Yes and No camps rally for vote
Erdogan rules out federal system
ISTANBUL, April 15, (Agencies): Turkey’s top politicians made a final effort Saturday to sway undecided voters in a frenetic end to a bitterlycontested campaign in the referendum on expanding President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s powers.
Campaigning must end at 1500 GMT but both the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ camps were squeezing in a flurry of rallies as the clock ticked down to Sunday’s landmark poll. Analysts see the poll as a historic choice on the direction of the NATO member which will shape its future political system and determine relations with the West.
If passed, the new presidential system will implement the most radical political shake-up since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, dispensing with the office of the prime minister and centralising the entire executive bureaucracy under the presidency.
Erdogan in a late night interview with TRT state television confidently predicted victory, saying surveys showed a ‘Yes’ vote of 55-60 percent.
“On Sunday I think that could be a very clear outcome in favour of ‘Yes’” he said.
Predicted
Opinion polls have predicted drastically different outcomes and victories for both sides. But the ruling party and presidency are widely believed to conduct their own confidential polling.
Erdogan, who has dominated the airwaves in recent weeks with multiple daily rallies and interviews, was due to give four more speeches in Istanbul.
“God willing, this nation will celebrate tomorrow evening,” he said in the first of the rallies. “Tomorrow is very important, you will definitely go to ballot box and cast your vote,” he told supporters.
The standard-bearer of the ‘No’ camp, Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, warned at a meeting in the Ankara region that Turkey was deciding if “we want to continue with the democratic parliamentary system or one man rule”. He described the new system as “a bus with no brakes and whose destination is unknown.”
The opposition has cried foul that the referendum has been conducted on unfair terms, with ‘Yes’ posters ubiquitous on the streets and opposition voices squeezed from the media.
The two co-leaders of the second opposition party the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Figen Yuksekdag and Selahattin Demirtas, have been jailed on charges of backing Kurdish militants in what supporters say was a deliberate move to eliminate them from the campaign.
The HDP was due later Saturday to hold a final mass rally in its stronghold of Diyarbakir in southeast Turkey.
Historic
“The last messages,” headlined the Hurriyet daily. “With one day remaining to the historic referendum the leaders are making the final calls to influence undecided voters.”
The campaign, however, has not been plain sailing for Erdogan, and some heavyweight figures within the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) have been conspicuously silent on the new system.
President Tayyip Erdogan on Friday ruled out introducing any federal system in Turkey, after an angry backlash to comments by an advisor from nationalists key to his success in this weekend’s referendum.
Turks will decide on Sunday whether to approve boosting Erdogan’s powers under an executive presidency, which would also see the role of prime minister axed.
Erdogan’s advisor Sukru Karatepe was accused this week of suggesting in an Ankara publication that, if approved, the changes could lead to a federal system in the country but the government said his comments were misunderstood.
Turkish President ruled out on Friday extraditing German-Turkish journalist Deniz Yucel to Germany while he is in office, repeating his assertion that Yucel is a “terrorist agent”.
Yucel, a national of both countries, was arrested two months ago on charges of making propaganda in support of a terrorist organisation and inciting the public to violence. Yucel denies the charges.
Erdogan said that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had asked him to extradite Yucel but that he had denied her request saying the journalist would be tried in Turkish courts, which he said would ensure a fair trial.
A Turkish soldier and a guard were killed by a roadside bomb in the southeastern city of Van, military sources said on Friday, adding that an aerial operation was underway against the suspected Kurdish militant attackers.
An explosion hit Turkish security forces carrying out reconnaissance along a road in Van, the sources said. Initial reports pointed to an explosive device planted by members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), they said.
Turkey’s state-run news agency says the Istanbul chief prosecutor’s office has launched an investigation into 17 US-based individuals, including Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, former US Attorney Preet Bharara and ex-CIA director John Brennan, for their alleged links to cleric Fethullah Gulen.