Pray about Turkey and its Upcoming Elections
Erdoğan’s Proposal for an Empowered Presidency
Turks will vote April 16 in a referendum on proposed constitutional amendments that would greatly enhance the power of the presidency and reinforce Turkey’s democratic decline.
“On April 16, the Turkish people will vote on a package of constitutional amendments passed by Turkey’s Parliament on January 21, 2017, that greatly expands the powers of the presidency.
If the package passes the nationwide referendum, it will broaden and deepen the de jure powers of the presidency, giving it authority over all executive branch institutions, including the military. It would give the president the power to appoint key senior-level judges and other judicial officials without parliamentary—or any other—review. It would abolish the post of prime minister, with the president assuming the powers of that office. And it would allow, under certain circumstances, the president to serve three terms totaling just short of 15 years.
In short, Turkey’s long-standing parliamentary political system would be transformed into something more appropriately called a presidential system, in which an “executive presidency”1 amasses unprecedented power in the hands of one man. The referendum will take place amid the ongoing erosion of Turkish democratic institutions, freedom of speech, and political rights. Moreover, the referendum campaign and the vote itself will be held under some of the least democratic circumstances imaginable—namely, emergency rule.
The following are among the other significant features of the proposed new presidential system that will be explored in the main body of this report:
On paper, the new structure would create a presidency with vast powers, but—depending particularly on whether the president’s party controls Parliament—it would be somewhat less powerful than the unfettered, one-man dictatorship widely expected by Erdoğan’s critics and possibly craved by Erdoğan himself.
Voters will go to the polls knowing that a “yes” vote will significantly increase the president’s already considerable power, fortify Turkey’s growing reputation for authoritarianism, and further alienate Turkey from its NATO allies.”
Alan Makovsky is a Senior Fellow on the National Security and International Policy team at the Center for American Progress.
Please keep the beautiful land of Turkey and her people in prayer as they go to the voting booth on April 16 that a just and good government will be the result that upholds religious freedom. Pray that the nation will be kept from religious and political tyranny and that many Turks will be able to have the freedom to come to faith in Jesus Christ. May the Gospel speed on, spreading everywhere as never before in this largely unreached nation!
