Süleyman Demirel

Biography

Süleyman Demirel was born in 1924 in the village of İslamköy near Atabey, Isparta, and herded sheep as a boy, a humble background he later made part of his public image. He graduated in civil engineering from Istanbul Technical University in 1949, studied irrigation and dam building in the United States, and rose quickly in state water planning, becoming director general of the State Hydraulic Works in 1955 at the age of thirty.

After the 1960 coup he worked as a private engineer and part-time lecturer, then entered politics in the new Justice Party, successor to the banned Democrat Party. Elected its leader in November 1964, he served as deputy prime minister in a caretaker government in 1965 and, after winning a parliamentary majority that October, became prime minister at forty. His governments started the Keban Dam and the Bosphorus Bridge, but student unrest, strikes and political violence grew, and the military's memorandum of March 1971 forced him out.

He returned as prime minister at the head of right-wing Nationalist Front coalitions in 1975-77 and 1977, and again in 1979, when his minority government adopted the 24 January 1980 economic decisions that began Turkey's turn to a market economy. The military coup of 12 September 1980 removed him; he was briefly detained and banned from politics. He campaigned to lift the ban, which a narrow referendum did in 1987, took over the True Path Party and was back in parliament that year.

After the 1991 election he formed a coalition government, and when President Turgut Özal died in 1993 parliament elected him president. His seven-year term saw the Sivas massacre, an assassination attempt against him in 1996 and the 1997 military memorandum that brought down Necmettin Erbakan's government. After leaving office in 2000 he served on the Mitchell committee on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He died in Ankara in 2015.