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New Turkey Party
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Yeni Türkiye Partisi (Turkish for New Turkey Party) was a political party in Turkey. It was founded in 2002 following a leadership crisis in the Demokratik Sol Parti (Turkish for Democratic Left Party) that was the major partner in a three party coalition government.
The old age and sickness of Bülent Ecevit, the Prime Minister and leader of Demokratik Sol Parti (DSP) caused rumours that his right arm Deputy Prime minister and Minister of State, Hüsamettin Özkan, had a secret agenda for replacing him. As a result Özkan was forced to resign. However, nearly half of DSP's parliamentarians followed him including İsmail Cem, the Minister of Foreign affairs. Özkan, Cem and Kemal Derviş, the Minister of State in charge of economy and the former Vice President of the World Bank, then decided to establish a new social democratic party, Yeni Türkiye Partisi. 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 the Prime minister Bülent Ecevit. However, things started to look bad for Yeni Türkiye as the party showed signs of organizational weakness. Moreover, Derviş changed his mind and joined the Republican People's Party (Turkey) (CHP) instead.
As a result Yeni Türkiye performed dismally in the November 3, 2002 general elections receiving only 1.2% of the eligible votes cast. The party's poor performance was repeated in the March 2004 local elections. In October 2004, the YTP merged with the CHP.