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New Turkey Party

Yeni Türkiye Partisi
New Turkey Party Yeni Türkiye Partisi
Abbreviation	NTP
Leader	İsmail Cem
General Secretary	İstemihan Talay
Founded	22 July 2002
Dissolved	24 October 2004
Split from	Democratic Left Party
Merged into	Republican People's Party
Ideology	Social democracy
Political position	Centre-left
	Politics of Turkey; Political parties; Elections;

New Turkey Party or abbreviated as NTP, (Turkish: Yeni Türkiye Partisi, YTP) was a social democratic political party in Turkey. It was founded in 2002 following a leadership crisis in the Democratic Left Party (Turkish: Demokratik Sol Parti, DSP) that was the major partner in a three party coalition government.

History

The health condition of elder statesman Bülent Ecevit, the Prime Minister and leader of the party led to rumours that his Deputy Prime minister and Minister of State, Hüsamettin Özkan, was plotting to replace him. As a result, Özkan was forced to resign, nearly half of DSP's parliamentarians followed him including İsmail Cem, the Minister of Foreign affairs.^[1] Özkan, Zeki Eker, Cem and Kemal Derviş, the Minister of State in charge of economy, then decided to establish a new social democratic party. İsmail Cem became the leader of the party.^[2]^[3]

The new party was received warmly by the public opinion. Most of the electorate was critical of the government because of the economic crises in 2000 and 2001, as well as the poor health of Ecevit.

However, things started to look bad for NTP as the party showed signs of organizational weakness. Moreover, Derviş changed his mind and joined the Republican People's Party (CHP) instead.^[4] As a result, the YTP performed dismally in the 2002 general election (receiving only 1.2% of the eligible votes cast)^[5] and again in the 2004 local elections.^[6]

In October 2004, the YTP was merged into the Republican People's Party (CHP).