Left of Center (Turkey)

Left of Center (Turkish: Ortanın solu) was a popular political ideology in the 1960s and 1970s in Turkey.

Turkish Constitution of 1961 was a more democratic constitution than the previous constitution. A number of new parties were founded including socialist parties. Among them Workers Party of Turkey (TİP) created some sensation. Republican People's Party (CHP) which is the oldest party and known as the founder of the Republic was also influenced by the socialist discourse.

Beginning by 1965 election campaign CHP speakers began using the slogan "left of center". Both the party leader İsmet İnönü and Bülent Ecevit, the former Minister of Labour defined the CHP position in the political spectrum as "left of center". İnönü in a interview said, "Actually we are already a left-to-center party after embracing Laïcité (secularity) If you are populist, you are (also) at the left of center." In another interview İnönü said that the party was a statist party and this is left of center. İnönü was referring to the Kemalist ideology (the traditional ideology of the party) and the three of the six arrows in the party flag namely; Laicism, Populism and Statism. Thus according to him the party was already at the left of the center. However unlike İnönü, Ecevit was trying to shift the general policy of the party to left. Although he didn’t exclude Kemalism, he tried to transform the party into a social democrat party avoiding using the word social democrat. His most sensational objective was summerized by the slogan he used during the election campaign on 11 August 1969: Toprak işleyenin, su kullananın ("Soil belongs to those who cultivate it and water belongs to those who use it.")

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