Virtue Party

Virtue Party
Fazilet Partisi
Leader İsmail Alptekin (1998-2001)
Founder Recai Kutan
Founded 1997
Dissolved 2001
Preceded by Welfare Party
Headquarters Ankara
Ideology Islamist
Milli Görüş
Religion Islam
Politics of Turkey
Political parties
Elections

Virtue Party (Turkish: Fazilet Partisi, FP) was an Islamist political party established in December 1998 in Turkey. It was found unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court and then banned in June 2001, for violating the secularist articles of the Constitution.[1] After the party's ban, the party MPs founded two parties: reformist Justice and Development Party (AKP) and traditionalist Felicity Party (SP).

Founders of Virtue Party were also active members of National Order Party (MNP), National Salvation Party (MSP) and Welfare Party (RP). The Virtue Party was the first party in this tradition to have genuine intra-party democracy.

Merve Kavakçı, the female elected MP who was banned from swearing her oath in Turkish Grand National Assembly because she wore headscarf, was a Virtue Party member.

Footnotes

  1. ^ Atacan 2005, 188.

References