Thursday is the 20th anniversary of the passing of Bülent Ecevit, a prime minister who left his mark on Turkish politics both with controversies and remarkable achievements.

The leader of the Democratic Left Party (DSP) governed Türkiye five times as prime minister before his death at the age of 81 due to respiratory failure. It was during his tenure in the 1970s and 1990s that Türkiye launched the Peace Operation in Cyprus and captured the leader of the PKK terrorist group, two major turning points in the brief history of the republic. It was also Ecevit who was blamed for a major economic crisis in the 2000s and drew the hatred of Muslims for opposing a headscarf-wearing lawmaker during the notorious period after the 1997 coup.

A man of short stature and dark complexion, Ecevit was nicknamed "Karaoğlan” (reportedly by a supporter during his visit to the home of a friend in eastern Türkiye), which can be roughly translated as "dark son,” an affectionate expression in Anatolia.

Before his foray into politics, something he inherited from his lawmaker father, Fahri Ecevit, Ecevit worked as a journalist and translator. Along with translating the works of Rabindranath Tagore, T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound into Turkish, Ecevit himself penned several poems. Yet, he found his true calling in politics. He became a member of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) in 1954, when the party was the main opposition after a lengthy rule. He served as a lawmaker for the CHP and later was appointed as labor minister between 1961 and 1965. In 1966, Ecevit’s political life took a new turn as he formed an opposition movement within the CHP with the "Democratic Left” faction of the CHP. After a major fallout with Chair Ismet Inönü, Ecevit challenged him and was elected as CHP chair in 1972. He was first elected as prime minister in 1974 in a coalition government the CHP formed with the National Salvation Party (MSP). Months after taking office, Ecevit faced a critical decision: dispatching troops to Cyprus to protect Turkish Cypriots against attacks by Greek Cypriots. The peace operation he ordered ensured Turkish Cypriot presence on the island and restored peace.

Like other politicians, Ecevit found himself briefly jailed by the military junta that seized power on Sept. 12, 1980, and faced a political ban. At that time, his wife, Rahşan Ecevit, founded the Democratic Left Party (DSP). After his political ban ended, Ecevit was elected chair of the DSP in 1987. The DSP struggled in the Turkish political scene in the early 1990s but found itself as the biggest left-wing party after the 1994 elections. Ecevit served as deputy prime minister and prime minister in coalition governments, a staple of the 1990s. During one of these tenures, Ecevit oversaw the capture of Abdullah Öcalan, the elusive leader of the terrorist group PKK responsible for the killing of tens of thousands of people across Türkiye since the 1980s. Öcalan was brought to Türkiye from Kenya and was jailed for life.

Ecevit was the prime minister of the coalition government formed by the DSP, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the Motherland Party (ANAP) after the 1999 elections. It was during this tenure that Ecevit incurred the wrath of the conservative electorate when he opposed Merve Kavakçı’s attendance at Parliament’s General Assembly. Kavakçı, of the Virtue Party (FP), was about to take the oath as the first headscarf-wearing lawmaker in Turkish politics. Ecevit made a fervent speech against Kavakçı while fellow DSP lawmakers sought to block her. He called on other lawmakers to take action against Kavakçı, who was forced to leave Parliament amid outrage from the secular elite and subsequently lost her citizenship.

In 2001, Ecevit was at the heart of another scandal. His quite public row with President Ahmet Necdet Sezer that ended with Sezer hurling a Constitution book toward Ecevit during a tense meeting paved the way for a severe economic crisis. His popularity plummeted, and the DSP lost the 2002 elections. Two years later, Ecevit quit politics. In his final days in office, Ecevit was criticized for clinging to power despite his apparently frail health.

He was hospitalized with a brain haemorrhage in May 2026 and died in intensive care about six months later.