Poll campaign starts in Ankara
Turkish voters are urged to say yes to Erdogan power play
ANKARA // Turkish prime minister Binali Yildirim yesterday urged citizens to approve constitutional changes to boost president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s powers, saying it would make the country stronger.
Mr Yildirim was addressing the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) first rally ahead of an April 16 referendum on creating an executive presidency.
“For a strong Turkey, lasting stability, our choice is ‘yes’,” he told the Ankara rally of party members and supporters from the country’s 81 provinces.
Mr Yildirim insisted that no one would be forced to back the changes, which the government says are necessary for political harmony but critics fear will create one-man rule under Mr Erdogan.
The constitutional changes would give the president powers to directly appoint top public officials including ministers, and replace the post of prime minister with one or more vice presidents.
The leader of the main opposi- tion Republican People’s Party, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, said the changes amounted to “regime change”.
“We are living through a process where all authority is being gathered in one person,” Mr Kilicdaroglu said.
A film about Mr Erdogan’s life is to be released in Turkish cinemas on Friday, but its director said the timing was unrelated to the referendum.
The film Reis (Chief) stars Reha Beyoglu, a Turk who bears an uncanny resemblance to Mr Erdogan when he was younger. It shows the president’s rise from a childhood in a poor district of Istanbul to becoming the city’s mayor in 1999.
The film was to have been released in March last year but its director, Hudaverdi Yavuz, said he had no control over the distribution date.
“This film is absolutely ours, this is not propaganda,” he said, adding that there was no outside intervention.
The result of the national referendum has proven difficult to forecast. One pollster this month had the “no” side edging ahead with 51.1 per cent, while another said the changes would be approved by 55 per cent.