President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has renewed his call for a new civilian constitution, vowing to purge Türkiye’s governing charter of what he described as the oppressive imprint of the 1980 military coup.
Speaking at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the coup, Erdoğan said the current Constitution, drafted under military rule, fails to reflect the democratic will of the people.
“We must free ourselves from this Constitution, which still bears the stamp of a coup-era mindset,” Erdoğan said on X.
“It is time for a new text shaped by the nation’s will, not by the authoritarian grip of putschists.”
He underscored that Türkiye is ready for a truly democratic, civilian constitution that aligns with the spirit of a strong and independent republic.
Calling on political parties to join efforts for reform, Erdoğan urged consensus around a future-oriented constitution that breaks entirely from authoritarian influences.
The president has long condemned the 1982 constitution, introduced under the junta following the Sept. 12, 1980, coup, as a barrier to democratic progress. While previous reform efforts stalled due to political deadlock, Erdoğan reiterated his administration’s determination to deliver lasting constitutional change.
The government has been pushing to overhaul Türkiye’s Constitution for over a decade now, which was enforced in 1982 following a military coup that led to the detention of hundreds of thousands of people along with mass trials, torture and executions, which still represents a dark period in Turkish political history.
The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has a comprehensive draft prepared by a scientific council during the pandemic, which it’s hoping to submit to Parliament. AK Party ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) also has a constitutional draft including over 100 articles.
The Constitution’s first four articles, which state the essential tenets of the Turkish republic, have been subject to debate for years now.
The main opposition, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), has repeatedly accused the AK Party of aiming to change the said articles, something the ruling party flatly rejects.
The current 1982 Constitution’s first three articles regulate the basic principles of the country, namely: that the country is a republic; that it is a democratic, secular and social state governed by the rule of law; that its language is Turkish and capital is Ankara and that the first three articles cannot be altered.
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