The Workers' Party (, İP) was a Turkish political party founded in 1992 and led by Doğu Perinçek. It had its roots in the Revolutionary Workers' and Peasants' Party of Turkey (TİİKP), the Workers' and Peasants' Party of Turkey (TİKP), and the Socialist Party (SP), which was banned by the Constitutional Court in 1992. They were known as "Aydınlıkçılar" (Clarifiers) due to their daily newspaper Aydınlık ("Clarify" or "Enlightenment") which had a circulation of 63,000 in 2012.
During a general assembly on 15 February 2015, the Workers' Party rebranded and changed its name to Patriotic Party. Perinçek remained as leader. They admired the founder of the Turkish republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (considered a "left-wing bourgeois democratic revolutionary" by Chairman Perinçek ), as much as they admired Marxist revolutionary leaders like Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong. The party promoted alliances with nations that the party believes have anti-imperialist tendencies (such as Venezuela, Brazil and Cuba) and opposed the existence of American expansionism (such as India, China and Russia).
İP stated that a brotherhood-based solution to the Kurdish question must exclude imperialist initiative in the Middle East. They claimed that the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has been completely under the control of the USA since the Gulf War. İP asserted that it is still possible to unite Turkish and Kurdish people in Turkey within the borders of an anti-imperialist nation state which will be established through a democratic revolution. According to the party, separatism became a tool of American imperialism in breaking national markets in the Third World in post-Cold War conditions. Although they traversed separation, they also defended democratic rights and freedoms of Kurdish peoples in Turkey. For İP, the key tool to solve the Kurdish problem is to demolish "feudal structures" in Kurdish provinces and make peasants "free citizens".
Wings
- The youth student wing of İP was known as Öncü Gençlik (Vanguard Youth).
- The women wing of İP was known as Öncü Kadın (Vanguard Women).
Media
- Aydınlık (Clarity), daily newspaper.
- Aydınlık Daily, news portal in English.
- Teori (Theory), monthly theory and strategy review.
- Bilim ve Ütopya (Science and Utopia), monthly science journal.
- Ulusal Kanal (National Channel), television station.
- Kaynak Yayınları (Source Publications), publisher.
Election results
Parliamentary elections
{| class="wikitable"
|+Grand National Assembly of Turkey
!Election date
!Leader
!Votes
! %
!Seats
|-
!1995
| rowspan="4" |Doğu Perinçek
|61,428
|0.22%
|
|-
!1999
|57,593
|0.18%
|
|-
!2002
|160,227
|0.51%
|
|-
!2007
|127,220
|0.36%
|
|}