In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

Turkey has made its choice. To the question put to it as to who the President would be, it gave a clear answer without the slightest hesitation.

The people chose a politician in the true sense: one who takes them seriously, who owns their will, who is compatible with their values, and who puts the meaning and function of politics in their rightful place.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has come up through all the stages of politics by dint of labor and has placed the politics of service above everything else, was elected to the Presidency in the tenth of the elections he entered, having reshaped and redistributed the entire political spectrum of the history of the Republic of Turkey.

By taking 53 percent of the vote in the first round, and by showing that he could have risen to the 65 percent range in a second round, he gave a new answer to the criticisms directed at him or his party until now, since the occasion was at hand. We hope that from here on no one will set about inventing a new calculation by looking at those who did not vote for him. At least 12 points of the 47 percent who did not vote for Erdoğan would have voted for him in a second round. As for the rest, God is generous.

In the end we lived through an election in which all the parties united against him, but we saw what all these parties amounted to in the eyes of the people. By constantly increasing his votes in every election he has entered so far, Erdoğan showed that the road ahead of him is more open, and that rigid camps in politics are not at all unyielding, inflexible and unchangeable.

By achieving this, he has in fact restored faith in politics, in a way that is for everyone's good.

With these results, Turkey is without doubt making a new beginning in every respect. This is both a new beginning for Erdoğan's political performance from here on, and a beginning for the stage that the political course Turkey has been living for 64 years has reached.

You may call this more democratization.

You may call it the people's greater integration with the state.

You may call it the people becoming more directly the power.

You may call it the defeat of the centers that tried to establish tutelage over the people through various intrigues.

You may without doubt call it the reviving of the hopes not only of Turkey but of all oppressed nations.

From all these angles, it is a new beginning.

The basic philosophy of this beginning is the Fatiha.

That Fatiha which begins in the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, and makes it obligatory to do every task in His name.

"In the name of God, Master of the Day of Judgment.

He who is the Merciful, the Compassionate.

We worship only You.

We ask help only from You.

Guide us to the straight path.

To the path of those upon whom You have bestowed favor.

Not the path of those who have incurred wrath."