Erdoğan pays homage to late Democrat Party leader Adnan Menderes on eve of May 28 runoff

Türkiye on Saturday marked the 63rd anniversary of the 1960 military coup which led to the execution of then-Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, along with leading members of the Democrat Party.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan paid homage on Saturday to late Democrat Party leader Adnan Menderes who was executed by putschists on September 17, 1961, after the 1960 coup.
Erdoğan's visit to Istanbul's Adnan Menderes mausoleum takes him back to the man he cited when he called early polls for May 14 in a bid to ease his way to an unprecedented third decade of rule.
"63 years ago, on May 27, Türkiye had to face its first military coup after its transition to a multi-party system," Erdoğan said in Istanbul while visiting the grave of Menderes.
Stressing that May 27 was "one of the darkest days" in Türkiye's history, Erdoğan said: "This coup, carried out by a group within the Turkish Armed Forces, not only prevented our move towards democracy and development, but also left deep wounds in our hearts."
Erdoğan paid a similarly symbolic visit to Istanbul's iconic Hagia Sophia mosque on the eve of the first round.
Erdoğan ended up beating the 8-party opposition bloc's candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu by nearly five percentage points two weeks ago. But failure to top the 50-per-cent threshold set up Türkiye's first election runoff.
The Democrat Party came to power in 1950, ending Türkiye's single-party era of the Republican People's Party (CHP) rule.
Menderes became the first non-CHP prime minister. Menderes won another two elections in 1954 and 1957, and remained in power over the next decade.
During a period of economic hardship in 1960, a group of mid-ranking military officers staged a coup. Menderes and 14 members of his administration were charged with treason and the misuse of public funds.
They stood trial in a military court on Yassiada Island in the Sea of Marmara and in 1961, Menderes and his ministers Hasan Polatkan and Fatin Rüştü Zorlu were sentenced to death.
Yassıada was renamed Democracy and Freedom Island in 2013.
"We have turned Yassıada into an island of democracy and freedoms in a way that will keep the memory of our martyrs alive forever," Erdoğan said.
Meanwhile, Vice President Fuat Oktay also remembered the coup, saying: "We will not give up our struggle for democracy against any tutelage that disregards the will of our beloved nation."
For his part, Turkish parliament speaker Mustafa Şentop said May 27 is a day that Türkiye remembers as a "disgrace" in its history.
"May 27 coup was the turning point of a period when the national will was taken hostage. It should not be forgotten that the main reason for every coup in our country is to prevent Türkiye from reaching the power to realize independent policies," Şentop said in a statement.