The outcome of the referendum on constitutional amendments in Turkey, on April 16, transformed the country’s parliamentary system into a presidential one, giving the President sweeping executive powers. The “yes” vote had 51.2 percent (24.32 million voters) compared to 48.8 percent (23.2 million voters) for the “no” vote. Voter turnout reached 85.46 percent (49.62 million voters of 58.36 million registered voters), leading the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to portray his win as "a victory for the whole of Turkey". On the other hand, the two main Turkish opposition parties, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) denounced the outcome of the referendum, accusing the government of foul play.
According to the constitutional amendments, the new presidential system is to be implemented with the parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for November 3, 2019.
The outcome of the referendum has a set of implications on Turkey’s internal and external affairs, which are as follows:
The Constitutional Amendments
The referendum includes an 18 -article constitutional reform package, which centers primarily on transforming the parliamentary system in Turkey, which gives the President limited executive powers, compared with those provided to the head of the government, into a presidential system that grants the President far-reaching executive powers.
The most prominent executive powers to be granted to the president, in accordance with the new constitutional amendments include: the president will be the head of state and holds executive power after scrapping the post of Prime Minister, the president appoints his deputies, ministers and senior civil servants, and has the power to dismiss them. Moreover, vice presidents and ministers will report to the president not the parliament, they will get the confidence vote directly and routinely from him.
The president, according to the approved constitutional amendments, is responsible for formulating the state's domestic and foreign policies, drafting the state budget and presenting it to the parliament. In addition, he has the power to declare the state of emergency for a period not to exceed six months, appoint 4 out of 13 members of the Judiciary Board, as well as appointing the Justice Minister as Chairman of the Judiciary Board. The constitutional amendments give the president the right to maintain his party affiliation, in contrast to the current article that requires him not to be affiliated with his party after election as president.
According to the constitutional amendments, the number of parliament members increases from 550 to 600 members, the age requirement to stand for the parliamentary elections starts from 18 instead of 25. In addition, the parliamentary and presidential elections will be held every five years in one day, and the current plan is to hold the parliamentary and presidential elections on November 3, 2019.
Accusations of Foul Play
After the results of the referendum showed approval of the constitutional amendments, the country’s two main opposition parties accused the government of vote tampering. The Kurdish People's Democratic Party stated that the referendum results were rigged by 3 to 4 percent, and that they will challenge the validity of two-thirds of the ballots. The CHP said it would appeal the results of 37 to 60 percent of the ballots.
Furthermore, the two parties further rejected the Supreme Electoral Commission’s decision for counting the unstamped ballots, arguing that the decision is a breach of the rules. The (CHP) warned the Committee that the unstamped ballots might raise suspicions about the elections. However, the Supreme Electoral Committee Chairman, Sadi Güven, rejected their petition, saying that the Commission counted the unstamped ballots because some electoral committees neglected stamping the ballots, and because the default is not from the citizens, but from the committees overseeing ballot boxes.
Indications of the Referendum’s Outcome
The most notable indications of the referendum and its outcome are the following:
1- Declining turnout. The results of the referendum on the constitutional amendments showed diminishing turnout of 1.94 percent compared to the recent legislative elections held in November 2015. The referendum turnout was 85.46 percent where 49.62 million voters out of 58.36 million registered voters cast their vote, whereas the turnout in the November 2015 elections was 87.40 percent where 46.55 million out of 54.49 million registered voters participated. The lower turnout in the referendum may be associated with the reluctance of some voters to participate because of the severe polarization that accompanied the constitutional amendments campaign between supporters and opponents, resulting in inability to take a clear stance on these amendments.
2- Absence of community consensus on the constitutional amendments. The slim margin between the supporters (51.2 percent) and rejecters (48.8 percent) of the constitutional amendments opens the door to the opposition to question the results of the referendum. It may lead to a call for a constitutional document that is more acceptable and satisfactory to the community and political powers, which may portend political polarization in Turkey.
3- Loss of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) for the first time in major cities mainly the capital (Ankara) that rejected the amendments by 51.1 percent, Istanbul (Turkey's economic capital) by 51.3 percent, the tourist city of Izmir by 68.8 percent, Antalya by 59 percent, and Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir by 67.6 percent. Those percentages reflect the continued decline of the AKP popularity in urban areas compared to rural ones. This will have negative repercussions on the party in any future elections if the AKP does not address the causes of its dwindling popularity in those cities, especially Istanbul that witnessed the beginning of Erdogan’s political ascent when he was the head of its municipality in 1994.
4- Failure of the political alliance between the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the AKP to secure the largest backers for the constitutional amendments. The votes obtained in the last two legislative elections in November 2015 were equivalent to 61.38 percent (49.48 percent for AKP and 11.90 percent for MHP), while the supporters of constitutional amendments reached only 51.2 percent. This reveals that the majority of the electoral base of the MPH did not vote in favor of the amendments. It further reveals the failure of Devlet Bahçeli, the party Chairman, to persuade his party cadres of the usefulness of an alliance with the AKP and supporting the amendments.
Future Fall Out
The constitutional amendments are expected to have a set of implications on Turkey, at home and abroad, most notably are the following:
First: Potential Fall Out at Home
1- Personalization of Turkish politics. Erdogan’s dominance over the decision-making process will have its impact on the Turkish policy as the roles of other actors in the decision-making process retreat. This comes after the recent constitutional amendments have concentrated executive powers in the hands of the president, bringing Turkey into an era of one-man rule. This opens the door to more authoritarian policies -according to many analyses- that have increased since the July 2016 failed military coup attempt, which Erdogan exploited to oust his opponents and exercise more control over Turkish state institutions, particularly the army.
2- Widening community and political polarization. The passing of the constitutional amendments is expected to increase the political polarization in Turkey, between the conservative Islamists and nationalist supporters of the amendments on the one hand, and secularists and Kurds on the other hand. That will happen if the ruling AKP and President Erdogan do not work to alleviate community polarization, which has widened during the campaign for constitutional amendments. Such effort becomes more important in light of the narrow margin between supporters and opponents of the amendments, not to mention the clashes between supporters of the AKP and Kurdish opponents in a polling station in Diyarbakir, killing two and wounding another.
Second: Potential Fall Out on Foreign Policy
1- Turkey’s growing role in the Syrian and Iraqi crises. It is likely that the Turkish foreign policy toward the Middle East in general, and Syria and Iraq in particular, will witness a new start after Erdogan secured the constitutional amendments, his overriding concern during the last years.
Probably, this policy will be based on more Turkish engagement, politically and militarily, in Iraq and Syria. Turkey’s emphasis on Syria aims to contribute to a political solution for the Syrian crisis securing Turkey’s interests in the country, through communicating with key regional and international actors. This will help also to reduce the negative consequences of the Syrian and Iraqi crises on Turkish national security, especially the Kurdish threats. Turkey will have the ability to limit the threat of the PKK from northern Iraq and prevent it from establishing a Kurdish entity in the North of Syria, in order to thwart the calls for a referendum on the independence of Kurdistan Iraq. Accordingly, Turkey may launch new military operations against the PKK fighters in northern Syria and Iraq.
2- Warming European-Turkish relations. Turkish escalation against European States stems from Erdogan's willingness to stir up the religious ideology and nationalist identity of the Turkish communities living there to drum up support for the constitutional amendments. Having achieved his goal, expectations soared that Erdogan might head towards appeasement with Europe.
Prospects for pacification depend on how European powers will view the referendum results, especially given that the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Federica Mogherini and the Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy & Enlargement Negotiations, Johannes Hahn, issued a statement about the referendum results. The statement declared that they would wait for the international observation mission assessment by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) regarding the referendum process, including allegations of irregularities. Constitutional amendments will be evaluated in light of the fact that Turkey is a candidate member of the European Union and a member of the European Council.
The willingness of some European leaders to take advantage of the current escalation against Turkey -to win votes that may otherwise go to extreme right-wing parties, that exploit hostility to immigrants and Muslims to increase its popularity among European voters- portends continuing tension in relations between the two sides, albeit less severe than it was at the time of the referendum.
In conclusion, we can say that the approval of constitutional amendments, leading to a shift towards a presidential system, heralds a new era in Turkey. The most prominent features of this would be the dominance of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the AKP over the levers of the State and decision- making process. This will be in turn echoed on the domestic scene that will witness a regime that reflects Erdogan’s will and a more polarized society on the political and social levels due to the lack of consensus on constitutional amendments. As well, The Turkish foreign policy will become more interactive and engaged in regional issues of direct impact on Turkish national security, mainly the Syrian and Iraqi issues.
It is likely that Erdogan will continue his dominance over Turkey’s decision-making process domestically and abroad, if the Turkish opposition fails to exploit the voices of those who rejected the constitutional amendments, who represented 48.8 percent, to make progress over Erdogan and his party in the presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for November 3, 2019.
