As he enters the third decade as the leading figure in Turkish politics, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hailed a new era in the country. Addressing an event at the Court of Accounts, the top body in charge of inspecting bureaucratic institutions, Erdoğan on Wednesday said that the latest election he emerged victorious in "put an end to the debate over the old system."

"The era of coalition governments will never come back after this election," Erdoğan told the event in the capital Ankara.

The president, who secured a five-year term after the runoff on May 28, never led a coalition government during his early tenure as prime minister, thanks to successive landslide wins since 2002. Before his meteoric rise and particularly in the 1990s, Türkiye was governed by a succession of coalition governments, often by parties with vastly different political views.

"As we mark the centenary of the Republic of Türkiye, we are sailing toward new horizons. We have the 'Century of Türkiye' ahead and it is the sign of determination to achieve bigger goals by accomplishing century-old targets," he said, referring to his ambitious reform program. "We will achieve this vision step by step and our nation took the first step on May 14," he said, the day of the first round of the election. Erdoğan faced the first runoff in his electoral history on May 28. Erdoğan sees it as Türkiye’s democratic "maturity." "Turkish democracy is the biggest winner of this election," Erdoğan said on Wednesday. The president is often labeled as an "autocrat" by the Western media, something he pointedly referred to in a pre-runoff election statement. "Are dictators forced to compete in runoffs?" he rhetorically asked.

He said "rivalry between powers" had thwarted Türkiye’s progress since the 1950s, noting that steps to improve the country by Adnan Menderes, the prime minister who was executed by a military junta in 1960, and other leaders were restricted "by those viewing themselves as superior to the national will." Türkiye suffered from multiple coups since 1960 and Erdoğan said it "lost the opportunity of attaining the golden eras" due to this hindrance. Erdoğan said his governments suffered the same fate due to abuse of powers, citing "days we could not appoint bureaucrats for months." "We staved off these difficulties through legal, democratic means, and we managed to close the fault lines between legislative, executive and governing powers," he said. Türkiye switched to an executive presidency system after the 2018 elections won by Erdoğan. The new system is promoted as a way to overcome lengthy governance-related decision-making and approval processes, handing more executive power to the president whose role was largely ceremonial in the past.

The six-party opposition bloc, which nominated Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu against Erdoğan in the presidential vote, had pledged to scrap the executive presidency system, but the nation overwhelmingly supported Erdoğan in the runoff, in which he garnered more than 52% of the vote.