Sabahattin Çakmakoğlu

Sabahattin Çakmakoğlu (25 November 1930 – 24 October 2024) was a Turkish bureaucrat and politician who served as the Minister of National Defense from 1999 to 2002. He was the Nationalist Movement Party presidential candidate for the 2007 presidential election, which he lost to the Justice and Development Party candidate Abdullah Gül. He served as a Member of Parliament for the electoral district of Kayseri from 1999 to 2002 and again from 2007 to 2011.

Beginning his career as a bureaucrat, Çakmakoğlu served as the Kaymakam (sub-Governor) of numerous districts before being appointed the Deputy Governor of Ankara. Serving as Deputy Governor for three years, Çakmakoğlu then served as the 28th Governor of Gümüşhane from 1972 to 1975, as the 28th Governor of Isparta from 1975 to 1978, as the 27th Governor of Edirne from February to August 1978, as the 27th Governor of Gaziantep from 1979 to 1980 and finally as the 31st Governor of Mersin from 1984 to 1988. In 1991, he was appointed the non-partisan Minister of the Interior due to the constitutional requirement for the partisan Interior minister to vacate his or her office three months before a general election and hand it over to the Undersecretary of the Interior Ministry. Çakmakoğlu served as the Interior Minister until a new government was formed after the 1991 general election.