Turkish Voters OK Pack of Constitutional Amendments

Yesterday, Turkey's electorate voted in a referendum on a couple dozen or so constitutional amendments to the 1982 military-drafted constitution. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan led the "Yes" campaign, which romped home with a 58% to 42% edge. While the opposition defamed the vote as a warm up for the general election in July, the changes have brought Turkey much farther along the path to genuine democracy than ever.

The 1982 constitution is a document that was "of the military, by the military and for the military," and it sought to entrench the military's status as the leaders of the coup of 1980 handed power (or at least pretended to) over to the civilians. Until now, trying a military officer in civilian court has been almost impossible, and the top brass had a lot of say over who got appoint judge. Those who led the 1980 coup had legal immunity under Article 15.

All of that is now changed. In addition, measures to strengthen gender equality passed as did the illegalization of discrimination against children, the old and disabled. Workers can now join more than one union/ Politically motivated strikes are now legal. If a political party is disbanded by court order (as the ruling party almost was in 2008), its elected lawmakers don't lose their seats.

The BBC interviewed a man who lives in Istanbul named Ozgur Deniz voted "No". "The bad thing about this referendum was that we had to either choose or reject the whole package," he told the BBC. "This is a package where some things are good for democracy - such as less power for the military. But there are some items which might be used by the government to use democracy for non-democratic purposes, like the item regarding the judiciary.? This journal agrees with Mr. Deniz -- each amendment should have been considered separately.

Nevertheless, the good in the package of 26 amendments outweighs the bad and convinces impartial outsiders that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP by its Turkish initials), despite its religious roots, is committed to the secular ideals of Ataturk. Those who voted "No" disagree, but the facts are the facts; taken together, the amendments are more liberal than the language they replace. The reaction of most European governments has been positive, and this goes a bit further in bringing Turkey into the EU where it belongs.

The Kurds remained an issue in this campaign. The Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party called for a boycott of the vote. Turnout in what might be called Turkish Kurdistan was low, and it is difficult to say whether the boycott was more effective than a large turnout that might have voted "No." Prime Minister Erdogan has made overtures to the Kurds since his election, but they remain suspicious of Ankara's motives.

In the final analysis, the prime minister was right when he said, "Today both those who said yes and those who said no have won because democracy is for everyone." He also said, "The period that began with the 1980 junta is over. What has lost tonight is the junta mentality.'' One can only hope that other Muslim (and non-Muslim) countries are studying this example as the Turks walk into the 21st century.

© Copyright 2010 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.

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