Political Islam and the Welfare (Refah) Party in Turkey

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Welfare Party, Turkish political party noted for its Islamic orientation. It was founded in 1983 by Necmettin Erbakan. After doing well in local elections in the early 1990s, it won nearly one-third of the seats (the largest single bloc) in the 1995 national legislative elections, becoming the first religious party in Turkey to win a general election. It took office in 1996 at the head of a new coalition, after a centre-right coalition formed to oppose it collapsed after a few months. The party’s pro-Islamist policies brought it into conflict with the army and other secular elements in the country, and it left power in 1997. It was subsequently banned.

Necmettin Erbakan
prime minister of Turkey

Necmettin Erbakan (born October 29, 1926, Sinop, Turkey—died February 27, 2011, Ankara) Turkish politician whose tenure as the first Islamist prime minister of Turkey (1996–97) ended abruptly amid accusations that he was attempting to undermine Turkey’s secular constitution.

Erbakan was the son of one of the last Islamic judges of the Ottoman Empire, whose system of religious courts was replaced by a secular legal code after the founding of modern Turkey by Kemal Atatürk in 1923. He received degrees in mechanical engineering from Istanbul Technical University, where he later taught, and the Rhenish-Westphalian Technical University of Aachen, then in West Germany. He was elected in 1969 to the legislature as an independent in 1969 and formed an Islamic party the following year, but it was banned by the military government in 1971. He re-formed the party in 1972 and twice during the 1970s served as a deputy prime minister. In 1980 the military again banned the party and briefly imprisoned Erbakan. He was prohibited from engaging in politics from 1980 to 1987.

When he returned to politics, Erbakan became a leader of the pro-Islamic Welfare (Refah) Party, which was well organized on the local level and opposed what many saw as the arrogant corruption of the leaders of the established parties. In the run-up to the 1995 parliamentary elections, Erbakan advocated withdrawing from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, abrogating agreements with Israel, and developing closer ties with such Middle Eastern countries as Syria and Iran. His proposals were particularly unsettling to Western leaders, who had long depended on a friendly secular government in Turkey as a basis for their policy in the Middle East. A large segment of voters, however, seemed to support his views, as the Welfare Party won the largest number of seats, capturing 158 of the 550 seats in the legislature and thereby becoming the first Islamic party ever to win a general election in Turkey.

Early in 1996 Erbakan tried but failed to form a coalition government. A centre-right coalition of the True Path (Doğru Yol) and Motherland (Anavatan) parties then held power until internal disagreements brought it down in June. Erbakan was again asked to try to form a coalition, and this time, when Tansu Çiller, head of the True Path Party, agreed to join him, he succeeded.

On July 8, 1996, the national legislature of Turkey confirmed a coalition government headed by Erbakan. He and Çiller would alternate as prime minister, and the various other ministries were divided between the Welfare Party and the True Path Party. Erbakan’s tenure as prime minister marked the first time an Islamist had held the position, but it was short-lived. Fears that the Welfare Party was attempting to Islamicize the country led the military to force Erbakan to resign. He left office on June 18, 1997, and early in 1998 the Welfare Party was banned entirely. Erbakan was prohibited from political action for five years, and in 2000 he was convicted of “provoking hatred” for a speech he made in 1994 that attacked Turkey’s secular government. Though he avoided prison time, Erbakan was convicted in 2002 of having embezzled Welfare Party funds during its dissolution, and he was sentenced to more than two years of house arrest. He became politically active once again in 2003, after the end of his five-year ban, and worked with the pro-Islamic Felicity (Saadet) Party.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.
https://www.britannica.com/editor/Amy-Tikkanen/6393