Erdogan Is Ready to Everything to Have a "Yes" Vote in the Referendum

• 03.30.2017, 17:05
• Greta Avetisyan
•  Region,  "Insight" Analytical Center ,  World,  Analytics

55% of the voters in Turkey are inclined to vote "No" in the constitutional referendum. This is what the results of the survey conducted by "Net" Turkish company indicate. It is noteworthy that during the recent 2 months 9 surveys have been conducted and in case of 7 the respondents have expressed against the constitutional changes.

However, it is clear that in such country like Turkey, the numbers mentioned do not have great role and importance and will not be able to change the rules of the game. Today the Turkish authorities have one task – to carry out constitutional changes, pass to presidential system of governance. And in reality all this is being done for one purpose – to expand Erdogan’s power, to make the processes in the country more controllable, while the decision making process – quicker and dependent mainly upon one person.  

Of course, both the international community and the society of Turkey understand this quite well and the problem for them is not that the country is passing to presidential system, but that this will lead to the expansion of powers of one person. In parallel, the Turkish authorities, particularly Erdogan, even more aggravate the situation with the EU, for example, Erdogan called the authorities of Germany and Netherlands "Nazis". In this way Erdogan and his team try to show that the accession into the EU is not the value they should pay stopping on the way of strengthening their power.  

It is not an accident that in one of his speeches Erdogan mentioned that after the constitutional referendum Turkey may hold a second referendum on whether to continue with European Union accession talks. The most interesting part is that Erdogan mentions that if the EU accepts the "Yes" vote of April 16, this will make his work easier and they can lead Turkey to take more swift decision on Turkey’s EU accession talks. This is nothing more than another threat addressed to the EU.  

Thus, it should be stressed that today Erdogan is trying to solve only one question – expand his own powers and become a "sultan", who controls everything and everyone. While for reaching this aim he needs to have a "Yes" vote for which various tools and means are being used.