Today in History – 11 September

The 13th Convention of CHP

CHP entered its 13th convention, which began on September 9, 1957, in search of alliances due to the increasing pressure of the Democrat Party (DP) rule. Before the convention, the three opposition parties, namely CHP, Republican National Party (CMP) and Liberty Party (HP) issued a declaration on September 4th, on the anniversary of the Sivas Congress of 1919 and announced that they were to join forces prior to the General Elections of October 22, 1957. Therefore, representatives of CMP and HP also participated in the CHP convention. The collaboration of the three opposition parties was endorsed at the convention.

However, in order to avoid the coalition of the opposition parties, the DP government made an amendment to election law and prevented the creation of an alliance between parties before the election. Following this development, CHP announced on September 19th that it would enter the elections alone.

Despite a decline in votes, DP managed to remain in power after the general elections of October. As DP gained 610 seats in the parliament with 47.9% of the votes, CHP remained at 178 with 41%. However, the number of cities in which CHP won rose considerably compared to the 1954 elections with CHP coming out first out of the cities in which DP was formerly in the lead.