PAINFUL BIRTH OF DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY: THE 1946 ELECTIONS

Abstract

The first general elections of the Republic of Turkey that took place on 21 July 1946 was not fairly concluded and was badly reminded because of some collusions and pressures experienced before, during and after the elections. The way the 1924 Constitution was elaborated and the ambiguity in party-state difference during the period between 1923 and 1946 were accompanied by anti-democratic habits resulting from the practices of one-party regime. In this respect, as some bureaucrats in the state service had concerns for their future in case of any change in the political system. Also the members of Republican People’s Party and again some bureaucrats used to equate themselves to the state and so they regarded all oppositions to the party as a threat against the state. On the other hand, for the first time, the Turkish people were given pledges for “their only one vote”; they tried to be persuaded and their situation was asked by the political parties as a part of election campaigns in July 1946. Thus they began to realize their role in the society and to understand the state’s new and embracing attitude in order to get their “only one vote”. As a reaction against the negative developments during the elections, some supporters of the Democrat Party wanted to defend their vote that they gave for the first time and they organized meetings and demonstrations from immediately after the announcement of the results of elections to the opening of the Assembly on 5 August 1946. By doing so, they tried to show their reactions in the frame of democratic limits. This proved that a part of Turkish people began to assume such democratic principles as free criticism and competition and the political system was becoming more dynamic. However, pressures and collusions experienced during the 1946 elections gave damage to the newly developing democracy which was hurt and could not recover. The 1946 elections determined the characteristic of the Turkish democracy and influenced its unfortunate fate. The developments during the elections caused the rise of a deep disappointment among many people and this disappointment became a determinative factor for shaping of relations between parties until 1960. The demonstrations organized by the Democrats after the 1946 elections and the declaration of “the oath of independence or the oath of enmity” by the DP administrators accelerated the process of division between the political parties. It should be noted that there was no possibility for the RPP to statistically lose the elections. However, if the Democrat Party attended to the elections in all cities by appointing nominees for all posts and if it won the elections there would possibly be some problems in the Turkish political life and in the run of the state’s internal and foreign politics. Despite such possible defects, the Turkish democracy would have been stronger and it would have been possible to overcome all problems. Consequently, emerging antagonism in the Turkish political life later exposed itself in all levels of the state and then this antagonism penetrated into public life and ordinary people. This was so obvious that people in villages and small towns began to separate their coffeehouses and mosques according to political parties they supported. This negative transformation in Turkish political and social life occurred as follows: Antagonism brought suspicion, suspicion brought fear and fear brought mistakes.

Özet

Türkiye Cumhuriyeti'nde çok partili siyasi hayatın ilk genel seçimi olan 21 Temmuz 1946 seçimleri, dürüst bir şekilde sonuçlanmamış; seçim öncesi, esnası ve sonrasında yaşanan bir takım hile ve baskılar, bu seçimlerin kötü bir ünle anılmasına sebep olmuştur. Daha da önemlisi seçimler esnasında yaşanan baskı ve tanık olunan hileler, yeni yeni filizlenmekte olan Türk demokrasisinin sakatlanmasına sebebiyet vermiş, demokrasinin kendisi bünyesel bir yara almış ve bu yara bir türlü iyileşememiştir. Buna karşın Temmuz 1946 tarihinde yaşanan siyasi gelişmeler doğrultusunda ilk kez Türk halkı, partiler arasındaki siyasi rekabetin bir çeşit dışa vurumu olan seçim propagandaları sonucunda, "bir tanecik reyi için " kendisine çeşitli vaatler verildiğini; bu çerçevede kendisinin ikna edilmeye çalışıldığını; hal ve hatırının sorulduğunu görmüştür. Bu doğrultuda artık kendisinin de bu toplum içerisinde yaşayan canlı bir organizma olduğunun farkına varıldığını ve kendisini kucaklamaya hazır farklı bir devlet anlayışının ortaya çıkmaya başladığını anlamış ve tüm bu değişimler için ise o "bir tanecik reyinin" öneminin farkına varmıştır. Bu yüzden de seçim döneminde yaşanan olumsuz gelişmeler karşısında DP'ye gönül vermiş olan bir kısım halk, siyasi iradesine konulmak istenen ipoteğe karşı yani ilk kez verdiği "oy"una sahip çıkmak amacıyla seçim sonuçlarının açıklanmasının hemen ardından yeni meclisin açılma tarihi olan 5 Ağustos 1946 tarihine kadar miting ve gösteriler düzenlemiş ve böylece demokratik ölçüler çerçevesinde tepkisini ortaya koymaya çalışmıştır. Bu çalışmada, o dönemin süreli yayınları temel alınarak, bir kısım Türk halkının demokrasinin temel ilkeleri olan serbest eleştiri ve murakabe prensiplerini meclis dışında da olsa benimsemeye başladığı ve bu durumun sisteme nasıl bir dinamiklik kazandırdığı ortaya konulmaya çalışılacaktır