Reflections on the Turkish referendum
April 20th, 2017A pro-government columnist interprets the success of the Turkish referendum as a sign that Turkey is turning away from Europe. A left-wing commentator thinks Erdogan is doomed to fail because he has divided his country.
Turkey has turned its back on Europe, Magyar Idők’s Péter Bakodi interprets the referendum. The pro-government commentator believes that now his referendum has passed, President Erdogan has completed his mission to tear down Kemal Atatürk’s Western style secular parliamentary democracy. Bakodi finds it peculiar that the Turkish diaspora in some western European countries assisted President Erdogan in gaining virtually absolute power as leader of Turkey.
The approval of the constitutional amendments is a Pyrrhic victory for Erdogan, Tamás Rónay comments in Népszava. The left-wing columnist contends that Turkey’s authoritarian turn is in line with the rise of those whom he calls illiberal politicians acrossEurope and in the US. Rónay, however, predicts that Erdogan is ‘doomed to fail’ as his politics have divided and polarized Turkey.