After Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said his Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government would take a constitutional reform package to referendum if it fails to win sufficient support in Parliament to be approved, there is now a heated debate over what the consequences of holding such a referendum would be.
The opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) have already announced that they will not lend any support to the constitutional amendments initiated by the AK Party government, and Erdoğan said his government would not resign even if the public says “no” to the reform package in the referendum.
Let’s wait and see how things develop. Milliyet’s Taha Akyol says nobody should assume that the public will absolutely say “yes” to such a referendum, as there is a 50 percent likelihood for both its approval and rejection, and this depends completely on the political environment in the country as well as the strategies used by the parties. From Erdoğan’s statement, Akyol concludes that Erdoğan sees the rejection of the referendum as within the realm of possibility.
Recalling a referendum in October 2007, which was held only three months after the general elections in the same year and received 69 percent support, Akyol says the AK Party government might be inspired by the result of that referendum to make a similar move now. However, Akyol thinks it could be misleading for the government to rely on the previous referendum results and expect a new referendum to receive similar support. “The important thing is the environment in the country when a referendum is called,” he says.
Holding a referendum is not a “simple” thing, says Vatan’s Okay Gönensin, who thinks it would be no longer possible for the AK Party government to remain in power if a “no” vote results from the planned referendum. He says the referendum system in Turkey is very different from the system in Sweden, where the view of the public is sought directly on very simple issues.
In his view, what the government will in effect be saying with the referendum is: “We can no longer administer the country under the old laws, we need new laws to administer the country, and we seek your support to help us achieve this.” If the public says, “No, I do not support this,” according to Gönensin, it is not obligatory for the government to resign, as Erdoğan said, but he thinks it is politically not possible for such a government to remain in power.
According to Sabah’s Engin Ardıç, the public will say “yes” to the constitutional reform package if it is taken to referendum, which he says will prompt some circles to humiliate the public and label it “ignorant” for making such a decision.
Ardıç says past incidents cause him to think this way. “I have a question to these circles. If the public says ‘no’ in a referendum, I am ready to respect their decision. What about you? Are you ready to show respect, or to not curse the public will if a ‘yes’ decision emerges from the referendum?” asks Ardıç.
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