New Turkey Party or abbreviated as NTP, ( tr, Yeni Türkiye Partisi, YTP) was a social democratic

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

. It was founded in 2002 following a leadership crisis in the Democratic Left Party ( tr, Demokratik Sol Parti, DSP) that was the major partner in a three party

coalition government A coalition government is a form of government in which political parties cooperate to form a government. The usual reason for such an arrangement is that no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an election, an atypical outcome in ...

History

The health condition of elder statesman

Bülent Ecevit Mustafa Bülent Ecevit (; 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 ...

, the

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

and leader of the party led to rumours that his Deputy Prime minister and Minister of State, Hüsamettin Özkan, was plotting to replace him. As a result, Özkan was forced to resign, nearly half of DSP's parliamentarians followed him including

İsmail Cem İsmail Cem (born İsmail Cem İpekçi, 15 February 1940 – 24 January 2007) was a Turkish centre-leftist politician, intellectual and journalist who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey from 1997 to 2002. Background İsmail Cem ...

, the Minister of Foreign affairs. Özkan,

Zeki Eker Zeki Eker (born 1956 in Muş) is a Turkish politician of Kurdish origin. He was the MP for Muş in the 21st Parliament of Turkey, representing the Democratic Left Party. During his time as MP, he served as the administrative chief of the parlia ...

, Cem and

Kemal Derviş Kemal Derviş (; born 10 January 1949) is a Turkish economist and politician, and former head of the United Nations Development Programme. He was honored by the government of Japan for having "contributed to mainstreaming Japan's development ass ...

, the Minister of State in charge of economy, then decided to establish a new

social democratic Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote soci ...

party. İsmail Cem became the leader of the party. The new party was received warmly by the public opinion. Most of the electorate was critical of the government because of the economic crises in 2000 and 2001, as well as the poor health of Ecevit. However, things started to look bad for NTP as the party showed signs of organizational weakness. Moreover, Derviş changed his mind and joined the

Republican People's Party The Republican People's Party ( tr, Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, , acronymized as CHP ) is a Kemalist and social-democratic political party in Turkey which currently stands as the main opposition party. It is also the oldest political party ...

(CHP) instead. As a result, the YTP performed dismally in the 2002 general election (receiving only 1.2% of the eligible votes cast) and again in the 2004 local elections. In October 2004, the YTP was merged into the

(CHP).

References

Defunct social democratic parties in Turkey Political parties established in 2002 2002 establishments in Turkey Political parties disestablished in 2004 2004 disestablishments in Turkey {{Historical parties in Turkey