democratic Left) (1975)
  • Dış Politika (Foreign Policy) (1975)
  • Dünya-Türkiye-Milliyetçilik (World-Turkey-Nationalism) (1975)
  • Toplum-Siyaset-Yönetim (Society-Politics-Government) (1975)
  • İşçi-Köylü El Ele (Workers and Peasants Hand in Hand) (1976)
  • Türkiye / 1965–1975 (Turkey / 1965–1975) (1976)
  • Umut Yılı: 1977 (Year of Hope: 1977) (1977)

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Kinzer, Stephen (6 November 2006). "Bülent Ecevit, a Political Survivor Who Turned Turkey Toward the West, Is Dead at 81". The New York Times. p. 2. Retrieved 6 November 2006.
  2. ^ Yavuz, Ercan (4 August 2004). ""Kürt kökenli olabilirim"". Akşam (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 22 August 2008. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
  3. ^ Çetin, Mahmut (2006). Çinli Hoca'nın torunu Ecevit (in Turkish). Emre Yayınları. p. 18.
  4. ^ "Joe Biden's misguided views on 'the Kurds' are a cause for concern". TRT World. 18 August 2020. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
  5. ^ "Siyasetin Şairi Karaoğlan". Hürriyet. Archived from the original on 18 February 2013. Retrieved 1 February 2013.
  6. ^ Erdoğan, Aras (2006). Umut Ecevit (in Turkish). Kesit. p. 19. ISBN 9789944321082.
  7. ^ Tan, Altan (2009). Kürt Sorunu (in Turkish). Timaş. p. 493. ISBN 9789752638846.
  8. ^ Jump up to: a b c "Ecevit quits Politics". Bianet. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
  9. ^ "Ecevit anlatıyor: Kıbrıs Barış Harekatının perde arkası". OdaTV (in Turkish). 20 August 2019. Retrieved 8 April 2021. Türkiye ayağa kalkmış, "Karaoğlan" kahraman olmuştu. Dağlara taşlara adı yazılıyor, evlerin, kahvehanelerin duvarlarını, otomobillerin camlarını "Kıbrıs Fatihi"nin resimleri süslüyordu.
  10. ^ Pekesen, Berna (2020). Turkey in Turmoil, Social Change and Political Radicalization during the 1960s. De Gruyter Oldenbourg. pp. 167–173. ISBN 978-3-11-065039-6.
  11. ^ Cevizoğlu, Hulki (11 November 2006), Kanaltürk Evening News.[verification needed]

External links[]

Party political offices
Preceded by
İsmet İnönü
Leader of the Republican's People Party (CHP)
14 May 1972 – 29 October 1980
Succeeded by
1980 Military coup and later Deniz Baykal
Preceded by
Rahşan Ecevit
Leader of the Democratic Left Party (DSP)
13 Sep 1987–1988
Succeeded by
Necdet Karababa
Preceded by
Necdet Karababa
Leader of the Democratic Left Party (DSP)
1989–25 Jul 2004
Succeeded by
Zeki Sezer
Political offices
Preceded by
Naim Talu
Prime Minister of Turkey
26 January 1974 – 17 November 1974
Succeeded by
Sadi Irmak
Preceded by
Süleyman Demirel
Prime Minister of Turkey
21 June 1977 – 21 July 1977
Succeeded by
Süleyman Demirel
Preceded by
Süleyman Demirel
Prime Minister of Turkey
5 January 1978 – 12 November 1979
Succeeded by
Süleyman Demirel
Preceded by
Tansu Çiller
Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey
30 June 1997 – 11 January 1999
Succeeded by
Hüsamettin Özkan
Hikmet Uluğbay
Preceded by
Mesut Yılmaz
Prime Minister of Turkey
11 January 1999 – 19 November 2002
Succeeded by
Abdullah Gül
Preceded by
Kemal Satır
Secretary-General of the Republican People's Party
1966–1971
Succeeded by
Şeref Bakşık
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