Today in History – 8 April

“Nine Principles” of the Republican People’s Party

Published on April 8, 1923 with the signatures of Gazi Mustafa Kemal and the president of the Roumelia Association for the Defense of National Rights, the Nine Principles comprised the ideals proclaimed as a declaration that would serve as the program of the People’s Party to be established. These nine principles reflected the characteristic and ideology of the Turkish revolution, as well as the founding ideology of the People’s Party inaugurated on September 11, 1923.

In the introduction of the declaration, Gazi Mustafa Kemal noted that the new and detailed party program based on national sovereignty, reform, and development would be announced later, but that the nine principles would constitute the main principles of the Anatolia and Roumelia Associations of National Defense in the Grand National Assembly elections to be held.

The first article of the declaration stated that sovereignty would rest unconditionally with the nation, that the nation would self-govern through the Grand National Assembly of Turkey as its sole representative, whereas the second article declared that the Sultanate had been abolished and that the sovereign power rested with the representative body of the Grand National Assembly. The other articles foresaw various restructurings from security to justice, from problems of farmers to railroad construction, from administrative changes to military service duration, and from education and healthcare, to social life.