Turkish general election, 1999

1995 ←

April 18, 1999

→ 2002

Total of 550 seats of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey 276 seats were needed for a majority

	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	Bülent Ecevit	Devlet Bahçeli	Recai Kutan
Party	Democratic Left	MHP	Virtue
Leader since	15 January 1989	6 July 1997	1998
Leader's seat	Istanbul	Osmaniye	Malatya
Last election	76 seats, 14.64%	no seats, 8.18%	New party
Seats won	136	129	111
Seat change	60	129	New
Popular vote	6,919,670	5,606,583	4,805,381
Percentage	22.18%	17.97%	15.40%
Swing	7.55%	9.80%	New

	Fourth party	Fifth party

Leader	Mesut Yılmaz	Tansu Çiller
Party	ANAP	DYP
Leader since	15 June 1991	13 June 1993
Leader's seat	Rize	Muğla
Last election	132 seats, 19.65%	135 seats, 19.18%
Seats won	86	85
Seat change	46	50
Popular vote	4,122,929	3,745,417
Percentage	13.22%	12.01%
Swing	6.43%	7.17%

Prime Minister before election

Bülent Ecevit
DSP

Elected Prime Minister

Bülent Ecevit
DSP

Turkey's 14th general election was held on Sunday April 18, 1999 and was the first election in Turkish history to combine local, council and parliamentary elections on the same day. Bülent Ecevit's Democratic Left Party (DSP), soaring in popularity after the capture of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, emerged as the biggest party and swept the board in most of Turkey's western provinces. It failed, however, to obtain an overall majority, and did not do nearly as well in the eastern provinces.

The second largest party (dubbed "the second winner" by the press the following day) became the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which performed strongly nationwide, producing MPs from nearly all of the country's 81 provinces. The largest party of the last election, the Virtue Party (FP), returned to opposition after shedding forty-seven seats and a million votes. The decline of the Republican People's Party continued; this was the first time the party failed to exceed the 10 percent threshold for parliamentary representation.

Bülent Ecevit formed the country's latest coalition government, against the FP, with the second-placed MHP and the fourth-placed motherland Party (ANAP) as a junior partner. The DYP was consulted during coalition negotiations, but ended up in opposition. The DSP-MHP-ANAP coalition turned out to be one of the most stable in many years, surviving without change until Ecevit's hospitalisation and subsequent refusal to resign in 2002 prompted a wave of resignations from the DSP and an early general election.

...
Wikipedia