Aditya G.S Writes: Recep Tayyip Erdogan the president of turkey since 2014, has been vested more power voluntarily by his own people through a referendum conducted on 16 April 2017. This referendum‘s results were too narrow with 51.37% of voters agreeing for a constitutional amendment and around 48.63% of voters rejecting for the amendments of the constitution. The referendum will bring in a change with 18 constitutional amendments. These amendments will happen to exist only after the next general elections which are supposed to be held in 2019. The referendum would change the system of the country from parliamentary to presidential system. After the election of 2019 the office of the prime minister would cease to exist and the elected president would get new powers. These new powers would ensure that the president will have new executive powers such as imposition of emergency, Appointment of Turkey’s highest judicial body, Ministers, senior level administrative officers However, the president has been restricted for only 2 terms of service and each term will be lasting for 5 years. The president will also be given powers to serve as a party leader.
This presidential system in Turkey is seen by many as a political move to resort more power to Mr. Erdgon who is already criticized by many for curbing liberty of media, citizens and opposition parties to a huge extent. Mr. Erdgon has also been hugely criticised by the European governments and western powers for his moves aftermath the failed coup initiated by Mr. Gulen in the year 2016. Turkey presided by Mr. Erdgon after the coup arrested over 47,000 government critics, Journalists, Military officers, Government workers and civil servants. More than 1, 00,000 people including several Judges, teachers, doctors, academicians, and military and police officials accused for being linked with the coup. However, his supporters think that Mr. Erdgon is their best leader and will make turkey great again as it used to be during the Ottoman Empire. Turkey has witnessed various violent attacks from Kurdish militias and several bomb attacks from the Islamic state and other radical Islam groups located in its war prone neighbour, Syria. Turkey has been burdened by the radicalization threat creeping through its borders from its neighbours. It has also been burdened by around 3 million refugees from Syria moving into turkey illegally.
However, it may seem strange that the Turkish people have decided to reside more power to a person who is already criticized for running an authoritative rule all across the world. In order to know why people took this risk it is very important to analyze those 10 years (2003-2014) of Turkey which was run by Mr. Erdgon as a prime minister. Erdgon is a charismatic personality and there are only 2 kinds of people in Turkey, People who love him too much and people who hate him very much. Most of the supporters of Mr. Erdgon are from middle class, whose lives have completely changed after the economic boom of the country. The average person’s income has risen from over $3,800 in 2003 to over $ 10,000 in 2017. People have also been frustrated over the inflow of refugees from Syria and a series of terror attacks conducted by ISIS and Kurds. These terror attacks has hit one of the most important and booming industry of Turkey; tourism which is enough to hurt the Economy of the nation to a huge extent. Adding salt to the injuries, the threat of overthrowing a democratic government through a military coup made people to think that there is a need for single and strong leader in the country and no one else would rule it better than Mr. Erdgon. Thus, people even preferred to choose a leader who has been acting contradictory to the country’s culture of secularism, de-centralization and westernization, the same existing culture which has solely built and developed the Republic of Turkey from Khemal Pasha’s rule to date.
Sources:
CNN http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/15/europe/turkey-erdogan-referendum-politics/index.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/16/europe/turkey-referendum-results-erdogan/
TIME http://time.com/4741637/turkey-referendum-president-erdogan-powers/
www.Slate.com http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/04/16/turkish_president_wins_referendum_to_gain_more_power.html