Social Democratic Populist Party (Turkey)

The Social Democratic Populist Party (Turkish: Sosyaldemokrat Halkçı Parti) was a Turkish social-democratic party, which resulted from the fusion, in 1985, of the Social Democracy Party (Sosyal Demokrasi Partisi, SODEP) of Erdal İnönü and the People's Party of Aydın Güven Gürkan, both founded in 1983 with the return to democracy after the military coup of 1980. After the 1991 general election, SHP became a partner in the coalition government and İnönü became the vice prime minister (Nov. 20). In coalition protocol, SHP insisted on permission to reform pre-1980 parties which were closed by the military rule of 1983. The pre-1980 parties were authorized on 19 June 1992. However, this was risky for SHP. Shortly after the permission, a group of SHP MP's resigned from SHP and refounded Republican People's Party (CHP), Erdal İnönü's father's party (most party members were pre-1980 CHP members). SHP and CHP, two similar parties, co-existed for a while. On 6 June 1993 İnönü announced that he was planning to resign and Murat Karayalçın was elected as the new president of the party on 11 September 1993. Then CHP and SHP agreed to merge on 29 January 1995. Former foreign minister Hikmet Çetin (SHP) became the interim chairman and the merged party chose the name of CHP after İnönü's suggestion.