1912 Ottoman general election
Early general elections were held in the Ottoman Empire in April 1912. Due to electoral fraud and brutal electioneering, which earned the elections the nickname Sopalı Seçimler, the ruling Committee of Union and Progress won 269 of the 275 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, whilst the opposition Freedom and Accord Party only won six seats.
Bahaeddin Şakir, member of the Committee of Union and Progress
Aristidi Pasha, member of the Freedom and Accord Party
Committee of Union and Progress
The Committee of Union and Progress, refers to several revolutionary groups and a political party active between 1889 and 1926 in the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey. The foremost faction of the Young Turks, the CUP instigated the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, which ended absolute monarchy and began the Second Constitutional Era. After an ideological transformation, from 1913 to 1918, the CUP ruled the empire as a dictatorship and committed genocides against the Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian peoples as part of a broader policy of ethnic erasure during the late Ottoman period. The CUP and its members have often been referred to as Young Turks, although the movement produced other political parties as well. Within the Ottoman Empire its members were known as İttihadcılar ('Unionists') or Komiteciler ('Committeemen').
Committee of Union and Progress
Members of the Young Turks: İshak Sükuti, Serâceddin Bey, Tunalı Hilmi, Âkil Muhtar, Mithat Şükrü, Emin Bey, Lutfi Bey, Doctor Şefik, Nûri Ahmed, Doctor Reshid and Celal Münif
Ahmed Rıza, prominent early member of the CUP
Members of the Central Committee of the CUP proclaiming the Second Constitutional Era. Hafız Hakkı, Hafız İbrahim Hakkı, Talât, Enver, Rıza, Hüseyin Kazım (Kadri), Unknown, Midhat Şükrü (Bleda), Hayri.