Oregano

General elections were held in Turkey on 20 October 1991, to elect members to the 19th Grand National Assembly. It was the first by the ruling Motherland Party to be contested without its founding leader, Turgut Özal, who had become Turkish president two years previously. The result was a swing against Özal's former party in favour of its fierce centre-right rival, the True Path Party led by Süleyman Demirel. The vote saw two additional parties cross the 10 percent barrier to enter parliament. Necmettin Erbakan and his Welfare Party saw a party of religious background returned for the first time in 14 years. Welfare had a greatly increased share of the vote and took several key provinces, including Istanbul in 1994 local elections. Bülent Ecevit's Democratic Left Party also scraped through to win seven seats. Voter turnout was 83.9%.^[1]

Background

The diversification of the communication tools in the 1980s and 1990s affected political campaigns. One feature that distinguished the 1991 elections from previous ones was the presence of private television channels and the ability of parties to advertise on television.^[2]

An electoral alliance called the "holy alliance" was formed by the Welfare Party, Nationalist Task Party and Reformist Democracy Party to contest the elections.^[3]

The pro-Kurdish People's Labour Party (HEP) contested the elections on the Social Democratic Populist Party (SHP) list.^[4]

Results

Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/–
	True Path Party	6,600,726	27.03	178	+119
	Motherland Party	5,862,623	24.01	115	–177
	Social Democratic Populist Party	5,066,571	20.75	88	–11
	Welfare Party	4,121,355	16.88	62	+62
	Democratic Left Party	2,624,301	10.75	7	+7
	Socialist Party	108,369	0.44	0	New
	Independents	32,721	0.13	0	0
Total		24,416,666	100.00	450	0
Valid votes		24,416,666	97.06
Invalid/blank votes		740,423	2.94
Total votes		25,157,089	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		29,979,123	83.92
Source: Nohlen et al.

References