Thursday
Sep162010
Turkey's Constitutional Referendum: Follow-Up Analyses --- Victory or Diversion?
Yesterday we featured an analysis by Dr Basak Alpan of Sunday's referendum in Turkey, in which 58% of voters approved 26 amendments to the 1982 Constitution. Alpan was pessimistic about the significance of the "Yes" vote: "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."
Some other assessments of the vote and the apparent victory of the ruling Justice and Development Party: