Was parliament established in Turkey for the first time on 23 April?

April 23 is celebrated as the anniversary of the opening of the TBMM. In the official narrative, this date is presented as the birthday not only of a new state but also of a new political order based on national sovereignty. Undoubtedly, April 23, 1920 represents an extremely critical threshold in terms of Turkish political history.

But there is an important fact that is always overlooked during these celebrations: namely, that the TBMM, the most important institution that could later be taken as the basis for the democratic character of the republic, was also not new as an experience of a national assembly, as a parliamentary institution. The BMM, said to have been founded on April 23, 1920, in fact consists of the relocation to Ankara of the Meclis-i Mebusan, which was already active in Istanbul and had remained open even during the First World War.

The Assembly, established in 1876 in accordance with the Kanun-i Esasi, was closed in 1878, and convened again in 1908, after the proclamation of the Second Constitutional Era by Abdülhamid, through elections held then, and began its activities. Later the Assembly convened through the elections of 1912 and 1918 and then those held in January 1920, but since it could not continue its activity under occupation conditions, it was officially closed on April 11, 1920, and the same members, moving to Ankara with the founding of the BMM, formed the first members of the BMM.

Although the Assembly, opened on a Friday with prayers after the prayer service, began its duty by taking an oath of allegiance to Caliph Vahdettin, there are in essence all the signs of preparation for a coup against the Istanbul government in the Assembly's relocation from Istanbul to Ankara. Its antecedents go back to the assumption of administration in Anatolia by the Heyet-i Temsiliye, formed after the Sivas Congress that met on September 4-11, 1919. This situation, initially seen as reasonable by Istanbul as well, over time, by getting some demands accepted by the Istanbul government, turned into a claim to represent the entire country. The Heyet-i Temsiliye asked the Ottoman government to hold Meclis-i Mebusan elections, and, saying that the elected Assembly could not convene in Istanbul and that even if it convened it could not act freely, asked that it convene in Anatolia.

While the first meeting of the members elected in the elections was held in Istanbul on January 12, 1920, one third of the deputies, whose total number was 140, were unable to attend the session. After a British military unit raided the Assembly on March 16, 1920 and arrested some deputies, among them Rauf Orbay, the members who convened two days later decided, on the grounds that legislative immunity had disappeared, to adjourn the Assembly indefinitely and to gather in Ankara. It has been emphasized at some length that this pressure by the British on the Assembly virtually forced the decision to relocate to Ankara, which was already on the Assembly's agenda. That is, in a way, the British, step by step, were making an effective contribution to Istanbul's being sidelined in the administration of the country and to Ankara's being prepared as an interlocutor.

In the end, while 92 members of the Meclis-i Mebusan moved to Ankara and formed the first members of the TBMM, in addition, on March 19, 1920, Mustafa Kemal Pasha sent a communiqué to the provinces, independent sanjaks and corps commanders, asking that five representatives be elected to the Assembly from each sanjak. The election was carried out by a body consisting of second-degree electors in the sanjak centers and districts, that is, representative electors chosen by wider groups of voters, the administrative councils of the provinces, the municipal councils and the members of the executive boards of the Societies for the Defense of Rights. Because of lack of time, no election was held among first-degree electors, in the sense of the wider electorate. Thus the first National Assembly was formed with a total of 436 representatives elected in this way from 66 electoral districts.

Ultimately, the parliament, which is the heart of republic and democracy, was not founded in Turkey together with the Republic; it is an institution that existed much earlier. Therefore we cannot say that the Republic gave Turkey a parliament. In essence, the experience of parliament is an institution in force both then and today also in monarchical regimes. In countries governed by monarchies such as England, Denmark and Spain too, parliaments have been able to exist together with strong democratic experiences. Therefore, if we are to look for a contribution of the Republic to the development of democracy in Turkey, it is not possible to say that it made this through the TBMM, the parliament, that it gave the country. Although the TBMM in its present form was founded in Ankara in 1920, on April 23, it is not new as an institution of a National Assembly.

Second, when we look at the formation of the TBMM, the powers it possessed and the manner in which it exercised these powers, what confronts us is virtually a unity of powers. It is a question of a state-of-emergency institution in which all the powers of legislation, executive and judiciary are gathered in the Assembly and exercised from there. However, in the first Assembly, formed in addition to those who had moved to Ankara from the Meclis-i Mebusan, a serious difference of ideas, diversity and even richness also catches the eye. This diversity presents a quite democratic appearance, in which different views could be put forward in all processes and decisions, and decisions could be taken through debate.

This Assembly was precisely one that conducted the National Struggle, performed a serious function of oversight over the administration, and was an Assembly in which people who called wrong what they saw as wrong comfortably expressed their views. At the same time, in this Assembly the Law on Supreme Command, which Mustafa Kemal had passed with great political skill, gave him very broad powers, and he knew how to use these powers like a de facto presidency, in which he could have the decisions he wanted pass from the Assembly. Although the decisions sometimes caused very intense debates, the Commander-in-Chief ended the debates by resorting to different means of persuasion.

For example, there were intense reactions to the extension of the term of the Supreme Command authority. It was virtually driven into a deadlock in the direction of views that this extension of authority was unnecessary and that giving extraordinary powers to one person would be very objectionable. For this reason alone, even the closure of the Assembly nearly came onto the agenda. Thereupon Mustafa Kemal, after exchanging views with the Ministry of National Defense and the General Staff and after asking the army commanders for their views, made "the decision to continue performing the duty of supreme command." On May 6 he made to the Assembly the famous ultimatum: "If I am continuing to command the army, I am commanding it unlawfully [...] For this reason I did not let go, I do not let go, I will not let go!" and the Assembly, finding this ultimatum very persuasive, accepted the request for extension (Nutuk, p. 662).

Still, although the intention behind the idea of the Heyet-i Temsiliye was different, as an official discourse the Assembly's raison d'être and its formation in the first years did not involve being against the Caliph. In his memoir titled Ankaralı'nın Defteri, Mahmut Soydan, deputy for Siirt, who from the first years of the Republic took his place beside Mustafa Kemal, and who as one of his official Kemalist ideologues published the newspaper Milliyet, conveys in very clear terms precisely the atmosphere that prevailed in the Assembly and among the cadres of the National Struggle:

"Mustafa Kemal Pasha's purpose is clear... He wants, by taking advantage of this situation, to count the Caliph and the Sultan as outside the cadre, outside the cadre of the state. But alas, the general tendency is the opposite: the idea 'The Caliph and the Sultan are wronged; it is our duty to rescue him. After deliverance we must gather again around the throne of the sultanate!' prevails. Indeed some deputies are making proposals to establish contact with the Office of the Sultanate as soon as possible and to seek ground for agreement with the Istanbul Government" (p. 13).

Soydan's statements very clearly express that the understanding that prevailed in the first Assembly and in a significant part of the Second Assembly was the rescue of both the sultanate and the caliphate. Whatever happened afterward happened on this ground and by departing from this ground. That Mustafa Kemal later used the strength he drew from a movement formed for this purpose to abolish the sultanate and the caliphate and to proclaim the Republic and his own presidency, is clearly a deviation from this agreed understanding, and moreover one that took place without following any democratic procedures at all.

For more extensive information, see our book published by Beyan Yayınları, Cumhuriyetin İlk Yılları: Demokrasi mi Diktatörlük mü? (The Early Years of the Republic: Democracy or Dictatorship?).