People's Party Quotes
With so many revolutionary rulers of new nations suppressing all opposition, the history of Ataturk and Turkey is unique. Ataturk was so popular and his People’s Party so successful that there was no opposition and Turkey had one party rule. However, Ataturk was determined to have Turkey become a parliamentary democracy as good as the Western nations of Europe. So a tradition of multi-party democracy was needed. So Ataturk actually went to his friend Fethi Okyar and asked him to start an opposition party and oppose the government. Fethi was a strong supporter of the revolution and generally was in concurrence with Ataturk and the People’s Party on everything. Ataturk however convinced him that they had to start a tradition that would take Turkey through the future, and he did create a new party-- Serbest Cumhuriyet Fırkası (Liberal Republican Party) and worked hard to find differences with the People’s Party and the Government. One immediate contribution was the oversight that the new party provided—a strong tradition that exists to this day in Turkey.
The People’s Party that Ataturk formed is the oldest political party in Turkey.
In that year Rhode Island was the only state left where only property owners (less than half the adult males) could vote and the state legislature had not been reapportioned since the original charter in 1663. The People’s Constitution was duly ratified in December 1841. The incumbents wrote a Constitution of their own and submitted it to the voters in March of 1842. It was rejected. Dorr and his followers put up a slate of candidates and were elected, Dorr as Governor. The incumbents refused to recognize the officials elected under such a “radical” system and tried to have Dorr arrested and did arrest many of his followers. Dorr then led a unsuccessful rebellion against the illegal government. Nonetheless Dorr was sentenced to life imprisonment. A new charter was submitted to the voters which expanded the voting franchise somewhat. In 1845 Governor Charles Jackson was elected having pledged to pardon Dorr, which he did immediately.
