1997 Military Memorandum (Turkey) - Aftermath

Aftermath

After the process following military memorandum, Erbakan was forced to resign. Although DYP, RP and BBP declared that they should form the new government with the Prime ministership of Tansu Çiller, Demirel appointed ANAP leader Mesut Yılmaz to form the new government. He formed a new coalition government with Bülent Ecevit (DSP leader) and Hüsamettin Cindoruk (the founder and the leader of DTP, a party founded after 28 February Process by former DYP members) on 30 June 1997. The Welfare Party was closed by the Constitutional Court in 1998. Necmettin Erbakan was banned from politics for 5 years and former MP members and mayors of RP joined the Virtue Party. Istanbul mayor, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan from Virtue Party was given a prison sentence after he had read a nationalist and Islamist poet and he was banned from politics forever. In the 1999 general elections, The Virtue Party won many seats in the parliament but it was not as successful as the RP in the 1995 general elections. One of the MP members of the party was Merve Kavakçı who wore an Islamic headscarf. The Virtue Party was also closed by the Constitutional Court in 2001 because of Merve Kavakçı's entrance to the parliament. Although former Istanbul mayor Erdoğan was banned from politics, he managed to form the Justice and Development Party, a reformist party that declared not to be a political party with a religious axis. The traditional Islamists formed the Felicity Party.