Statesman and politician, prime minister of 48th,
53rd and 55th governments (b. He was born on November 6,
1947 in Istanbul - d. 30 October 2020, Istanbul). His full name is Ahmet Mesut Yılmaz. His family is from the
village of Çataldere, Rize / Çayeli. After
having completed his primary and secondary education, he went to İstanbul Erkek
High School. He graduated from the Department of Economics and Public Finance,
Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Ankara in 1971. He did his post
graduate at the Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences,
University of Cologne during the time between 1972 and 1974. He worked in
private sectors such as chemical, industry, textile and transportation in the administrative
position between the years of 1975 and 1983.
Ahmet Mesut Yılmaz, whose uncle was the Minister of
Culture and Tourism in İzzet Akçal government and Nihat Erim government, didn’t
think of entering politics until the 1980 coup d'état. He went into politics
with the Anavatan Party (ANAP) established in
1983 upon the request of Turgut Özal. He was a founding member of the party and
its vice-president. In the elections in November of the same year, he entered
the parliamentary as representative of Rize. He was in the service of the first
Turgut Özal Government as the Minister of State in charge of information and
the government spokesman. In 1986, he was appointed to the Ministry of Culture
and Tourism.
In this period he held the presidency of Turkey- Federal Germany and
Turkey-Yugoslavia Joint Economic
Commissions (JEC). In November 1987, he was appointed to the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs in the second Turgut Özal Government. After 1988, he became the
vice-president of the European Democratic Union. He resigned from his duty in
the Ministry of Culture and Tourism on 20th February, 1990 when
Yıldırım Akbulut was assigned to form a government upon Özal's election to the
presidency.
Mesut Yılmaz was elected to the presidency of ANAP during the Grand
Congress of the party on 15th June 1991. The government he formed received
vote of confidence in TBMM (Grand National Assembly of Turkey) on 5th
July 1991. He made the biggest mistake of his political life when he decided to
go for an early election in order to get rid of intraparty oppositions, Mehmet
Keçeciler and his group, who represented conservatives from the “milli görüş”
approach, and to come to power alone while he had been prime minister for three
and a half months despite of warnings of senior members of his party and the President
Turgut Özal. Elections did not result as he thought and his party took the
second place in elections after the Doğru Yol Party
(DYP) of Demirel on 20th October 1991. From then on, he
continued his studies as the leader of the main opposition party to the DYP. After
the elections on 24th December 1995, he was appointed to Presidency of
the coalition government of the ANAP-DYP.
The following years saw a decline in influence of the Anavatan Party on
politics. Due to the acrimonious relationship with Tansu Çiller, the leader of
the center-right Doğru Yol Party (DYP), both parties were worn out and couldn’t
come to power alone. After a four-month-long debate, Tansu Çiller was appointed
to form the 53rd government as the prime minister. However, the
government had to submit its resignation to the President Demirel three and
half months later.
As a result of the 1997 military memorandum,
Prof. Dr. Necmettin Erbakan government (54th government) had to
resign and Mesut Yılmas was assigned to form the 55th government as the vice-president of Bülent
Ecevit, the leader of the DSP (Demokratik Sol Party), by the President Demirel (30th
June 1997). But he failed his duty because of rumors about conspiring to rig
the bid and both he and his party ANAP began to lose prestige progressively.
Due to public pressures, Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit resigned from his duty in
the first days of January 1999 and gave inconsistency in the coalition as a
reason. Bülent Ecevit formed the new government, which would be active until
new general election (11th January 1999). Thereby, both Mesut Yılmaz’s political life
and the 55th government, which was the longest lasting government of
all three (eighteen months and twelve days), ended there.
Yılmaz resigned from the presidency of ANAP
when the party failed to pass the 10% national threshold needed for a political
party to have a seat in Parliament in the election on 3rd November
2002. He was charged by the Supreme Court with corruption, however the case dropped
in 2006 because statute of limitations expired. In the 2007 general election on July 22nd he was
elected as an independent member of parliament. He joined the Demokrat Party, which
was established by a merging between the ANAP and DYP in 2009, but he left the
party when Namık Kemal Zeybek was appointed to the presidency of the party (18th
January 2011). Mesut Yılmaz, who is married with two children, speaks German
and English.
REFERENCE: Milliyet Büyük Larousse Sözlük ve Ansiklopedisi (c. 24, 1986), Hakan Şanlıtürk / Maratoncunun Molası: Mesut Yıllardan Notlar (2004), Süleyman Yeşilyurt / Türkiye’nin Başbakanları (2006), Faruk Bildirici / Hanedanın Son Prensi (2007), Sema Dülger / Dünden Bugüne Devletin Zirvesindekiler (2007), İhsan Işık / Ünlü Devlet Adamları (Türkiye Ünlüleri Ansiklopedisi, C. 1, 2013) - Encyclopedia of Turkey’s Famous People (2013), Bülent Sarıoğlu / Eski Başbakan Mesut Yılmaz, 73 yaşında hayatını kaybetti... Centilmene veda (hürriyet.com.tr, 31.10.2020).