Erdogan: Efforts To Delay Elections Are Against People's Will

ANKARA - Justice and Development Party (AK) leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the efforts to delay the elections were a ''provocation against the will of the nation.''
Erdogan criticized the initiatives to postpone elections during his party group meeting on Tuesday.
Erdogan said that Parliament, with the participation of 449 deputies, decided on July 24 to hold elections on Nov. 3. He also said that more than 90 percent of the Turkish people wanted to have elections on the scheduled date.
The AK Party leader also claimed that postponement of elections would yield results that cannot be compensated. ''People already lost their confidence in politicians and politics. The AK Party is the only exception to this,'' he commented.
Erdogan said that certain interest groups fear that they might suffer from the elections and this was the only reason behind these efforts to delay elections.
''The lobbies who wanted to postpone elections want to use the EU process, the changes thought to be made in Political Parties Act, and lowering of the threshold for their interests. If this lobby was sincere, it would have done the arrangements within the scope of democratization,'' Erdogan said.
''Whenever such an opportunity was brought onto the Parliament, they prevented it. They are not sincere. They attitude in putting forward the changes within the scope of democratization is an outcome of their sincerity. We have seen this in constitutional changes. Article 76, which they speak about today, was existing at those times. Although they approved it in the first round of voting, they refused it in the second tour. Although I suffered from that article, I am not making a bargaining about it. I don't find it moral to get involved in such a bargaining, and moreover I consider it as a step damaging the institution.''
Erdogan said nobody should be involved in efforts to delay elections with the pretext that they were working on the way to the EU. ''Postponement of elections means blocking of roads toward EU fully. I am clearly announcing that AK Party will come to power by a majority of vote on November 4, and start tours to the EU member countries.