We are not minority! (It does not matter that we are the minority or not though, a true democracy has to respect the life of all minorities.) In the last election, his party gained 50% of the votes, not 80% or 90%. Unfortunately, our election system is flawed so that they can get the majority in the parliament to pass any vote they want. As an example of the flaw in the system, votes of parties who get votes below 10% do not get counted (which effected Kurdish minority).
Now, let me refute part by part:
> Turkey was ruled by ultra-nationalist ultra-secular militarist groups for decades.
> You have to know that the length of Turkish governments before AKP to get a feeling of its significance: a few months!
These are patently false. Yes, there were coups but after each coup, right wing ancestors of AKP were in power "majority" of time. If you look at elections, in Turkey, in almost elections, right wing got around 60-70% of votes. The only left wing politician who was in power was Inonu and Ecevit, the former being a figure from the Independence War, the latter a politician who was embraced by people left and right for his honest, non-corrupt personality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Prime_Ministers_of_Turk...
1950-60 Adnan Menderes, The Democratic Party: Pro-American, Islam-leaning right wing party.
1965-71 Suleyman Demirel: Justice Party. Right wing party who declared itself as the successor of The Democratic Party.
1975-77: Suleyman Demirel: One more time.
1979-80: Suleyman Demirel: One more time!
1983-89: Turgut Ozal: ANAP. Right wing, pro-capitalist party.
1989-91: Mesut Ozal: Took place of Turgut Ozal, who became the President.
1991-93: Suleyman Demirel. One more time
1993-96: Tansu Ciller: Took place of Suleyman Demirel, who became the President.
1996: Mesut Yilmaz
1996-1997: Necmettin Erbakan. Pro-Islamist, anti-capitalist, right wing party. Current PM Erdogan was the mayor of Istanbul from his party.
2002-2003: Abdullah Gul. Current President, who was then head of AKP since Erdogan was in jail.
> Watch Erdogan's victory speech after winning the last election in which AKP further increased its share of votes. His attitude was completely humble and reconciliatory.
That speech never materialized, as can be exemplified by the use of tear gas against protestors today.
> The problem is that the support base of AKP is not the western oriented seculars, it is the conservative majority who didn't have a voice in politics for decades
Not true, as you can see, what Erdogan calls as his ancestors, Menderes, Ozal and Erbakan were in power. What happened is middle-right wing evaporated, and AKP got their votes since they were proposing a capitalist agenda as well. In other words, right wing was majority in Turkey all the time, but the votes were distributed among several parties. When the economic situation became so bad in 2002, the public protested these parties, and voted for the only prominent new right-wing party at the time. The economic success came due to two reasons: 1- The "technocrat", Kemal Dervis who was brought in the late times of the former gov't made sound economic policies, which the new gov't applied. 2-They sold most of the state owned assets and gained money. See for example Turkish Telekom, the only PSTN providers, who also operated majority of the internet in Turkey. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Telekom
AKP then used its position as the leading party to strengthen its position in the next elections.
> Rather the secular minority demanding more than their fair share.
Fair share? As in, right to live according to their wishes, and not that of AKP?
> I mean they objected to the removal of the ban on head-scarves for students attending university and consider it Islamization of Turkey (a country where over 70% of women wears head-scarf).
Not true. This is lumping all secular people into one big pot. Yes, there were people who objected this, but the fundamental promise of secularity is to form rules so that each person can live his religion freely, that no religion is higher against the rule.