Chamber of Deputies (Ottoman Empire)

The Chamber of Deputies or House of Deputies of the Ottoman Empire (Ottoman Turkish: مجلس مبعوثان, Turkish: Meclis-i Mebusan) was the lower house of the Parliament of the Ottoman Empire.

First Constitutional Era

In the First Constitutional Era, which only lasted for two years, the initial selection of deputies ("Mebusan") was made by administrative councils in the provinces ("Meclis-i Umumi").

After the establishment of the "Meclis-i Umumi" in the provinces, the members selected the deputies from within the "Meclis-i Umumi" to form the "Meclis-i Mebusan" in the capital. The Meclis-i Mebusan had 115 members and reflected the distribution of the millets in the empire. In the second elections there were 69 Muslim millet representatives and 46 representatives of other millets (Jews, Phanariotes, Armenians).

Second Constitutional Era

The Second Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire began shortly after Sultan Abdülhamid II restored the constitutional monarchy after the 1908 Young Turk Revolution. The period established many political groups. A series of elections during this period resulted in the gradual ascendance of the Committee of Union and Progress's ("CUP") domination in politics. The second biggest party Liberal Union (Ottoman Empire) ("LU") (Turkish: Hürriyet ve İtilâf) was in fact a coalition of parties led by Prince Sabahaddin. The constitutional era ended after World War I with the Occupation of Istanbul on 13 November 1918. The last meeting on March 18 produced a letter of protest to the Allies, and a black cloth covered the pulpit of the Parliament as reminder of its absent members.