Former Turkish President Suleyman Demirel Dies at 90
ANKARA, Turkey, June 17 (UPI) — Former Turkish President and Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel, who was key to the nation’s socioeconomic transformation of the 1960s and ’70s, died Wednesday at age 90.
Demirel died at 2:05 a.m. of heart failure and a respiratory infection at Ankara’s Guven Hospital, just a year after his wife, Nazmiye, died.
Demirel, a supporter of right-wing groups throughout his political career, served as prime minister multiple times and president once. He weathered several military coups and helped shift Turkey from an agrarian society to an industrialized country whose standard of living rose.
Although Demirel and his supporters believed he played a role in Turkey’s socioeconomic transformation in the 1960s and ’70s, critics detract from his accomplishments by arguing that he epitomized a culture that prioritized power above principles and was no stranger to patronage and corruption.
Trained as an engineer and the head of a dam-building program by age 40, Demirel’s political career began in 1960 when a military coup deposed the government of Adnan Menderes and left a vacuum in the center-right of the political sphere, which Demirel filled as the leader of the newly formed Justice Party. Demirel’s canny use of Islam symbols and rural background landed him votes in rural areas with conservative voters, lending him a landslide victory in 1965.
Throughout the ’60s, Demirel ensured an annual growth of 6 percent a year, with electricity and paved roads reaching previously isolated parts of Turkey. Demirel’s success came to a head by 1970, when he began defending himself against a rising demand for radical reform by students and workers groups.
This demand conflicted with those of pro-Islamic parties at the time and ultimately caused a coup that forced Demirel out of the prime minister’s chair by 1971.
Demirel would leave and return to politics through the end of his career as military coups continued to wreak havoc upon the Turkish government. In 1993, he became president following the death of President Turgut Ozal, a role in which he succeeded in defusing a coup attempt in 1997 and fostering ties with the Turkic republic of the former U.S.S.R. He retired after the end of his seven-year constitutional term in May of 2000.
Throughout his career, Demirel was also renowned for his “encyclopedic knowledge of Turkey”, with oral tradition saying he could recall the names of the mayors of any village.
Demirel’s famous phrase, “Yesterday was yesterday, today is today” will fittingly describe a state funeral Friday in Ankara and his subsequent burial in Islamkoy. His death also comes after news of the death of former Turkish President Kenan Evren at age 97 in May.
