The opposition saw this opportunity to turn the poll on some quite technical issues into a vote of confidence in a government which has been in power since 2002. That government, in turn, accepted this challenge, keeping their fingers crossed that they would win and by a convincing margin. Those who did not oppose the package, but thought the government needed to be a taught a lesson would have been happier if the package had been approved by a narrow lead. This is not what happened. If the opposition had hoped they had found an indirect route to rattle the government’s cage, Sunday’s vote has taught them that they must think again.There is a possibility the conventional wisdom was incorrect and that the electorate supported the constitutional package not because they appreciated its every detail, but because they appreciated that the Turkish political system could not remain as it was. Since it came to office, the AK Party has faced concerted opposition -- not from those politicians elected to do the job -- but from other branches of government, including the military and the judiciary -- who have been traditionally accountable only to their own peers. There are now cases before the Turkish courts suggesting that this unelected opposition did not confine its opposition to mere grumbling and dragging of feet, but engaged in active and unpleasant conspiracy, including the acts of provocation we associate with failed and ailing states.
Many of the clauses of the recently approved package have little to do with the balance of institutional power, except in the way that they strengthen the hand of the individual. For example, an ombudsman who would represent the rights of aggrieved citizens against arbitrary bureaucracy cannot be instituted without constitutional reform. However, the most controversial clauses open up the inner recesses of the state to greater political oversight. This is the direction, the electorate now say, in which the country should be travelling. At the very least it demonstrates a public appetite for change. “The size of the result confounds critics amongst European countries who suggest Turkey does not have the political will to make the necessary reforms,” said British-Euro MP Richard Howitt, who is a member of the Joint EU-Turkey Parliamentary Committee. A less decisive acceptance of the reform package would have discouraged any government from producing a new constitution to replace a document written in 1982 when the country was under martial law. Turkey will now have that discussion.
At the same time there are reasons to be concerned. It is very clear from the distinct regional voting patterns that the electorate voted “according to party lines.” Opinion polls prior to the vote suggested the more prosperous and educated you were, the more likely you would be to vote “no.” And the results themselves showed that if you lived in the ethnically Kurdish parts of the country, the less likely it would be that you would vote at all. Few political parties anywhere in the world can claim to be the voice of one nation and the government is right in taking heart that it enjoys a popular mandate. However, it must still demonstrate that as the institutional balance of power moves in their direction, that they will use their greater powers more responsibly.
Few would deny that the referendum campaign has been hard fought and that at times it grew bitter. The nation cannot afford to allow the bitterness to linger. At the end of the day, it is not the odd measure reforms that will allow the country to progress, but work on a new and all-party political consensus.
