The campaign underway before the Turkish referendum on constitutional amendments has been intense. While the results of the referendum will have important implications for the powers of the presidency and the make up of the Constitutional Court, the struggle between the government and the opposition is not about defending or opposing the current constitution.
It may be considered a struggle between different versions of a “Good Society” as envisioned by different political forces. Turkey is experiencing a legitimacy crisis whereby the secular credentials of the AKP are called into question by the opposition on the one hand, while the conservatives, the AKP elite included, question the commitment of the opposition parties to civilian supremacy over the military command on the other. A kulturkampf that reinforces the crisis of legitimacy, which in turn undermines trust between the major actors in Turkish politics, now defines the political atmosphere in Turkey.
The long-standing Turkish kulturkampf between secularmodernist and traditional, conservative and Sunni Muslim values has once again come to define the main issues on the political agenda. When it first came to power in 2002, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government acted with caution ; its approach resembled a form of good governance.
It tested the waters on such issues as criminalizing adultery, legalizing the türban, and turning forested areas into residential zones. It only altered its initial positions when it ran into a torrent of criticism. However, with the start of the election process of the president of the republic in the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM) in 2007, the style of the AKP government began to change dramatically. Its leader, Prime Minister Erdoğan began to emphasize legislative supremacy and his personal representation of the national will (milli irade), and made references to the Democrat Party (DP) of the 1950s as its ideological predecessor. From 2007 onwards a majoritarian style of discourse and conduct that substituted good governance with anger, accusations, and confrontations began to characterize the actions of the AKP leader and his followers.
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