Ranging from the leader of the party that paved the way for his execution to the incumbent president who considers him as his idol, tributes poured in for the late Prime Minister Adnan Menderes on Sunday. The Turkish prime minister and his two colleagues were remembered on the anniversary of their hanging by a military junta in 1961.
The politician came to power during Türkiye’s first genuine attempt to have a multiparty democracy but also became the victim of the country’s first military coup in 1960, along with his Foreign Minister Fatin Rüştü Zorlu and Finance Minister Hasan Polatkan. The three men were executed by hanging on an island not far from Istanbul, a year after they were arrested by the junta that took over the country during the May 27, 1960 coup.
A holder of the Medal of Independence, given to those who contributed to the War of Independence, Menderes was turned into a reviled figure by his critics as he was transforming a post-World War II Türkiye. A vicious campaign, led by the Republican People’s Party (CHP), of which Menderes was once a member, was followed by the military takeover and the subsequent arrest of people close to the government.
Menderes’ time in office lasted a mere decade but was marked with three election victories as the overwhelming public support for him and his Democrat Party are among the legacies of Menderes, a former farmer and jurist.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya was among those who attended the remembrance ceremony for the late prime minister and others by their graves in Istanbul. Erdoğan, who left for the United States to attend a U.N. summit on Saturday, sent a message to be read at the ceremony. In his message, Erdoğan said the illegal, unfair execution of Menderes and his colleagues was a black stain in Turkish history. Erdoğan noted Menderes and his colleagues received great public support in their “brave march against one-party fascism.” Türkiye was governed by the CHP after the death of republic’s founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1938 and the ruling party stifled dissent for a long time before being forced into accepting the holding of a democratic election in 1950.
Erdoğan said in his message that during his 10 years in office, Menderes and the Democrat Party made great leaps in many fields, from granting rights and freedoms to industrialization. He said they still live in the hearts of the nation although it has been 62 years since they were martyred.
Prior to the official state ceremony of remembrance, which was also attended by the families of Menderes, Polatkan and Zorlu, the CHP’s current chair, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, and Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu visited the grave sites.
The CHP, now the main opposition party, spearheaded a campaign against the Menderes government prior to the coup. The campaign grew in intensity when the government launched investigations into the affairs of the one-party regime it succeeded. An ailing economy further played into the hands of the CHP, whose leader launched a nationwide tour that was ominously entitled the "Spring Offensive." Evoking the War of Independence after World War I, the CHP sought public support against the government for the “independence” of the country. The nationwide tour of CHP’s Ismet Inönü was marked with incidents, including confrontations between the CHP and government supporters. One month before the coup, the government had launched an investigation into an alleged secret campaign to overthrow it. But it was already too late. The “revolution” Inönü had called for long before the coup came in the form of generals seizing power.
