Ahead of Turkey’s referendum to expand presidential powers, POMED Senior Nonresident Fellow Howard Eissenstat wrote in The Hill on April 12, “A yes vote in the referendum would cement the rule of Turkey’s charismatic and pugnacious president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, allowing him unprecedented new powers.  The stakes could hardly be higher, but the campaign has not been a free or fair one.”

He concludes, “A victory for the yes campaign could well be a death blow for Turkey’s beleaguered democracy.  But the campaign over the referendum already shows how damaged that democratic tradition has become. The vote will be anything but free and fair.”

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