Former Turkish President Demirel establishes museum for his 40 years in politics

Over 2,000 visitors from all around Turkey and abroad gathered in the village of İslamköy in the western town of Isparta on Oct. 26, for the opening of the “Democracy and Development Museum” by former President Süleyman Demirel, four days ahead of his 90th birthday.

This is worth mentioning, not only because it is the first example of a president opening up his term to be transparent for all who want to use the museum. Along with some 46,000 books, the museum contains documents about Demirel’s 40 years in active Turkish politics, not only his time as president.

He entered politics in his early thirties. Being a poor village boy, he made his way up to the Civil Engineering department of the Istanbul Technical University thanks to the public education model of the young Turkish Republic and started to work as a water engineer. One of the first projects he took part in was the irrigation project of his İslamköy village in 1960, which is still in use by farmers here.

An Eisenhower Fellowships exchange program had opened up his vision about what could be done for a developing economy, and he would go on to be nicknamed the “King of the Dams” in his future political career.

His career wasn’t only about developing the economy, but also about developing democracy. He got into politics in 1961, right after the military coup that had taken place a year before.

To cut a long story short, Demirel would himself be toppled by the military twice, in 1971 and 1980. By the time he was elected by Parliament as the Turkish Republic’s 9th president in 1993, for a seven year term until 2000, he had already lost his prime ministerial chair six times (twice taken by the military), winning it back seven times.

He...