Today, Turkey is holding a referendum on whether to approve constitutional amendments that would substantially increase the power of the country’s President. Soli Özel and Sezin Öney write that the result is bound to transform the country in one way or another, and that a Yes vote would effectively consign Turkey’s century old parliamentary system to history

Öney, Sezin

Özel, Soli

LSE Research Online

2017-4-16Today’s referendum is the most critical vote in modernTurkish historyblogs.lse.ac.uk /europpblog/2017/04/16/turkey-referendum-most-critical-vote-in-modern-turkish-history/Today, Turkey is holding a referendum on whether to approve constitutional amendments that wouldsubstantially increase the power of the country’s President. Soli Özel and Sezin Öney write that theresult is bound to transform the country in one way or another, and that a Yes vote would effectivelyconsign Turkey’s century old parliamentary system to history.Credit: alexeyklyukin/flickr (CC BY SA 2.0)Today the Turkish electorate will once again spend a Sunday at the polls, in what will be the fifth major vote sinceMarch 2014. The referendum to decide the fate of a package of constitutional amendments is one of the most criticalmoments in Turkey’s history. Arguably, this is the most critical vote ever in the Republic’s history. Nothing short of thenature of the Turkish political system and the current regime is at stake. If the process ultimately ends with a Yesvote, there will be a systemic switch to a fully-fledged executive presidency and Turkey’s century old parliamentarysystem will be consigned to history.The current constitution was written by the military junta that staged a coup in 1980 and was accepted by anoverwhelming majority in 1982. It has already been amended three times by popular vote and fifteen times through1/4legislative action since then. But this time, the proposed changes are sweeping. They basically create a systemreferred to by its creators as a “Turkish style presidency” that places all the political power in the hands of theexecutive represented by the President. Although the parliament would continue to exist, it would no longer be thecentral institution in the political system.With such a demotion, the role, functions and powers of political parties will also be considerably reduced. ThePresident would have the power to dissolve the parliament anytime he wishes and the parliament would have nopower to exert checks and balances over the President. The post of the Prime Minister will be abolished, the cabinetwill be selected by the President, and his appointees will not need the consent of the Parliament. The President willbe allowed to issue decrees as the sole head of the executive branch. He will also have broad powers over judicialappointments and he himself will have no criminal liability.In other words, if the Yes camp emerges as the winner today, the Turkish public will have sided with a regrettablecombination. The 1982 Constitution will still retain its draconian, freedom restricting spirit and articles. But the latestmodifications, in turn, will let the President have the first and last say on everything, with no checks and balances.There will be no possibility of holding him accountable for his acts and decisions.The amendments are tailor-made for one man; the current Head of the Republic, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Variousleaders on the Turkish right have expressed their wish to endorse a Presidential system in the past. Erdoğan joinedthem in 2003, when he first became Prime Minister. The ideological spirit behind the amendments embodies anotably populist line of thinking: the President, as he will be chosen by popular vote, will be representing the will ofthe majority. Hence, he cannot do wrong and cannot be held accountable because he is the very incarnation of thepeople.A surprise result?Since 2010, Turkey had gone through three general elections, one presidential election, one municipal election, and,including today’s vote, two referendums. All but one of these ballots helped the Justice and Development Party(AKP) to consolidate its power and monopolise the political arena as the ruling party.The 7 June 2015 general election was the only exception to this trend; then, the AKP’s votes were reduced to 40.9per cent and the party was unable to form a single party government for the first time since its ascendancy to powerin 2002. Nevertheless, the political mastery of Erdoğan helped the party reject that electoral verdict. His wish thatthe elections be repeated was fulfilled when the country went back to the polls on 1 November 2015 after a wave ofterrorist incidents shook the country to its core. The violence of the interval between the two elections propelled theAKP’s vote share to 49%. The party was alone at the helm again.Prior to the November elections, the electorate hid their preferences and the polls showed no indication that theresult would be any different from the previous election. Yet there was a dramatic shift towards the AKP mainlybecause of an upsurge in the number of terrorist attacks during the intervening months. Prior to the referendum, it isextremely difficult to forecast the results of the vote. Turkey has been under a state of emergency rule for almost 10months, declared within days of the 15 July 2016 coup attempt. The pollsters point out that the reply rates toquestionnaires have fallen below 25-30 per cent, down from the customary 50 per cent.Current polls suggest an almost 50-50 divide between the Yes and No camps. Metropoll, one of the most reputablepolling companies, gave a 52 per cent share for Yes against 48 per cent for No at the beginning of April. When theyrepeated the poll earlier this week, the results were similar, with 52.5 per cent for Yes and 47.5 per cent for No. TheNo camp had the edge during January and February, but from the beginning of March the Yes campaign appears tohave gained the upper hand as the nationalistic tone of its campaign has become amplified.In March, the country’s political crisis with the Netherlands over the expulsion of the AKP’s Family and Social AffairsMinister, Fatma Betül Şahin, coincided with an upturn in Yes support. Şahin’s victimhood as a ‘conservative woman2/4being expelled by the Dutch police’ was utilised as a popular theme through mainstream and social media.President Erdoğan himself also started to emphasise the idea that the referendum consists of a “clash between theCrescent and the Cross”. Today’s vote has even been portrayed by some figures as a symbolic gesture “to halt thenew Crusades”.Will the vote be fair?Nearly the entire state apparatus, including the governors and segments of the national and local bureaucracy, wereat the service of the Yes camp during the campaign. The pro-government media have been thoroughly mobilised tosupport the Yes campaign and the mainstream media, with very few exceptions, have proven to be timid in theircoverage. The advocates of the No campaign have faced more than 200 documented attacks; including violentones. Supporting a No vote has been depicted as supporting “terrorism” by the top names of the cabinet, includingPresident Erdoğan.All in all, openly declaring support for a No vote required courage. One thing is clear though: faced with myriadobstacles, waves of intimidation and frequent harassment, the no camp has proven to be resilient. We will only knowtonight how successful they have actually been when the curtain draws on Election Day. And we will also discoverhow many of those who publicly declared their support for Yes were actually ‘shy No’ voters.The Limited Referendum Observation Mission of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights(OSCE/ODIHR LROM) released an interim report on Turkey’s referendum on 7 April, verifying that “the campaign ischaracterised by polarisation and some restrictions”. The report declared that “the fact a number of political leadersand activists remain behind bars has seriously curtailed some groups’ ability to campaign. As of now, in severalcases, ‘No’ supporters have faced police interventions while campaigning; a number were also arrested on chargesof insulting the President or organising unlawful public events”.In this climate, the Yes vote clearly has had the upper hand. And response bias may have worked in its favour aswell, since voters are simply afraid of being marked as “terrorists”, particularly in small districts where votes cannotremain anonymous. Yet, the fact that the contest is a dead heat at this stage speaks to a potent force of resistanceand discontent in the country, which just might prevail when the votes are finally counted. An additional factor infavour of No is that there is no imminent danger that the AKP will lose its political hegemony if it loses thereferendum. Voting No is simply voting against a particularly radical change to the political system, but not againstthe party or against the President, who remains very popular.This referendum will not change the political power balance in Turkey. President Erdoğan has his mandate until2019 and the next general election is not due until the same year, although nobody expects either the President orthe Parliament to serve their full terms. Whether the referendum ends in a Yes or No, early elections are in theoffing. Yet a No vote will indicate vulnerability and weakness on his part and highlight cracks that already existwithin the AKP, where many previously powerful figures are looking for an opportunity to return. Such an outcomemay also open some space for other centre-right cum nationalist politicians to try their hand.When all else fails for the analysts of Turkish politics, and reaching a conclusion proves elusive, one can always fallback on the common sense and wisdom of the electorate. Tonight, we will all find out where that wisdom lies.Please read our comments policy before commenting .Note: This article gives the views of the authors, and not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy, norof the London School of Economics._________________________________About the authors3/4Soli Özel – Istanbul Kadir Has UniversitySoli Özel is a Professor of International Relations at Istanbul’s Kadir Has University. He is also acolumnist for Haberturk daily.–Sezin Öney – Bilkent UniversitySezin Öney is based at the Political Science Department of Bilkent University in Ankara, and is alsoa columnist for Taraf daily, Turkey. Her research interests include populism and national studies,comparative politics, linguistic rights and discourse analysis.4/4

Today’s referendum is the most critical vote in modern Turkish history

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