Özet:

Following the end of World War II and the formation of interior and exterior conditions, multi party system was established in Turkey. The most important opposition political party of this period was the Democrat Party (DP), which was established by the deputies separated from the Republican People’s Party (CHP). Since its foundation, DP had rapidly managed to be organized and widen the organization across the country. Despite having being predicted as a minor opposition party by CHP, DP took great attraction in short time by the society and the directors of CHP got worried and they decided to hold the both the municipal and parliamentary elections earlier than previously planned in order not to allow DP to widen much across the country. The decision taken by CHP caused the relations between the government and opposition to become strained and accordingly the parliamentary elections in 1946 – which took an important role in the history of Turkish democracy as the first multiparty and direct suffrage elections – was held in a very high politically tensioned and strained atmosphere. This case was also reflected in the propagandas of both the government and opposition for parliamentary elections in 1946. The propagandas of both DP and CHP for parliamentary elections in 1946 was focused on and investigated in this study