Amendments passed but boycott choice needs answers
by editor | 13th September 2010 9:28 am
Amendments passed but boycott choice needs answers
The ball now is on the AKP court: will it be able to face the challenge?
Constitutional amendments have been passed but the boycott call made by the BPD (Peace and Democracy Party) was met by hundred of thousands people.
The final results see 58 percent of voters backing the 26 proposed constitutional amendments while 42 percent rejecting the changes.
The overall turnout in the referendum was around 77 percent, and this confirms that the call made by the BDP to boycott the vote was influential.
The amendments will change the structure of two judicial institutions, the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Board of Prosecutors and Judges, or HSYK, and will make bland reforms (for example those on the rights of women and children are considered weak by those who boycott)that will nevertheless help Turkey in its negotiation process with the European Union.
As in the 2009 local elections, the main opposition party CHP (Republican People’s Party) found support in the coastal areas around the Aegean and the Mediterranean, which largely voted in line with its “no” indication.
The ruling party AKP (Justice and Development Party)got votes in the major cities of Istanbul and Ankara. It could hardly be called a landslide victory, though.
Boycott was indeed a success in many cities. In Diyarbak?r there was a mere 33 percent turnout. (Of those who voted more than 90 percent voted “yes.”)
?zmir, a traditional base for the CHP, supported the main opposition’s campaign against the amendments, with 63 percent voting “no” and 36 percent saying “yes.”
In the capital, the turnout was 80 percent, some 54 percent voted “yes” and 45 percent voted “no”. In Istanbul 54 percent of the voters said “yes” and 45 percent said “no.”
The Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, which also campaigned against the proposed reforms, faced a disappointment in most of the provinces where it won mayoral seats in the 2009 local elections. In Osmaniye, hometown of MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli, the majority said “yes”.
Source URL: https://globalrights.info/2010/09/amendments-passed-but-boycott-choice-needs-answers/