Sunday's election was a first in the history of Turkey. The public headed to the election polls, and elected their president for the first time. The result was no different than expected: receiving 52 percent of the vote in the first round, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has gone down in history as the first Turkish president directly elected by popular vote. This has great implications. When the Parliament gathered to elect the president in 2007, military and bureaucratic tutelage was still dominating over politics. It elected whomever it wanted and excluded whomever it did not. Thus, it stipulated a quorum of 367 votes in the Parliament in order to impede Abdullah Gül, the presidential candidate of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party). This stipulation – which was not laid down for the previous presidential candidates – was introduced to immobilize the AK Party, which hailed from a religious background, and was considered as a threat against the regime. Unfortunately, the Republican People's Party (CHP) pinned its hope upon this regulation to guarantee its existence and used it as a political tool. Moreover, Yaşar Büyükanıt, the then chief of General Staff, released a notice on the Internet and described the profile of the president that was favored by the military. This was almost a memorandum. The senior staff of the armed forces strove to design politics as they did in previous governments. The day after, the AK Party's spokesperson, Cemil Çiçek, delivered a statement on behalf of the government, withstanding that notice.Later on, a referendum was held to transfer the right of electing the president to the public, and, thus, popular support for the AK Party was consolidated further. In brief, the process, which allowed Erdoğan to take the presidential seat by popular vote, is actually the victory achieved after a great struggle. This is the struggle through which politics overwhelmed tutelage, and the public gained total sovereignty. It is also a major step taken for Turkey's democratization.Well, how are we expected to evaluate the election results?We need to take all three candidates and their voting rates into consideration. Erdoğan was elected with 52 percent, while the joint candidate of the CHP and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu received 38.33 percent. Selahattin Demirtaş, the candidate of the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) received 9.71 percent of the votes.Here, Demirtaş's voting rate, which almost hit 10 percent, is highly significant in that these votes are reflecting the major progress made in the Kurdish question. Until 10 years ago, Turkey was a country in which the Kurds had great difficulty in revealing their identities and were forbidden to speak their own language as well as involvement in politics was almost regarded as a crime. However, now, a political party that comes from a Kurdish political background presents its candidate for the top office of the state. Rather than the regional politics alone in Turkey, it is contributing to the politics of the whole country. Demirtaş presents himself as the representative of the entirety of Turkey and finds a considerable credibility in the eyes of Turkish society.I think that Demirtaş gives a new aspect to Turkish politics and he is a beneficiary of the political atmosphere that has been created by the AK Party's reforms. Demirtaş's candidateship also shows the importance of the reconciliation process for the country. Therefore, we need to evaluate the election results as the indicator of two mainstream politics. The votes cast for Erdoğan and Demirtaş are the votes of those who are yearning for change and the "new Turkey." The votes cast for İhsanoğlu, who came out as a representative of anti-Erdoğan circles, were of those who try to maintain the old Turkey and withstand the idea of "new Turkey." It is possible to say that "the change" overcame the status quo on Sunday.From now on, Turkey endeavors on a new path. If the next general election is completed with a similar success, and the new Constitution is ratified, it seems possible to reach the ideal of new Turkey smoothly.