Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu

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-Islamist political party.
Yazıcıoğlu was born 1954 in a small village named Elmalı 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. He was a member of Grey Wolves struggling for anti-communism during the 1970s. After 1980 Turkish coup d'état, he was arrested for being one of the leaders of Grey Wolves. He stayed for 7 years in prison without any proven crimes. After the years of imprisonment, he was released in 1987 by being cleared of blame. In the following years, he involved in politics under Nationalist Movement Party. In 1991, he and some of his fellows left this movement and established a new political party called Great Union Party next year.
His party has been represented in the Parliament only via electoral coalitions with popular parties. At the 2002 legislative elections, the party won 1.1% of the popular vote and no seats; in the 2007 elections Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu was elected as an independent.
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. Thousands of people joined his funeral ceremony in Kocatepe Mosque in Ankara. After his death in 2009 local elections the BBP's candidate was elected as the new mayor of Sivas.