As Erdoğan calls for votes in favor, leaders of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) have also taken to public squares, calling on their supporters to vote against the measures. Erdoğan was in Adıyaman on Sunday. He accused the MHP of mindlessly following the CHP but said the roles had now been reversed with the CHP following the MHP, doing everything that party does without question.In a referendum rally at Emniyet Square in Adıyaman, Erdoğan accused the opposition parties of leveling insults at AK Party members and voters. “The minute they entered Parliament the MHP started following the CHP. This was how it went. But now these roles have been reversed. What we see now is that the CHP is following the MHP,” he said.
While Erdoğan does not use the Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party) logos in his rallies and prefers to concentrate on the content of the package, the MHP and the CHP have taken the anti-package rallies as opportunities to criticize the government and base their campaign on opposition against the ruling party. In a surprising move, a CHP member, Mehmet Şerif Memioğlu, the mayor of Yedisu in Bingöl province, said he intended to vote “yes” in the referendum.
Speaking during Erdoğan’s rally in Bingöl late Sunday, Memioğlu noted that although he is a CHP mayor, he would vote “yes” even as his party votes “no” in the upcoming referendum on the constitutional amendments. The mayor was immediately referred to the CHP party’s disciplinary committee on the grounds that his public statements contradicted the party’s position.
