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Elections and the Electoral Process in the Ottoman Empire, 1876–1919

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2009

Hasan Kayali
Hasan Kayali
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, Calif. 92093-0104, U.S.A.
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Extract

The 1876 constitution and its reinstitution in 1908 have been acknowledged as landmarks in the historiography of the late Ottoman Empire. The promulgation of a constitution signified a critical political transformation despite the brevity of the First Constitutional Period (1876–78). During the next three decades of Sultan Abdülhamid's autocratic rule, the ultimately successful struggle to restore the constitution against the Sultan's relentless resistance became central to the political life of the empire. In 1908, the Young Turk Revolution inaugurated a decade of social and political change, the Second Constitutional Period.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , August 1995 , pp. 265 - 286
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

Notes

Author's note: I thank Feroz Ahmad and Michel Le Gall for their helpful criticism. I also thank the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Research Institute in Turkey, and the Academic Senate of the University of California, San Diego, for research support.

1 This bias is discussed in Elections without Choice, ed. Hermet, GuyRose, Richard, and Rouquie, Alain (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, where the authors discuss the merits of analyzing noncompetitive elections by examining more contemporary cases.

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3 The irregularity in the intervals of the elections is due to the dissolution of Parliament (except in 1877) by imperial decree triggered by political crisis or imperial emergency. In 1918, Parliament extended its own term on similar grounds, only to be dissolved by the sultan.

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6 Pressure from the Great Powers for concessions to Balkan Christians was mounting, with Russia in bellicose preparations. There were two Palace coups in Istanbul engineered by the constitutionalists that ultimately led to the ascension of Abdiilhamid to the throne. Meanwhile, conservative and progressive elements at the Porte were contesting the final form of the constitution under draft with the sanction of the new sultan.

7 This was a rather vague notion that would be interpreted as “notoriety gained through deeds that have incurred the hatred of the people” by the Ministry of the Interior upon inquiry from an electoral committee in the 1912 elections. Başbakanltk Osmanli Arşivi (BBA) Dahiliye Nezareti Siyast Kistm (DH-SYS) 50/6–20 (15 02 1912)Google Scholar.

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9 “Chamber” will henceforth refer to the Chamber of Deputies.

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17 The Kemalists reduced the voting age and eliminated the tax-payment requirement. See Tunaya, Tarik Zafer, “Elections in Turkish History,” Middle Eastern Affairs 5 (04 1954): 118Google Scholar.

18 In smaller sancaks a male population of 25,000 would be sufficient for one deputy. This would correspond to a total population of 50,000. A sancak would be entitled to a second deputy if it had a minimumof 75,000 male residents. Thus, two sancaks with approximate total populations of 50,000 and 149,999 would both be entitled to one deputy.

19 The ambiguity in the law was maintained, while its widest interpretation was encouraged by the government to include in addition to the property (emlák) tax, land (öşür) tax, and animal (ağnam) tax. See Okandan, , Amme, 250Google Scholar, n. 25. For an official interpretation of the tax requirement that includes road (tarik) tax as well, see DH-SYS 103–1/1–7. Ministry of the Interior to the Province of Beirut (19 09 1912)Google Scholar.

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21 PRO (Public Record Office, Britain), FO (Foreign Office) 195/2271, Fontana to Lowther, Tripoli, 19 11 1908Google Scholar. I am indebted to Prof. Michel Le Gall for this reference.

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23 The size of the nahiye (subdistrict) population in the primary voting (Art. 33) and sancak population in the secondary voting (Art. 46) determined the number of candidates. Thus, a secondary voter could vote for only as many candidates as the male population of his sancak warranted, but his preference could go to someone outside the particular sancak in that province.

24 An amendment to Article 72 on 21 03 1916Google Scholar, provided for candidacy in up to three provinces (Erdem, , Anayasalar, 24Google Scholar).

25 İsmail Hakki (Babanzade), a Tanin columnist and later deputy for Bagdad, wrote that “sending ignoramuses as deputies for the sake of sending provincials” would denigrate the honor of Parliament and that, to the extent possible, enlightened sons who have spent time in places like Istanbul, Izmir, , and Beirut, should be picked. (Tanin, 10 09 1908)Google Scholar.

26 If not, the box would be sealed, and a second call would be extended to the absentees.

27 Usul-ü İntihab (Istanbul, 1329 [1913])Google Scholar.

28 Cole, Alistair and Campbell, Peter, French Electoral Systems and Elections since 1789 (Aldershot: Gower, 1989), 36–37Google Scholar.

29 In municipal elections, unlike parliamentary elections, franchise and candidacy requirements included payment of specified minimum taxes (Tanin, 5 09 1908Google Scholar).

30 The only complaint related to the tax requirement that I have encountered was lodged against a secondary voter. As the ministry was quick to point out, there was no tax requirement for secondary voters or candidates for deputy. DH-SYS 103–1/1–7. Ministry of the Interior to the Province of Beirut (19 09 1912)Google Scholar.

31 Cahid, Hüseyin, editor of Tanin, favored weighted votes in favor of graduates of higher schools (24 09 1908)Google Scholar. This was the case in England even after the establishment of full enfranchisement in 1918. Businessmen and university graduates were entitled to a second vote until 1948. Reeve, Andrew and Ware, Alan, Electoral Systems (London: Routledge, 1992), 35, 64Google Scholar.

32 The electoral law of Iran divided the voters into six classes: (1) the royal house and the Qajar tribe, (2) the ulama and religious students, (3) nobles and sayyids, (4) merchants, (5) landowners and peasants, and (6) guilds. In each electoral district these groups met separately to elect a representative. Tehran was accorded 60 seats out of 156. Browne, Edward G., A Brief Narrative of Recent Events in Persia (London: Luzac and Co., 1909), 16–17, 67Google Scholar.

33 This status of Istanbul became particularly problematic in the first elections of 1877, when deputies needed to be selected by provincial councils. By special arrangement, Istanbul's secondary electors were determined in a primary. Devereux, , The First Ottoman, 130–35Google Scholar.

34 Quoted by Hermet, Guy in “State Controlled Elections: A Framework” in Hermet et al., Elections, 2. Original quote in Gramsci, Passato e Presente (Turin: Einaudi, 1952), 158–59Google Scholar.

35 In the Hijaz, balloting took place only in the towns. Town leaders in Jidda designated 600 notables, who voted for 25 electors. The latter voted for the one deputy allocated to the sancak of Jidda. PRO, FO 195/2320, Monahan to Lowther, no. 97, Jidda, 5 11 1908Google Scholar.

36 With Tanin as the strongest pro-Unionist voice and İkdam, Sabah, and Yeni Gazete supporting Ahrar. Çavdar, Tevfik, “Müntehib-i Sani” 'den Seçmene (Ankara: V Yayinlari, 1987), 6Google Scholar.

37 Ibid., 7.

38 PRO, FO 195/2320, Monahan to Lowther, no. 99, 10 11 1908Google Scholar.

39 Cavdar, , Müntehib-i, 7–8Google Scholar; Koçu, Reşad Ekrem, “Türkiye'de Seçimin Tarihi, 1887–1950,” Tarih Dünyasi 1:181–82Google Scholar; Toprak, Zafer, “1908 Seçimleri ve ‘Mebʿusan Hatiralari,’ Tarih ve Toplum (08 1988)Google Scholar, supplement.

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41 Takvim-i Vekai, (10 02 1909)Google Scholar.

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44 The Porte asked for a more stringent application of the Turkish requirement in Rhodes, for instance: “Candidates will be required in these elections to be able to read and, to some extent, write Turkish.” DH-SYS 50/6–20 (15 02 1912)Google Scholar.

45 Ironically, the CUP was in fact trying to enhance these by revising Article 35 of the constitution and thus facilitating the dissolution of the chamber by the sovereign. It hoped to manipulate extended royal authority against the opposition.

46 Twenty thousand copies of Açiksöz were printed and widely distributed. DH-SYS 53/46 (17 04 1912)Google Scholar.

47 Birinci, Ali, Hürriyet ve hiláfFirkasi (Istanbul: Dergah, 1990), 127Google Scholar.

48 Demir, Fevzi, “İzmir Sancağinda 1912 Meclis-i Mebusan Seçimleri,” in Çağdaş Türkiye Tarihi Araştirmalan Dergisi (Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi Atatürk İlkeleri ve inkilap Tarihi Enstitüsü), 1:168, 174Google Scholar.

49 Bagdadis wrote numerous petitions and complaints forcing Cemal to defend his policies to Istanbul. This he did by instigating a progovernment petition campaign and publicizing a statement that he elicited from the province's electoral inspection committee that denied any gubernatorial intervention. DH-SYS 83–1/2–42 (12 and 20 March 1912).

50 Khalidi, Rashid, “The 1912 Election Campaign in Syria,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 16 (11 1984): 461–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 Demir, , “Izmir,” 182Google Scholar.

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53 DH-SYS 65–6 (27 03 1912)Google Scholar.

54 Sayri, Sabri has argued that this happened in Turkey only after the establishment of the multiparty regime in the Republican period. “Political Patronage in Turkey,” in Patrons and Clients in Mediterranean Societies, ed. Gellner, Ernest and Waterbury, John (London: Duckworth, 1977), 104Google Scholar.

55 Kayah, , “Arabs and Young Turks,” 156–57Google Scholar.

56 Khalidi, , “The 1912 Election,” 461, 465Google Scholar.

57 Ahmad, Feroz, The Young Turks (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969), 103Google Scholar.

58 Genel Kurmay Başkanhği Askeri Tarih ve Stratejik Etttt Başkanhği (ATASE) (Archives of the Turkish General Chief of Staff), Ottoman–Italian War 25/118–10, no. 2–5, Governor Hazim (Beirut) to Ministry of War (?) (30 11 1911)Google Scholar.

59 See DH-SYS 83–1/2–29 (8 04 1912)Google Scholar on the intimidation of secondary voters by army officers in Tripoli.

60 DH-SYS 83–1/2–16 (31 03 1912)Google Scholar.

61 In Bagdad, for instance, the vali reported that half of the members who first joined the initiative to form a local Entente branch, and one-third of the actual founding members later announced their resignations, many in the press. DH-SYS 65/6 (27 03 1912)Google Scholar.

62 For an account of the Entente campaign led by Lütfi Fikri in Syrian cities, see Khalidi, , “The 1912 Election,” 467Google Scholar.

63 Ḥaqāiq ʿan al-intikhābāt al-niyābiyya (Cairo: Maṭbaʿa al-Akhbār, 1912)Google Scholar.

64 Hüseyin Cahid, a staunch Unionist, looked back to CUP loyalists in the countryside as men who ran after their day-to-day material interests and who did not share the ideals of the CUP. “Meşrutiyet Hatiralari,” Fikir Hareketleri 123 (1936), 293Google Scholar. (Quoted in Birinci, Hürriyet, 125)Google Scholar.

65 DH-SYS 103–1/1–5 (13 08 1912)Google Scholar. Okandan, Recai, Amme Hukukumuzda Ikinci Meşrutiyet Devri (Istanbul: Kenan, 1947), 166Google Scholar.

66 See, for instance, Dahiliye Nezareti Muhaberat-i Umumiye Idaresi Mütenevvia Kismi (DH-MTV) 22–2/14 (3 09 1912)Google Scholar for a complaint about the kaymakam of Jenin in Nablus, who was allegedly campaigning for the election of the Unionist candidate al-Hādi, Amin ʿ Abd; also, DH-MTV 18/58 (2 09 1912)Google Scholar about mutasarnf Ragib's visits to the villages “in order to exert his influence in these elections as he did in the previous ones.”

67 DH-SYS 103–2/2–5 (22 September 1912; 30 September 1912, 13 October 1912).

68 Ahmad, Feroz, “Unionist Relations with the Greek, Armenian, and Jewish Communities of the Ottoman Empire,” in Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire, 2 vols., ed. Braude, Benjamin and Lewis, Bernard, (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1982)Google Scholar; Braude, and Lewis, , The Central Lands, 1:422Google Scholar; Kayali, Hasan, “Jewish Representation in the Ottoman Parliaments” in The Jews of the Ottoman Empire, ed. Levy, Avigdor, (Princeton, N.J.: Darwin Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

69 DH-SYS 103–1/1–6 (18 September 1912; 23 September 1912; 31 October 1912).

70 Birinci, , Hürriyet, 180Google Scholar.

71 For instance, in Ammare (Basra). DH-SYS 103–1/1–8 (3 October 1912).

72 Ahmad, , Young Turks, 143Google Scholar.

73 Akarh, Engin analyzes how confessionalism contributed in mutasarrifiyya Lebanon to the creation of a “public sphere and basically secular and centralized governmental system,” in The Long Peace: Ottoman Lebanon, 1861–1920 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 161–62Google Scholar. As Akarli argues, Ottoman statesmen played an active role in shaping the Lebanese political system, the prewar success of which may have inspired similar political strategies on the imperial level.

74 BBA Dahiliye Nezareti Kalem-i Mahsus Müdiriyeti (DH-KMS) 15/7 (16 02 1913)Google Scholar.

75 It exacerbated ethnic tensions by correlating provincial parliamentary quotas to amount of taxes collected in that province. Carstairs, Andrew McLaren, A Short History of Electoral Systems in Western Europe (London: George Allen / Unwin, 1980), 127Google Scholar.

76 Ahmad, , Young Turks, 144–45, 156Google Scholar.

77 It mentioned that whip-wielding thugs stood at the gate of the town hall, who insulted and intimidated the secondary voters and put marks on their ballot papers. DH-SYS 122/5–1 (27 April 1914).

78 Ibid., 29 April 1914.

79 Ibid. From the Acre notables and members of inspection committee to the Grand Vizierate (7 May 1914).

80 Ibid., 2 April 1914.

81 Shuqayr was the CUP's key Arab delegate in the 1912 campaign, and later, in Cemal Paşa's Fourth Army headquarters in Syria. See Erden, Ali Fuat, Birinci Dünya Harbinde Suriye Hatiralan (Istanbul, 1954), 1:137–39Google Scholar.

82 DH-SYS 122/2. From Munir to the Ministry of the Interior (undated) and to the Ministry of Justice (16 January 1914)Google Scholar.

83 “State-Controlled Elections” in Hermet, et al. , Elections, 14Google Scholar.

84 BBA Dahiliye Nezareti Idare-i Umumiye 12–2/4–4 (19 11 1916)Google Scholar.

85 Erdem, , Anayasalar, 25–26Google Scholar.

86 DH-KMS 54–3/36. Grand Vizier Damad Ferid Paşa advises the conduct of elections according to the “special regulations,” whereas no such regulations had been received by the provinces (30 July 1919).

87 Tunaya, , Türkiyede Siyasî Partiler (Istanbul, 1952), 452–54Google Scholar; idem, “Osmanh İmparatorluğundan Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi Hükümeti Rejimine Geçiş,” in Türk Siyasal Hayatinin Gelişimi, ed. Kalaycioğlu, Ersin and Saribay, Ali Yaşar (Istanbul, 1986), 298.Google Scholar

88 Hobsbawm, Eric, “Mass-Producing Traditions: Europe, 1870–1914,” in The Invention of Tradition, ed. Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger, Terence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 265Google Scholar.