The candidate of the governing Motherland Party (ANAP) was its leader and Prime Minister Turgut Özal.

In the first and second rounds, the ruling party ANAP was unsuccessful in electing its candidate.

Finally, in the third round, Turgut Özal was elected as the eighth President of Turkey.

The parliamentary opposition, formed by the True Path Party (DYP) and the Social Democratic People's Party (SHP) claimed that the loss of popular support for ANAP in the March 1989 local elections did not give the party the democratic legitimacy to elect one of its politicians as President.

Fethi Çelikbaş, an ANAP Member of Parliament who stood against Özal, was the only other candidate.