DP government began showing a deep authoritarian streak. In the years ahead, the DP increasingly suppressed opposition within their own party and with that of rival parties and stifled the press. In the 1957 elections the DP blocked opposition parties from forming electoral alliances. While the opposition parties won the popular vote, this was not represented in parliament due to the winner-takes-all electoral system used at the time. The DP continued their authoritarian policies until 1960 saw the country's political situation rapidly deteriorate. 27 May 1960 coup d'état On May 27, 1960, the DP government was overthrown by military group called the National Unity Committee, led by General Cemal Gürsel. The military feared that the founding principles of the Turkish Republic were being eroded, and there was growing public dissatisfaction with Menderes' perceived intolerance of criticism. The military junta stayed in power for the next eighteen months, trying several top DP leaders for unconstitutional rule and high treason. Three of them, including Menderes, were executed. Five others, including Bayar, were sentenced to life imprisonment. The party was officially suppressed on September 29, 1961. Ideology The Democrat Party was founded in 1946 to oppose the ruling Republican People's Party, which had established the Turkish Republic and had remained in power from the founding of the Republic through 1950. Its founding members were all well-respected figures in the CHP before breaking off and establishing the Democrat Party. For this reason, both political parties had ideologies rooted in Kemalism which prevented the DP from differing substantially in practice from its predecessor, although it held notable variances in platform. Additionally, the DP still had to function within the confines of the 1924 constitution established by Atatürk and the first parliament which restricted the distance they could put between themselves and the CHP. Although it supported the resurgence of Islam, Democrat Party MPs who supported the creation of an Islamic state were expelled from the party. The main differences in platform between the two lay in economic policy. While the CHP was guided by statism, the Democrat Party was more interested in privatizing state industries that had helped jump-start the Turkish Republic after World War I and the War of Independence now that the country was no longer nascent. The Democrat Party did not repudiate the Republican People's Party's policy of Westernization, but did not pursue it with quite the same vigour. It was also