Necmettin Erbakan (1926–2011) was a mechanical engineer, academic, and politician. After working on the engine industry in Germany, he became the founder and leader of the "Millî Görüş" (National View) movement in Turkey.
In 1996–1997 he served as Prime Minister of Turkey. He left a lasting mark on Turkish political thought with ideas such as the heavy-industry drive, domestic production, and cooperation among Islamic countries (the D-8).
Family and education
He was born as the eldest of the four children of Mehmet Sabri Bey, who served as a deputy qadi in Sinop, and Kamer Hanım. On his mother's side he was Circassian, and on his father's side his lineage traced back to the Kozanoğlu Beylik, which ruled in the Kozan, Saimbeyli, and Tufanbeyli regions of Adana in the late 19th century. Although he began his primary education in Kayseri, he completed it in Trabzon owing to his father's reassignment. He graduated first in his class in 1943 from Istanbul High School for Boys, which he had entered for secondary education in 1937. Although he had earned the right to enter university without an examination, he chose to sit the examination. In 1943, the year Erbakan began his studies, the School of Higher Engineering, whose course of study was six years, was converted into a university and renamed Istanbul Technical University, and the course of study was reduced to five years. For this reason, Erbakan began his studies in the 2nd year together with the students who had started school before him. Among the students of the same period at the technical university were Süleyman Demirel from the faculty of civil engineering and Turgut Özal from the faculty of electrical engineering. He graduated from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of Istanbul Technical University in 1948. From 1948 to 1951 he served as an assistant in the engine chair. During this time, as a member of the teaching staff, he taught an engine course together with Prof. Dr. Selim Palavan.
He earned his doctorate at RWTH Aachen (Aachen Technical University) in Germany, to which he was sent by the university in 1951. He was invited to the Deutz AG engine factory. He carried out studies with Prof. Dr. Schmidt at the DVL Research Center, which conducted research for the German army. He took part in the engine design of the Leopard tank.
In 1953 he returned to Turkey to take the associate professorship (doçentlik) examination. In 1954, at the age of 27, he became an associate professor at ITU. He went again to the Deutz factory in Germany for six months to conduct research. He performed his military service between May 1954 and October 1955. He returned to the university again. Between 1956 and 1963 he founded Gümüş Motor, a company with 200 shareholders that would produce the first domestic engine, and carried out engine production. In 1965 he received the title of professor. In 1967 he was elected secretary-general of the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey. In the same year he married Nermin Erbakan, who served as a secretary at TOBB. From this marriage he had three children (Zeynep, b. 1968; Elif, b. 1974; and Fatih, b. 1978).
The Welfare Party period and his premiership
On 11 October 1987 he was elected chairman of the Welfare Party. In the 1991 elections, in which the Welfare Party formed an alliance with the Nationalist Labour Party (MÇP) and the Reformist Democracy Party (IDP), he was elected member of parliament for Konya. In the local elections held on 27 March 1994, his party achieved a great success, taking 19% of the vote. It won the two important metropolises of Istanbul and Ankara with its young candidates Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Melih Gökçek.
In 1994, allegations arose that "the Welfare Party received aid from Libya and Saudi Arabia." This was followed by the issue that "the billions of liras the party had collected as aid for the Bosnian Muslims had been transferred to the party's coffers." It was Prime Minister Tansu Çiller who brought the matter up. Erbakan responded to the allegations with: "They collected the aid. These people believed in him, they gave him their money—what business is it of yours? What business is it of yours!" Erbakan later said that "with the collected money they had set up a missile factory in Bosnia." Prime Minister Çiller denied this. It emerged that the collected aid money had been given to Süleyman Mercümek, known as the "party's coffer," and that Mercümek had lost the millions of dollars in banks during the economic crisis. Erbakan and his party were sharply criticized. Mercümek was tried and, along with a prison sentence, was given the heaviest monetary fine in the history of the Republic up to that point. Later, the 148 kilograms of gold that turned up in Erbakan's assets became a topic of discussion. During a session of the Assembly broadcast live on TRT, the beating by Welfare Party deputies of Mustafa Kul of the SHP, who had raised the matter, drew a backlash. At a rally held in Taksim in reaction to the events in Bosnia, marching with Arabic placards and the chanting of slogans such as "The secular state will surely be brought down" gave rise to debates over sharia. His words at his party's group meeting on 13 April 1994—"The Welfare Party will come to power, the just order will be established. What is the question? Will the transition period be harsh or soft? Will it be sweet or bloody?"—further increased the reactions. In the 1995 elections, in which the National View Movement achieved the greatest success in its history, the Welfare Party became the first party with 21.37% of the vote and the 158 deputies it won. After the resignation of the short-lived coalition government formed between the True Path Party (DYP) and the Motherland Party (ANAP), the Welfare Party—the first party in the last general election—took office, and Erbakan became prime minister on 28 June 1996 in the Refah-Yol Government formed with Tansu Çiller's DYP. During the one-year period from 1996 to 1997 in which he served as prime minister of the coalition government, the Turkish economy grew by 7.5% and Turkey's GNP rose from 11.96 per thousand of the world total to 12.37 per thousand. Among the reforms carried out were the establishment of a pooling system among public institutions and the formation of the D-8, which brought together eight developing countries whose populations are mostly Muslim.
Sources
- Turkish Wikipedia: tr.wikipedia.org
- English Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org