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Rising from humble origins to take the helm of Turkey's government in 2003, Recep Tayyip Erdogan quickly attracted a fervent following. But Erdogan, who served as prime minister and then president, also became feared and hated by many who saw him as an increasingly autocratic leader seeking to erode the country's secular traditions by imposing his conservative, religious views.

Constitutional changes that would change the country's system of government from parliamentary to presidential and grant Erdogan even more authority were narrowly approved by Turkey's voters on Sunday, according to unofficial results from the country's election commission.

The changes, one of the most radical political reforms since the Turkish republic was established in 1923, could see the 63-year-old president remain in power until 2029.

The vote's outcome reinforced Erdogan's image as a figure both popular and polarizing. While thousands of flag-waving supporters cheered the referendum's approval, political opponents immediately questioned the legitimacy of the balloting and said they intended to challenge a sizeable share of the count.

Erdogan served three consecutive terms as prime minister as head of his Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party, before becoming Turkey's first directly elected president in 2014.

Supporters found in him a man who gave a voice to the working- and middle-class religious Turks who long had felt marginalized by the country's Western-leaning elite.

He was seen to have ushered in a period of stability and economic prosperity, building roads, schools, hospitals and airports in previously neglected areas, transforming hitherto backwaters.

"He's a real leadership figure because he is not a politician that comes from the outside. He comes from the street," Birol Akgun, an international relations expert at Ankara's Yildirim Beyazit University, said. "He has 40 years of political experience and is very strong in practical terms."

But with each election win, Erdogan grew more powerful, and, his critics say, more authoritarian.

His election campaigns have been forceful and bitter, with Erdogan lashing out at his opponents, accusing them of endangering the country and even supporting terrorism. After surviving an attempted coup last July, Erdogan launched a wide-ranging crackdown on followers of his former ally, Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Erdogan blames Gulen, who lives in the United States, and his supporters for plotting the coup, an allegation Gulen has denied.

The crackdown saw roughly 100,000 people lose their jobs, including judges, lawyers, teachers, journalists, military officers and police. More than 40,000 people have been arrested and jailed, including pro-Kurdish lawmakers.

Hundreds of non-governmental organizations and news outlets have been shut down, as have many businesses, from schools to fertility clinics.

Erdogan has also blasted European countries, accusing authorities in the Netherlands and Germany of being Nazis for refusing to allow Turkish ministers to campaign for Sunday's referendum among expatriate voters.

His critics fear that if the "yes" vote prevails in the referendum, Erdogan will cement his grip on power within a system that has practically no room for checks and balances, opposition or dissent.

"One person will determine national security policies, according to the constitutional changes. Why one person? What if he makes a mistake? What if he is deceived? What if he is bought?" said Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of the main opposition Republican People's Party, during a "no" rally in Ankara Saturday.

"Surrendering the Republic of Turkey to one person is a heavy sin. It's very heavy," Kilicdaroglu continued. "Can there be a state without rights and justice?"

As prime minister, Erdogan garnered support from Turkey's Kurdish minority, which is estimated to make up about one-fifth of the country's population of 80 million people. He eased restrictions on the right to be educated in Kurdish and to give children Kurdish names.

He also oversaw a fragile cease-fire in the fight between the state and Kurdish rebels in the country's southeast, a conflict that has claimed an estimated 40,000 lives since 1984.

But the cease-fire collapsed in 2015, and about 2,000 people have died since then, including nearly 800 members of the security forces. With renewed fighting in the southeastern predominantly Kurdish areas, it is unclear whether Erdogan still would have much support from the Kurdish community.

Erdogan has promised the new presidential system will herald a period of stability and prosperity for Turkey, a country that has suffered several coups in the past few decades.

"He is a harsh leader in character," said Ankara academic Akgun, who used to head a pro-government NGO. "But in Turkey, a country that has so many problems, in societies like ours, the image of strong leadership is necessary to command both fear and respect and trust in society."

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Turkey's Erdogan proves a popular and polarizing figure

Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed victory on Sunday in a referendum on a proposal to massively expand his power, while dismissing the objections of opposition parties who challenged the outcome of the vote.

Erdogans victory sets in motion a transformation of Turkish politics, replacing the current parliamentary system with one dominated by a powerful presidency. According to preliminary results, a small majority of Turkish voters approved the set of 18 constitutional amendments that limits parliaments oversight of the executive, eliminates the office of the Prime Minister, and expands presidential power over judicial appointments. Erdogan and his supporters say the constitutional changes are needed to ensure stability, while opponents denounced the amendments as a step toward an era of autocracy.

The narrow, disputed outcome of the vote also sets the stage for a bitter struggle over the validity of the referendum results. According to Turkeys state news agency, the yes vote won by a margin of 51.2% to 48.8%. However, two opposition parties said they would challenge the result, citing violations in the vote-counting procedure. The campaign also took place in the wake of a vast political crackdown in Turkey following a failed military coup last July. The questions about the referendums results now promise to sow even more division in a country already deeply polarized over the figure of Erdogan and the merits of his proposed presidential system.

Addressing his supporters on Sunday night, Erdogan brushed aside questions of legitimacy, claiming a definitive victory in the referendum. "The discussion is over. 'Yes' has won."

Throughout the referendum campaign, Erdogan has argued the new system of government would introduce political stability and security. It certainly promises to make Erdogan the undisputed leader of Turkey for years to come, inviting comparisons to Vladimir Putin of Russia and other populist autocrats.

Whos going to stop Erdogan? There never was anyone to stop Erdogan, but now, even the formal possibility of there being something is erased from the law, says Selim Sazak, a fellow at the Delma Institute, an Abu Dhabibased think tank.

The dispute over the outcome of the referendum centers on a last-minute decision by the state election board to count ballots that did not receive an official authenticating stamp. The countrys largest opposition party says that as many as 1.5 million ballots did not receive such a stamp, a number that would more than account for the margin of victory in the margin of victory of 1.3 million reported by the state news agency. "At least half the country said no to constitutional change. This shouldn't be carried against the publics will, said Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the centrist Republican Peoples Party, in a televised address on Sunday night. Angry demonstrations erupted late Sunday night in neighborhoods of Istanbul where the opposition is heavily represented.

This is a very close call, so I dont think people are going to let it go necessarily. It will probably be talked about for some time, says Selim Koru, an analyst at the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey. He adds, The President is obviously going to continue and try to enact a transition to make everything irreversible as quickly as he can.

The entire referendum campaign took place amid political crackdown in the aftermath of a deadly military coup last July that failed to dislodge Erdogan and killed more than 200 people. After surviving the coup attempt, Erdogan moved to consolidate power, with authorities jailing thousands and dismissing tens of thousands of civil servants, soldiers, police officers, teachers, justice officials and others from their jobs. In a parallel set of court cases, hundreds of members of one major opposition party the Peoples Democratic Party have been imprisoned on terrorism charges, among them Members of Parliament. The government accuses the party of ties to outlawed Kurdish militants who are engaged in a long-running war with the Turkish state.

The results of the national vote also suggest some weaknesses in the Presidents base of support. In Istanbul, Turkeys largest city, where Erdogan came of age and rose to stardom as the elected mayor in the 1990s, the no votes edged out the yes votes. The "no" campaign also won the capital, Ankara, as well as Izmir, a major coastal city. A significant number of supporters of Erdogans own party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), voted against the constitutional changes, signaling distrust with a the expansion of the power of a President who already has unrivaled control.

In Istanbuls Kasimpasa neighborhood, where Erdogan lived as a teenager and a young man, some of the Presidents supporters said they voted no.

A presidential system doesnt sound right to me, said Nazli Kaya, 32, standing outside a polling station in a school in Kasimpasa. I believe in diversity. I dont want a one-man system, she says.

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Erdogan's Referendum Victory Leaves Turkey More Divided ...

Nine months ago, after fighting off a coup attempt, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed that his opponents would pay a heavy price. And pay they did: The autocratic-minded president embarked on a sweeping purge that left nearly 170,000 compatriots, viewed by the president as enemies, either behind bars or forced from their jobs.

Now the Turkish leader may be setting his sights on another perceived foe: the West.

The confrontation, were it to escalate, could have lasting repercussions for the U.S.-led fight against the militants of Islamic State, Europes migrant crisis and perhaps even the NATO alliance, of which Turkey is one of only two Muslim-majority members. It has the blocs second-largest military.

Erdogan had hoped to put a final seal on his consolidation of power this week by decisively winning a referendum that replaces Turkeys century-old parliamentary democracy with a presidential system. It greatly expands the presidents authority and would allow Erdogan to serve for an additional 15 years in office.

But the margin of victory in Sundays balloting was razor-thin, and the votes legitimacy was sharply questioned by both domestic opponents and foreign observers.

The opposition Republican Peoples Party on Monday demanded the annulment of the constitutional referendum, charging that the rules for counting ballots were changed illegally in the midst of voting. And observers from the Council of Europe issued a scathing report, saying the campaign took place on an unlevel playing field and that the rules for organizing the referendum were not up to international standards.

For the 63-year-old leader, the muddied result was a fury-inducing affront. Addressing supporters in the Turkish capital, Ankara, on Monday, Erdogan denounced the crusader mentality in the West a loaded reference to Europes medieval holy wars aimed at Islam.

Bashing the West, particularly Europe, is a well-thumbed page in the Erdogan playbook, a sure-fire way of appealing to his conservative, nationalistic base at home.

In recent months, the Turkish president has quarreled repeatedly and publicly with European leaders. Most recently, he accused the Netherlands and Germany of Nazi-like behavior when they prevented Turkish politicians visiting those countries from campaigning for the referendum in front of crowds of expatriate Turks.

This time, though, a leader who had once touted himself as a bridge between East and West appeared determined to issue a rebuke to Europe that was more than symbolic. At several appearances Monday, he emphasized his readiness to restore the death penalty, a step that would all but kill Turkeys decades-long campaign to join the European Union.

Playing to popular Turkish sentiment, Erdogan has also said the question of whether to continue seeking EU membership should be put to a referendum.

That resonates well with his constituency, and beyond, said Gonul Tol, the director of the Middle East Institutes Center for Turkish Studies. If you talk to a regular Turk in the street about the European Union, you hear this often: They wont accept us because were Muslim.

While Erdogan may be grappling with Europe, he seems to have retained one Western friend: Donald Trump.

In a remarkably friendly telephone conversation, Trump congratulated Erdogan for the referendum victory, apparently ignoring the narrow margin, allegations of fraud and criticisms of overreaching power, according to an account released by the White House.

Instead, Trump focused on Syria, the "importance of holding Syrian President Bashar al Assad accountable" for the recent chemical attack on his people and the fight against Islamic State, the White House said. He thanked Erdogan for his support.

Turkeys growing estrangement comes at a time when Ankaras cooperation with the West is at a premium. Europe needs Turkey to continue stemming the flow of refugees to its shores via the short sea voyage from Turkey to Greece. And Turkey is an important partner in the anti-Islamic State coalition, with the U.S. using Turkeys sprawling Incirlik Air Base as a major staging ground.

But Turkeys own needs are more in play in its dealings with Washington than with Europe, Tol and others said.

The government still very much values its partnership with the United States, said Tol. That relationship, she said, remained strong despite tensions over Turkeys unfulfilled demand for the extradition of self-exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania and is blamed by Erdogan for fomenting Julys attempted coup.

The referendum result left little doubt that Erdogan is presiding over a deeply polarized country, already beset by violent spillover from the war in Syria and a flaring Kurdish insurgency. The Turkish leader had argued that the wholesale overhaul of the republics political structure would help stave off instability.

Official results were not expected for 10 or 12 days, but Turkish election authorities said preliminary results gave a majority of 51.41% to 48.59% to the package of 18 constitutional amendments.

The vote illustrated long-standing divisions: secular Turks pitted against more pious Muslims, cosmopolitan urbanites versus the conservative rural heartland, and tensions between those who embrace a Turkish role in the wider world and homegrown nationalists.

Erdogan has been in power since 2003, his rise coinciding with Turkeys emergence as an industrial dynamo, though its economy has since faltered, and as a regional heavyweight, with a large footprint in Syrias civil war.

The consolidation of authority makes Erdogan the most consequential Turkish leader since Kemal Ataturk, the founding father of the republic that arose from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. Erdogan often harks back to past imperial glory with grandiose gestures like the construction of a lavish 1,000-room Ottoman-themed presidential palace.

Mindful of Erdogans reputation for holding fast to grudges, European leaders urged him to consider the narrow referendum result a mandate to reach out to his political opponents. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in a statement issued along with her foreign minister, said the closeness of the contest pointed to a big responsibility for the Turkish leadership and for President Erdogan personally.

But analysts expressed doubt such rapprochement would occur, with the exception of a possible effort by Erdogan to try to mend fences with the Kurds and restart negotiations aimed at halting the insurgency.

Hes a double-down kind of guy hes not going to be more moderate and reach out to the opposition, said James Jeffrey, a former ambassador to Turkey who is now an analyst with the Washington Institute.

The bitterness was apparent on both sides of the referendum question.

This referendum will take its place in the dark pages of history, said Bulent Tezcan, the deputy leader of the Republican Peoples Party, or CHP. This referendum will always be remembered as illegitimate.

The CHP, founded by Ataturk, called for annulment of the result. Its primary complaint was that ballots are required by law to have the stamp of the Supreme Board of Elections to be valid, but the board decreed midway through the voting that unstamped papers were valid unless there was clear evidence of fraud.

The CHP said at least 1 million ballots were stamped after they were handed in. Thats close to the winning margin for yes, which according to unofficial results received 24.3 million votes, compared to 23.2 million for no votes.

The report by the international referendum observer mission, meanwhile, said the legal framework for the vote was inadequate for a genuinely democratic referendum. It also faulted Turkish authorities for holding the vote during a state of emergency, under which the government issued decrees that affected the outcome but could not be challenged.

The observers were from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which monitors compliance with human rights norms, and the Council of Europe, which sets them. They complained that coverage by the news media, which has been significantly purged of critical voices under Erdogan, was significantly imbalanced, with three-quarters of the coverage going to the yes campaign.

Special correspondent Gutman reported from Istanbul and staff writer King from Washington. Staff writer Tracy Wilkinson contributed to this report from Washington.

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UPDATES:

8:50 p.m.: The article was updated with news of President Trumps phone call to Erdogan.

5:05 p.m.: This article has been updated throughout with details, quotes, background, analysis.

This article was originally posted at 12:10 p.m.

An earlier version of this story said Turkey was the only Muslim-majority nation in NATO. It is one of two. Albania is the other.

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Turkey's Erdogan lashes out at West after disappointingly ...

President Donald Trump congratulated Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on his referendum victory, a sharp departure from the critical reception many European officials have given the vote to expand Erdogans powers.

The Turkish leader stepped up his vitriol against European critics on Monday, telling a crowd of supporters, We dont care about the opinions of Hans or George or Helga. All debates about the constitutional referendum are now over, he said.

European officials have deplored the concentration of so much power in one persons hands, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has faulted Sundays election process. The vote fell under suspicion because ballots that didnt carry an official stamp were allowed to be tallied. The approval of expanded presidential powers won by a narrow majority of 51.4 percent.

QuickTake Erdogans Referendum Victory

The U.S. State Department cited observed irregularities in the conduct of the vote, but White House spokesman Sean Spicer wouldnt be drawn into the debate, saying at a press briefing on Monday that the U.S. would wait until international monitors complete their review.

Before we start getting into their governing system, let this commission go through its work, Spicer said.

French presidential candidate Francois Fillon told Europe1 radio that it wasnt helpful that Trump rushed to congratulate Erdogan, who has rolled back democracy in his country.

The OSCEs head of mission, Tana de Zulueta, said on Monday that freedom of expression was curbed during the campaign, that the conditions of the vote fell well short of international standards, and that some election monitors were inhibited from doing the job they were invited to do. Turkish opposition figures have already demanded the vote be annulled.

The balloting was held under a state of emergency thats been in place since a failed coup last July, and is in the process of being extended for three more months. Since the takeover attempt, some 40,000 of Erdogans alleged opponents have been jailed and about 100,000 more fired from civil service jobs.

In view of these observers reports, the close referendum result and the far-reaching implications of the constitutional amendments, we call on the Turkish authorities to consider the next steps very carefully and seek the broadest possible national consensus in the follow-up to the referendum, Margaritis Schinas, spokesman for the European Commission, told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday.

Serious Problems to Come for Turkey, Says Former Lawmaker

In another challenge to Turkeys European partners, Erdogan said a separate referendum might be held on putting an end to its EU candidacy. Previously, hed promised to revisit the European relationship once the referendum was out of the way. Membership in the European Union has been a goal of Turkish governments for more than 50 years.

A referendum on continuing the bid may be moot if another of Erdogans proposals gets passed. Revisiting a key theme of the campaign trail, he again touted the possibility of reinstituting the death penalty, which Turkey abolished in 2004 to meet a condition for EU membership.

EU foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini said foreign ministers will meet next week in Malta to discuss the outcome of the referendum and the future of Turkeys relationship with the bloc.

The membership perspective has de facto been buried, as Erdogan has told all of us that he considers Europe to be a dilapidated continent, Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern said in a statement. This means for us that were now entering a new era, that we need a new arrangement of our political relationship with Turkey.

The White House said the leaders also discussed the war in Syria, which has complicated ties between the two countries.

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Erdogan opposes U.S support for Syrian Kurdish rebels because he considers them terrorists and sees their wartime territorial gains as threatening his countrys efforts to vanquish its own separatist Kurdish insurgency. In his speech on Sunday, Erdogan said, We expect those states that we call allies, in particular, to develop their relations with our country in line with our sensitivities, especially on the fight against terrorism.

The White House said the two leaders discussed the campaign against Islamic State, including the need to cooperate against all groups that use terrorism to achieve their ends.

Originally posted here:
Trump Congratulates Erdogan on Referendum as Europe Seethes ...

Foreign Policy (blog)

It's Time for Erdogan to Admit He's Not a Democrat Foreign Policy (blog) One day after Turkey's presidential referendum, with allegations of fraud mounting and the opposition still contesting the results, U.S. President Donald Trump called to congratulate Recep Tayyip Erdogan on his victory and discuss the campaign against ... As Erdogan gains power in Turkey, a weakened opposition tries to stand in his wayWashington Post About That Phone Call to Erdogan The Weekly Standard Trump Congratulates Erdogan on Turkey Vote Cementing His RuleNew York Times Bloomberg -CIproud.com -Fox News all 3,545 news articles »

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It's Time for Erdogan to Admit He's Not a Democrat - Foreign Policy (blog)