Tansu Penbe Çiller (Turkish pronunciation: [ˈtansu tʃiˈlːæɾ]; b. May 24, 1946, Istanbul) is a Turkish economist and politician. She was Turkey's first and only female Prime Minister.

She is the daughter of a Turkish governor of Bilecik province during the 1950s. She graduated from the School of Economics at Robert College after finishing the American College for Girls in Istanbul. She received her M.S. from the University of New Hampshire and Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut. She later completed her postdoctoral studies at Yale University. Çiller taught economics at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In 1978, she became a lecturer at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul and in 1983 she was appointed as professor by the same institution. She also worked in the now-defunct Istanbul Bank as president of the company.

After teaching at several universities as a professor, Çiller entered politics in November 1990, joining the conservative True Path Party (DYP). She was first elected to the parliament in 1991 as deputy of Istanbul and served as Minister of State in charge of economics in the coalition government of Süleyman Demirel. On June 13, 1993, she became the party's leader and later in the same year, the Prime Minister of a coalition government. She served as prime minister from 1993 to 1996. After the withdrawal of the Republican People's Party (CHP) from the coalition in 1995 she attempted to form a minority government, which failed. After that she agreed to form another cabinet with the CHP and went for general elections.

Necmettin Erbakan (29 October 1926 – 27 February 2011) was a Turkish engineer, academic, politician (eventually political party leader), who was the Prime Minister of Turkey from 1996 until 1997. He was Turkey's first Islamist Prime Minister. In 1997 he was pressured by the military to step down as prime minister and later banned from politics by the constitutional court.

Erbakan was born in Sinop, at the coast of Black Sea in northern Turkey. His father was Mehmet Sabri, a judge from the prestigious Kozanoğlu clan (Oghuz Turks, Afshar tribe) of Cilicia and his mother Kamer was a native of Sinop and second wife of Mehmet Sabri.

After the high school education in Istanbul High School, he graduated from the Mechanical Engineering Faculty at the Istanbul Technical University in 1948 with a GPA of 4.00/4.00, and received a PhD degree from the RWTH Aachen University, Germany. After returning to Turkey, Erbakan became lecturer at the İTÜ and was appointed professor in 1965 at the same university. After working some time in leading position in the industry, he switched over to politics, and was elected deputy of Konya in 1969.

Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu (December 31, 1954 – March 25, 2009) was a Turkish politician and member of the Parliament of Turkey. He was the leader and founder of the Great Union Party (BBP), a right-wing, nationalist political party.

Yazıcıoğlu was born 1954 in a small village named Elmali in Şarkışla of Sivas Province. He studied in Şarkışla from primary school to high school after that he was educated at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in Ankara University.

Yazıcıoğlu died on March 25, 2009 in a helicopter crash in the south-eastern Turkish province of Kahramanmaraş, after a political rally there on the way to the next rally in Yozgat just four days before the local elections. Ironically he had written a poetry with the meaning of feeling cold in English during his stay in prison. He also was member of Grey Wolves in the 1970s.

Mehmet Ali Birand (born on 9 December 1941 in Beyoğlu, İstanbul) is a liberal Turkish journalist, political commentator and writer.

He began his journalistic career by writing in the Milliyet newspaper. In 1992 he joined Show TV and presented the news. Birand began hosting a political show titled The 32nd day which was first on Show TV and then moved to CNN Türk. He also presented the daily news on CNN Türk. Presently he works at Kanal D where he hosts the news.

Birand is also the author of several books including 30 Sıcak Gün, Diyet, Türkiye’nin Avrupa Macerası, 12 Eylül 04.00 and Emret Komutanım.

Ahmet Mesut Yılmaz (Turkish pronunciation: [meˈsut jɯɫˈmaz]; born 6 November 1947 in Istanbul) is the former leader of the Motherland Party (Turkish: Anavatan Partisi, ANAP) and was the Turkish prime minister in the 1990s.

Mesut Yılmaz was a rising star in the Motherland Party of Turgut Özal, representing the Black Sea province of Rize in the parliament and serving as tourism minister in Ozal's cabinet. Upon Özal's election to the presidency in 1989, Yılmaz became the leader of an intraparty opposition to the new Prime Minister, Yıldırım Akbulut.

Yılmaz managed to discharge Akbulut from party leadership and from all executive functions during the biennial party congress in June 1991. Because ANAP had the majority in the parliament he subsequently became Prime Minister of Turkey.

The following years saw a decline in the popularity of the Motherland Party and an acrimonious relationship with Tansu Çiller, leader of the center-right True Path Party (DYP). Yılmaz also made the Motherland Party more business-friendly and Europe-oriented, causing the more conservative, religious wing to switch to the Welfare Party (RP) of Necmettin Erbakan.