Turkey divided over key referendum, with voters choosing between stability and autocracy
In the wake of last year’s failed coup attempt, Erdogan’s supporters say there’s an even stronger need for a presidency that can withstand plots by unelected officials
A turbulent year in Turkish politics reaches its tipping point on Sunday with a referendum on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rule. Voters face two stark choices. They will either say yes to constitutional amendments that would give Erdogan sweeping new powers – which his opponents fear will be a de facto dictatorship – or no – an act of defiance that would nominally preserve Turkey’s battered democracy.
Erdogan’s proposed system “has no parallel in the modern world”, wrote Henri Barkey, director of the Middle East Programme at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars.
“It eviscerates the power of both the legislative and judicial branches of the government in favour of the executive, which will be concentrated in the hands of one person.”
It would also create new presidential term limits allowing Erdogan to remain in office as late as 2029. If all goes to plan, Erdogan will have governed his nation for more than a quarter of a century when he finally steps down.
In the wake of last year’s failed coup attempt, his supporters say there’s an even stronger need for a presidency that can withstand plots by unelected officials.
Many outside observers, including his most vocal critics in the West, see Erdogan first and foremost as an Islamist. But Erdogan is a right-wing nationalist in the same vein as non-Muslim leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin or Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, or AKP, is a modern centre-right party. Its religious nationalism operates alongside laissez-faire attitudes toward business and economic reform. When Erdogan and the AKP came to power in 2002, they were hailed by many as a liberalising breath of fresh air. Millions of Turks saw a dramatic and positive change in their fortunes – including Kurds, who were legally barred from even writing their own language in pre-AKP days.
“Please just think about it,” said Abdullah, one of sixteen Turks who shared their views on the referendum. “I’m the son of farmers and now I’m becoming a scientist day by day. Do you think the AKP is a horrible party?”
But as Erdogan settled into power, problems arose. A succession of political witch hunts and trials meant Erdogan and his inner circle became locked in turf wars, first with the country’s secularist top brass and later with suspected Gulenists – followers of an exiled cleric and former Erdogan ally turned opponent – in the country’s civil bureaucracy.
His once-promising relations with the West deteriorated, killing Turkey’s dream of joining the EU. Erdogan circled the wagons, declaiming various foreign and domestic conspiracies against his rule. After 2015 parliamentary elections went against him, Erdogan presided over the collapse of the peace process with the Kurds; a violent insurgency galvanised nationalist voters to his cause.
“Erdogan has also abandoned the ambitious foreign policy that boosted Turkey’s economy and helped increase the country’s role in international affairs, replacing it with a crude nationalism,” wrote Elmira Bayrasli, a professor at Bard College.
Ties with Europe are loose, and Erdogan’s much-maligned Syria policy is shaped mostly by domestic concerns. Critics said the ongoing purge, which has led to the detention of more than 100 journalists, is evidence of a would-be dictator shedding his democrat’s clothes.
Although opinion polls show the electorate almost evenly split, the contest has not been an equal or fair one. The full weight of the state has seemingly been thrown behind the “yes” camp, while opponents say they have faced 143 attacks over the course of the campaign.
Turkey’s opposition is hampered by its own traditional fractures as well as the purges. The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party has been decimated, with its charismatic leftist leader, Selahattin Demirtas, now languishing in prison.
As with other recent Turkish elections, the outcome may depend on a couple of key swing blocs: religious Kurds who like the AKP but are wary of Erdogan’s style and irked by his crackdown on their compatriots, and hard-line ultra-nationalists who despise groups like the Kurds but are not convinced by the AKP.
Critics fear that the referendum poses a “lose-lose” situation for Turkey: a choice between prolonged instability or institutionalised one-man rule.
