Turkey 1995
A major goal of Turkey's government during the 1980s and 1990s was to win acceptance as a candidate for membership in the European Customs Union and the European Union. It was necessary that certain constitutional changes be made to help advance Turkey's candidacy. The efforts to make these changes came at a time of considerable political, economic and social turmoil. Kurdish insurgencies in southeastern Turkey in 1992-3 combined with growing assertiveness by Islamic fundamentalists led to substantial violence in the country. The Prime Minister at the time was Turkey's first woman Prime Minister Tansu Ciller. Her government collapsed in a corruption scandal before the end of 1995.
Over a period of several years, a draft of constitutional amendments that might help meet EU criteria was negotiated between the leaders of political parties in the National Assembly. The three main parties were the True Path Party (DYP), the Democratic Populist Party (SHP) and the Motherland Party (ANAP). The DYP held the premiership and was in a government coalition with the SHP. The Islamist party did not take part in these negotiations. The Kurds and Islamists both felt the process to be unrepresentative. In fact, Kurdish MPs were routinely harassed and jailed. The tensions between the Turkish secular tradition initiated by Ataturk and the Islamists further clouded the process. The Prime Minister explicitly rejected any idea of referring to or applying Shar'iah Law. The military stood ready to exert an unofficial veto to preserve Ataturk's secular state.
A two-thirds vote of the National Assembly approving the agreed-upon amendments was required if a national referendum were to be avoided. The 450 seats in the National Assembly were awarded on the basis of proportional representation with a requirement that a party had to receive 10 percent or more of the votes to win any seats. In districts returning five or more delegates, the party winning the highest percentage of votes received an extra seat. On July 23, 1995, the constitutional changes were approved by a vote of 360 32 in the Assembly with most of the "no" votes cast by the Islamist Welfare Party.
The amendments removed favorable mention of the 1980 military coup in the constitution's preamble, allowed greater participation in trade unions and political parties by civil servants, students, and academicians and lowered the voting age. Neither the Kurdish problem nor major Islamist concerns were addressed.