Today in History – 14 May

DP comes to power with the first real election

The first free parliamentary elections in Turkey were to be held on May 14, 1950. Before the elections, İnönü said the following to his colleagues:

We have finally entered the democratic system. There will be elections; we will fight with all our power… Nothing more can be said once the elections are over. However, the people elected will serve the country for four years. We will begin to fight again once we enter the new election period.

The General Elections of 1950 marked the beginning of a new era in Turkey. The elections ended the CHP rule and initiated the Democrat Party period. The 1950 elections introduced a new law that adopted the “secret vote, open count” principle and brought judicial control over the votes. Employing the block vote system based on candidates, the 1950 Elections allowed voters to write the name of the candidate they preferred or to make the changes they wanted on the candidate indicated on printed ballots. Hence, voters could simultaneously vote for the candidate of more than one party, creating a mixed list.

The distribution of deputies was as follows after the elections: 416 for DP, 69 for CHP, 1 independent, and 1 for Nation Party (Millet Partisi).