ERBAKAN, NECMETTIN

(1926- )

   Necmetttin Erbakan, a member of the Naqshbandi sufi order, has been the leader of various Islamist parties in Turkey since 1970. His Islamist ideology is called Milli Gorus (National View). In July 1996, he finally became secular Turkey's first Islamist prime minister in a coalition with Tansu Ciller's Dogru Yol Partisi (DYP), or True Path Party.

   Before becoming prime minister, Erbakan had declared that he would replace the Turkish-Kurdish conflict with Islamic unity, a position that harkened back to the days of the Ottoman Empire.Despite considerable Kurdish electoral support from the southeast, however, Erbakan was unable to make any headway on the Kurdish issue. During an official state visit to Libya in October 1996, Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi greatly embarrassed Erbakan by telling him that Turkey's Kurds should have independence.

   Erbakan proved unable to reorient Turkish politics because of military and secular opposition. The Turkish military forced him to resign in June 1997 and banned him and his Refah Party in January 1998. He was also convicted of embezzling funds from his party and placed under house arrest. However, Erbakan continued to exercise influence behind the scenes. Early in 2003, the ban was lifted against him, but by this time it appeared that the rise to power of the much milder AK Partisi (AKP), with roots in Islamist politics and its new leaders Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Abdullah Gul, as well as Erbakan's age, would prevent him from returning to power. In 2009, Erbakan became the titular leader of the Saadet Partisi, or Felicity Party, a conservative Islamist Party that had been created in 2001 after earlier Islamist parties had been banned. Given the popularity of the AK Party, however, the Felicity Party has had little success in Turkish politics.