Turkish Opposition Party Republican People's Party (CHP) Leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu attends a "NO" campaign meeting on March 28, 2017, in Kocaeli, three weeks ahead of the referendum on an executive presidency.Depo Photos/Press Association. All rights reserved.The most significant result of the April 16 referendum in Turkey seems to be that noone but the President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his supporters accepts it. As predicted, the referendum has yielded controversial results after extremely unfair and suspicious processes of campaigning, voting and counting. The official results declare a narrow win for Erdoğan’s ‘yes’ camp to legally cement his one-man regime: but external observers and opposition state that up to 2.5 million votes could have been manipulated as a result of a blatantly illegal decision by the High Electoral Board (YSK).
All the opposition parties, including the Republican People’s Party (CHP), Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), and the opposition wing of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), contest the results and, thereby, question the very legitimacy of Erdoğan rule as well as the regime he wants to impose. Spontaneous rallies of mass protest calling for the referendum to be annulled continue in several cities. So do the arrests of those protesting. This means that in post-referendum Turkey, it is not just Erdoğan and his supporters but the opposition as well who refuse to recognize their adversaries as legitimate. This is an explosive formula because the referendum has carried the toxic polarization in Turkey to a whole new level where now everyone considers politics an existential battle that only one side can survive. In Turkey now everyone considers politics an existential battle that only one side can survive.
Nevertheless, the referendum has left the opposition at a historic crossroads: will they simply cease the struggle now that the YSK has rejected their appeals, or will they keep the fight going through whichever means is available? This is identical to the question about whether they will keep acting as if Turkey were even a nominally democratic country. Their answer to those questions will simultaneously determine whether they will gradually wither away from the Turkish political scene.
