Turkey's Referendum: What Was the Question Again? (Alpan)

Dr Basak Alpan writes her first analysis for EA WorldView:

Fernando Solanas’s 1988 film El Sur ("The South") is a fantastic account of the brutal politics in Argentina between 1976 and 1983. Floreal, who is released from the prison before the end of military rule in 1983, struggles to get used to the dictatorship-torn country, coming to terms with the coup d’état of 24 March 1976.

This was one of the most significant claims of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) before last Sunday's referendum: the decision by Turkish voters on 26 amendments to the constitution would be the "coming to terms" with the coup d'etat of 12 September 1980. The constitution had been drawn up by a constituent assembly, appointed and supervised by the military leaders, and adopted by a nation-wide referendum held under martial conditions. Although it has been amended many times after Turkey's return to multi-party politics in 1983, especially during the application to join the European Union, people still call it the 1982 Constitution to point out its non-democratic elements.

However, the AKP’s claim that the 26 amendments is a "coming to terms" with the coup is far from reality. The referendum as well as the amendments it stipulates bring in a new un-democratic dimension to the constitution and Turkish politics.

As the constitutional professor Murat Sevinç argues, if consensus really matters for the ratification of the constitution, the amendments should be classified according to their content and voted upon separately by the voters. More importantly, the amendments are likely to destroy the principle of the separation of powers. In the new constitution, 14 members of the 17-member Constitutional Court will be elected by the President; meanwhile,the highly-debated undemocratic structure of the Higher Board of Prosecutors and Judges (HSYK) remains intact. Indeed, the Board, which is responsible for the selection and appointment of judicial and administrative judges, is expanded by the amended constitution, giving a greater role for the government and the President through appointment of its members.

The picture is worse when it comes to labour relations. The new constitution does not give state employees the right to a mass strike; their collective bargaining is conditional on the mercy of the so-called Public Employees’ Arbitration Board, consisting of government representatives. The declaration by 29 out of 33 labor unions in Turkey that they would vote against the amendment is an indication that the new constitution does not uphold social rights and liberties in the eyes of the labour movement. (This is the irony with the "It is not enough but yes" platform of July 2010 which brought together well-known and self-declared left-wing intellectuals such as Baskın Oran, Adalet Ağaoğlu, Osman Can, Ferhat Kentel, and Nabi Yağcı, who declared that they were going to support the amendments.)

The new constitution, supported by 58% of the voters, is not a resolution of the 12 September 1980 coup d’état. Setting capital against labour and the Executive against legislators and the judiciary can hardly achieve that.

It is not yet clear how the social forces of the Turkish political landscape will react to the new constitution but it is crystal-clear that neither the ‘yes’ side nor the ‘no’ side won at yesterday’s referendum. All of us --- except for the Executive and the business world, with its obsession with "stability" --- lost.