Demirel came from a modest village background, and climbed up the social latter by the way of his education. He had studied in the United States as an Eisenhower fellow and then worked in a US multinational construction company. He appealed to the party's base of newly urbanized rural migrants, who could identify with his modest beginnings and status as a self-made man. At the Justice Party's national convention in December 1964, Demirel ultimately defeated Bilgiç for the party's general-president post.