Political Activities
Erbakan's ideology is set forth in a manifesto, entitled Millî Görüş (National View), which he published in 1969. The Islamist organisation of the same name, which he founded and of which he was the leader, upholds nowadays that the word "national" is to be understood in the sense of monotheistic ecumenism.
One the leading names in Turkish politics for decades, Erbakan was the leader of a series of Islamist political parties that he founded or inspired. These parties rose to prominence only to be banned by Turkey's secular authorities. In the 1970s, Erbakan was chairman of the National Salvation Party which, at its peak, served in coalition with the Republican People's Party of Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit during the Cyprus crisis of 1974.
In the wake of the 1980 military coup, Erbakan and his party were banned from politics. He reemerged following a referendum to lift the ban in 1987 and became the leader of Refah Partisi (Welfare Party). His party benefited in the 1990s from the acrimony between the leaders of Turkey's two most prominent conservative parties, Mesut Yılmaz and Tansu Çiller. He led his party to a surprise success in the general elections of 1995.
Read more about this topic: Necmettin Erbakan
Famous quotes containing the words political and/or activities:
“The rage for road building is beneficent for America, where vast distance is so main a consideration in our domestic politics and trade, inasmuch as the great political promise of the invention is to hold the Union staunch, whose days already seem numbered by the mere inconvenience of transporting representatives, judges and officers across such tedious distances of land and water.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The old, subjective, stagnant, indolent and wretched life for woman has gone. She has as many resources as men, as many activities beckon her on. As large possibilities swell and inspire her heart.”
—Anna Julia Cooper (1859–1964)