The Decline and Fall of Turkish Democracy
ANKARA—When Ismail Ok, a minister of the Turkish parliament, broke ranks with his party leadership, he knew what would come next.
In January, Ok’s party, the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), announced its alliance with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The move helped secure the parliamentary votes necessary to set a constitutional referendum in motion that, if approved, would convert the country’s parliamentary system into a presidential one. In February, Ok announced he would be campaigning for the “No” side in the April 16 vote. Ok’s choice turned him and a group of fellow MHP dissenters into pariahs within the MHP; by mid-March, they had been kicked out of the party.
Since then, he has maintained opposition to a presidential system. “I see this decision to dismiss me as an honor badge,” Ok said when we met at his office at the Turkish parliament in February. “Most of our supporters are against the constitutional amendments. They are voting ‘No’ and I am their representative.”
From the U.K.,, to , to , popular referendums have convulsed the world in recent months. But Turkey’s is in a class of its own. A win for “Yes” would diminish the role of parliament, dissolve the office of the prime minister, and increase legislative, judicial, and executive powers under the presidency, endowing Erdogan with unparalleled dominance over Turkish politics.
