The Social Democratic Populist Party (Turkish: Sosyaldemokrat Halkçı Parti) was a Turkish social-democratic party, which resulted from the fusion, in 1985, of the Social Democracy Party (Sosyal Demokrasi Partisi, SODEP) of Erdal İnönü and the People's Party of Aydın Güven Gürkan, both founded in 1983 with the return to democracy after the military coup of 1980. After the 1991 general election, SHP became a partner in the coalition government and İnönü became the vice prime minister (Nov. 20). In coalition protocol, SHP insisted on permission to reform pre-1980 parties which were closed by the military rule of 1983. The pre-1980 parties were authorized on 19 June 1992. However, this was risky for SHP. Shortly after the permission, a group of SHP MP's resigned from SHP and refounded Republic