Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won a referendum vote, which gave him new sweeping executive powers. The referendum abolishes the post of Prime Minister and provides concentrated powers in the hands of the President, which will take effect on November of 2019. The results, which the opposition said it would challenge, showed a narrow victory with 51.4 percent of the votes cast in favor of the historic move. The changes could keep Erdogan, who heads the Islamist AKP faction, in power until 2029 or beyond and effectively makes him the most important figure in Turkish history since state founder Kemal Ataturk built a modern nation from the ashes of the Ottoman empire after World War One. Thousands of supporters welcomed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the capital Ankara, where he declared a victory against what he defined was “the crusaders’ ideology in the West and their servants” in Turkey, which he aims to bolster as an Islamic nation state.
“We will march to November 2019 faster and stronger. But I should express again we have much to do. We all are aware of this. Because it was a fight against everyone. The crusaders’ ideology in the West and their servants here attacked us. But we didn’t give up. We stand up as a nation,” said Erdogan.
In response to the referendum, hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Istanbul to denounce the vote, condemning the results as rigged. “I believe there were a lot of irregular and illegal incidents. We heard a lot of news. We stood up for our vote that day. We don’t accept the ‘Yes’ result because the outcome was ‘No’,” said Murat Kazanci, “No” Voter. “I don’t want the parliament to be interrupted. I want a parliament 100 percent elected by us. I am against one-man rule and dictators,” said Yasar Bodur, “No” Voter.
Turkish analysts told TV7 that the result of the referendum said bare to the deep divide between the urban middle classes in the country, who see their future as part of a European mainstream, and the pious rural poor, who favor Erdogan’s strong Islamic hand.