Tansu Çiller

Tansu Çiller (Turkish: [ˈtɑnsu ˈtʃilːɛɾ]; born 24 May 1946) is a Turkish academic, economist, and politician who served as the 22nd prime minister of Turkey from 1993 to 1996. She is Turkey's only female prime minister. As the leader of the True Path Party, she went on to concurrently serve as Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey and as minister of foreign affairs between 1996 and 1997.

As a professor of economics, Çiller was appointed Minister of State for the economy by Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel in 1991. When Demirel was elected as President in 1993, Çiller succeeded him as leader of the True Path Party and prime minister. Her premiership presided over the intensifying armed conflict between the Turkish Armed Forces and the PKK, resulting in Çiller's enacting reforms to national defense. Her government was able to persuade the United States and the European Union to register the PKK as a terrorist organization.

Shortly after winning the 1994 local elections, large-scale capital flight due to the lack of confidence in Çiller's budget deficit targets led to the Turkish lira and foreign currency reserves' almost collapsing. Amid the subsequent economic crisis and austerity measures, her government signed the EU-Turkey Customs Union in 1995. Her government was alleged to have supported the 1995 Azeri coup d'état attempt and presided over an escalation of tensions with Greece after claiming sovereignty over the Imia/Kardak islets.

Although the DYP came third in the 1995 general election, she remained prime minister until she formed a coalition government with Necmettin Erbakan in 1996. The Susurluk scandal that year revealed the relations between illegal organisations and Çiller's government. Revelations that she had employed individuals connected with the Turkish mafia and the Grey Wolves such as Abdullah Çatlı led to a decline in her approval ratings. Erbakan's and Çiller's government fell when tensions with the military, concerned with civilians' lack of commitment to secularism, boiled over. This coup d'état by military memorandum was the fourth in the republic's history. DYP declined further in the 1999 general election. Despite coming third in the 2002 general election, Çiller's DYP won less than 10% of the vote and thus lost all parliamentary representation, which led to her resignation as party leader and departure from active politics.