As Turkish voters prepare to go to the polls on Sunday to decide their country’s future direction, neither side in this bitter race seems assured of a win on April 16th.
Over the course of the campaign for the constitutional amendment to drastically strengthen his executive powers, President Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) have dominated the public space in Turkey. Those opposing the changes have faced intimidation and ridicule, struggling to be heard in an extremely unfavorable environment.
An interim report by the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights Observation Mission has criticised Turkey, noting that there were attempts to intimidate the “No” campaigners, and that the media coverage about the referendum was one-sided.
State resources were freely used by the ruling party and the President to bolster the “Yes” campaign, for financing party political rallies under the guise of inauguration of public works projects.
Even with the governing AKP’s unfair advantage over the opposition, and despite restrictive measures under a state of emergency, opinion polls indicate that the result will be a close call.
Alarmed by this uncertainty, the “Yes” camp’s rhetoric is getting more and more aggressive.
Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, has been the main target of ridicule throughout the campaign, but during the last few days, the insults directed at him have become fast-and-furious.
In today’s Turkey, what can be worse than being branded as a Gulenist?
Sure enough, contradicting his grateful praise of his opponent right after the failed coup, President Erdogan now accuses Mr. Kilicdaroglu of not being brave enough to take to street or climb over a tank. He claims Mr. Kilicdaroglu instead negotiated his way out with the Gulenists plotters on the night of the attempted coup in July 2016.
After an angry response and denial from Mr. Kilicdaroglu, President Erdogan again put him on the spot, by throwing another challenge. If and when he receives a resounding “Yes” vote on the 16th April, the President would invite Mr. Kilicdaroglu to support the reintroduction of the death penalty. He was sure that the hypothetically defeated opposition leader would support it but in the case that he refused, Mr. Erdogan would call for another referendum, this time to get the nation’s approval for bringing the gallows back.
Hardening the rhetoric may or may not work. Earlier in the campaign, lumping no voters with terrorist has clearly backfired; so did the ultra-nationalist narrative against the European Union.
Scare tactics and exploiting people’s worries over security may be the last resort in the final days of the referendum campaign.
With ISIS, the PKK and others waiting in the wings for their chance to undermine the democratic process, there are more than enough threats in Turkey to influence millions of undecided voters. A last-minute emergency may change the balance in favour of the government.
As one seasoned Turkey expert, the journalist Amberin Zaman wrote on Tuesday in her latest column in the Turkish online publication Diken, “It is not autocracy Turkish voters fear. What scares them most is the prospect of ending up in chaos.”
For the government, it is already a lesson well-learned from the experience of the two previous elections.
This post is also available in: Turkish
KRMcN says
Safe to say that autocracy and chaos are not mutually exclusive. They seem to lead to each other in a fairly reliable cycle