Çiller, Tansu (1946–)

A political leader born in Istanbul, Turkey, in 1946, Tansu Çiller left her position as the chairperson of the True Path Party (Do?ru Yol Partisi–TPP) after a destructive defeat in the November 2002 elections, and thus brought to an end her active political life which began on November 24, 1990, in the TPP.

A representative of a political tradition pursuing conservative, nationalist, populist policies and relying heavily on rural and provincial constituencies, the TPP, with the aim of reaching women's votes and strengthening the image of a democratic Turkey, elected Çiller who, as a professor of economics, of bourgeois background, having a higher education and a career, happened to be the distinctive choice of Süleyman Demirel, a permanent leader in Turkish politics since the 1960s who ...