Turkey Feature: Erdoğan's AKP Wins Third Term in Office (Zaman)

The Turkish newspaper Zaman reports:

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan vowed to embrace the entire nation after a sweeping victory in Sunday's parliamentary elections and said his Justice and Development Party (AK Party) will seek a broad-based consensus of opposition parties and civil society groups while drafting a new constitution.

The AK Party won a third consecutive term by securing a record-high vote of 50 percent in Sunday's polls. The biggest opposition party, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu's Republican People's Party (CHP), won 25.9 percent.

“The winner of the June 12 elections is our people, whether they voted for the AK Party or not,” Erdoğan told an enthusiastic crowd of supporters celebrating the election win outside the AK Party headquarters in Ankara. “Today, Turkey won. Today, democracy and the national will won,” he said from the balcony of the AK Party headquarters, taking pride in the fact that the AK Party increased its votes by 5 million since the last elections, held in 2007, and now has the support of half the population.

Although it has seen a surge in the number of votes, the AK Party witnessed a decline in the number of seats it will have in the new Parliament. The AK Party is now expected to get 326 seats in Parliament, below the minimum number of 330 required to send any constitutional change to a referendum for approval.

“Our nation assigned us to draft the new constitution. They gave us a message to build the new constitution through consensus and negotiation," he said. “We will discuss the new constitution with opposition parties, civil society groups and academics. We will seek the broadest consensus.”

Last year, Erdoğan's government successfully pushed for changes to the current Constitution, drafted following a military coup in 1980. The AK Party has promised to draft a new constitution after the elections.

“We will draft a civilian, pro-freedoms, participatory constitution together,” Erdoğan said. “It will be the constitution of Turks, Kurds...the Roma...minorities.”

Erdoğan also attempted to ease concerns that increased support for the AK Party could worsen what critics said were “autocratic tendencies” on the part of the ruling party. The prime minister gave conciliatory messages, promising that the new government will respect and protect different ways of life and belief. “No one should have any doubt. Our people will live in peace and justice,” he said.

“Today, our responsibility has increased further. We will be more sensitive in proportion to our increased responsibility,” Erdoğan said. “We will continue to be a servant, not a master, of the people.”

The prime minister said the election results will strengthen Turkey's democracy and ambitiously declared that Turkey has reached “the level of contemporary civilizations,” a target set by Turkey's founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

“Turkey has turned to a clean, brand new page,” he said. “The Turkey whose direction was drawn by gangs is now a matter of the past,” Erdoğan added, in reference to clandestine networks of military and civilian bureaucrats as well as civil society groups and criminal elements that allegedly sought to overthrow the government.