General elections were held in November and December 1908 for all 288 seats of the Chamber of Deputies of the Ottoman Empire, following the Young Turk Revolution which established the Second Constitutional Era. They were the first elections contested by organised political parties.
The Young Turk Revolution (July 1908; Turkish: Jön Türk Devrimi) was a constitutionalist revolution in the Ottoman Empire. Revolutionaries belonging to the Internal Committee of Union and Progress, an organization of the Young Turks movement, forced Sultan Abdul Hamid II to restore the Constitution, recall the parliament, and schedule an election. Thus began the Second Constitutional Era which lasted from 1908–1912 and also the Turkish Revolution, an era of political instability and social change which lasted for more than four decades.
The revolution took place in Ottoman Rumeli in the context of the Macedonian Struggle and the increasing instability of the Hamidian regime. It began with CUP member Ahmed Niyazi's flight into the Albanian highlands. He was soon joined by İsmail Enver, Eyub Sabri, and other Unionist officers. They networked with local Albanians and utilized their connections within the Salonica based Third Army to instigate a large revolt. A string of assassinations by Unionist Fedai also contributed to Abdul Hamid's capitulation. Though the constitutional regime established after the revolution eventually succumbed to Unionist dictatorship by 1913, the Ottoman sultanate ceased to be the base of power in Turkey after 1908.
Mehmed Talât Pasha (1 September 1874 – 15 March 1921), commonly known as Talaat Pasha or Talat Pasha, was an Ottoman Young Turk activist, revolutionary, politician, and convicted war criminal who served as the de facto leader of the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1918. He was chairman of the Union and Progress Party, which operated a one-party dictatorship in the Empire; during World War I he became Grand Vizier (prime minister). He has been called the architect of the Armenian genocide, and was responsible for other ethnic cleansings during his time as Minister of Interior Affairs.
Talaat was an early member of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), eventually leading its Salonica chapter during the Hamidian era. After the CUP succeeded in restoring the constitution and parliament in the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, he was elected as a deputy from Adrianople to the Chamber of Deputies and later became Minister of the Interior. He played an important role in the downfall of Sultan Abdul Hamid II the next year during the 31 March Incident by organizing a counter government. Multiple crises in the Empire including the 31 March Incident, attacks on Rumelian Muslims in the Balkan Wars, and the power struggle with the Freedom and Accord Party made Talaat and the Unionists disillusioned with multicultural Ottomanism and political pluralism, turning them into hard-line authoritarian Turkish nationalists.