This means their campaigning sometimes turns aggressive. While some find the intensity of the campaigns disturbing, others say they are tools of democracy that make voters feel important.Yeni Şafak’s Fehmi Koru focuses on the disturbance felt by some circles about the referendum campaigns and about claims that a concerted “yes” campaign may have had a negative influence on voters, pushing them to vote the opposite way. Koru says he agrees with these claims for two reasons.
“First, campaigns conducted for elections and referendums in democracies put the importance of individuals under the spotlight. Parties conduct their campaigns to influence and convince people. Their efforts continue all the way until election day. Why should voters feel disturbed by seeing how much importance they are given? Second, democracies for the most part are based on indirect representation. Voters elect candidates or parties at the ballot box, and those who manage to come to power administer the country. Referendums are rare tools of democracy, ones through which the public directly influences developments. Each one of us will have made our own decisions about an issue that will influence the life of everyone,” Koru says, countering claims that intense campaigns may have the opposite effect on voters.
Milliyet’s Taha Akyol, who thinks the noisy referendum campaigns, angry speeches of political party leaders and shows of power have exhausted voters, shares an observation about referendum campaigns with his readers. He says the public’s unhappiness with the harsh rhetoric of political party leaders and referendum campaigns must have been noticed by the party leaders because they lowered their tone of voice in their latest rallies. For instance, he says Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in his İstanbul rally that anyone who votes “no” in the referendum will not be seen as a traitor, while Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu offered his apology for a CHP referendum ad splashed over a billboard that likened Muslim women who wear a headscarf to nuns. “This means both naysayers and yea-sayers cannot be labeled as traitors. This means anger no longer brings any good to anyone,” Akyol says.
