Born: 1946, Istanbul, Turkey
Tansu Çiller was the first female prime minister of Turkey (1993-1996). Born in Istanbul, Çiller studied economics at University of the Bosporus in Istanbul, obtained a doctoral degree from the University of Connecticut, and carried out postdoctoral studies at Yale University. She served in academic posts at several Turkish universities before entering politics in 1990 as an adviser to Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel and as deputy chair of his True Path Party (Dogru Yol Partisi, or DYP). Çiller was elected to parliament in October 1991 and appointed minister of state for the economy in the coalition government led by the DYP. Çiller advocated free-market and privatization policies.
Following the death of President Turgut Özal in 1993, Demirel was elected president, and in June 1993 Çiller mounted a successful challenge for the DYP leadership. Upon winning, she became head of government, or prime minister. As prime minister, Çiller tried to liberalize the economy but failed to curb the high rates of inflation and unemployment. In keeping with nationalistic sentiment and the power of the military, Çiller took a stern approach to insurgency by Kurds in the southeast. She quarrelled with her former mentor Demirel, undermined his allies in the DYP, and tried to replace the DYP’s traditional power base with appeals to urban business interests and women.
In September 1995, the DYP’s governing partnership with the Republican People’s Party collapsed. Çiller called early elections for December, hoping to capitalize on her government’s success in securing a customs union (a type of trade agreement) with the European Union. In the elections, the Welfare Party (Refah), an Islamic party, finished first with 21 per cent of the votes. The DYP and the Motherland Party each secured about 19 per-cent of the votes. Although Refah was mandated in January 1996 to form a cabinet, the main secular parties declared they would not join the Islamic-led government. Çiller’s DYP negotiated a new coalition pact with the Motherland Party. Under the pact, the leaders of the two parties (Çiller and Mesut Yilmaz) were supposed to alternate as prime minister at regular intervals. In March 1996, Çiller resigned as prime minister and Yilmaz took power. The coalition collapsed in June, Yilmaz stepped down, and the DYP was forced to form a coalition with Refah. Under this agreement, Refah leader Necmettin Erbakan became prime minister in late June; Erbakan and Çiller were supposed to alternate as prime minister each year. However, in June 1997, commanders of the armed forces, who were uncomfortable with Erbakan’s religious policies, forced him to resign. President Süleyman Demirel designated Yilmaz as the new prime minister.
