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A decade ago, when then-Prime Minister of Turkey Tayyip Erdogan consolidated power with a sweeping electoral victory giving his Justice and Development Party almost 47 percent of the vote, both supporters and opponents loudly spoke out.

Whether they loved or hated him, there was no denying one out of two people you see in the street voted for Erdogan, in the words of his jubilant supporters.

Nearly a decade later, that sense of jubilation has been tempered among some Erdogan supporters. Because while preliminary official results showed 51.4 percent of the Turkish electorate voted on Sunday to change the constitution in a move that critics say will give Erdogan nearly dictatorial powers, this time the feeling was more one of rejection by nearly half of those Turks in the street 48.6 percent.

In fact, the no votes won out in three of Turkeys largest cities Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir. Erdogan also lost in his old parliamentary constituency of Uskudar, one of the busiest commercial and residential districts on the Asian side of Istanbul.

The reported Uskudar no vote of 53.3 percent the figure could have been much higher, say Erdogan critics who are contesting the national results delivered a blow to the ego of the leader who typically takes great pride in collecting votes from even the most remote parts of Turkey.

Some appear to disdain the results, Erdogan said late Sunday. Dont even try; He who grabbed the horse has already passed Uskudar, he added, referring to a Turkish proverb and indicating he had already moved on to planning his consolidation of power in the aftermath of the referendum.

Many took to social media to remind him that literally passing Uskudar wasnt so easy this time around. He who grabbed the horse has already passed Uskudar he says, but he could not even win the district, said one tweet.

Others were reminded of much-publicized incident from 2003 (https://twitter.com/hhseyinylmz/status/853946057583153152) where Erdogan was thrown from the back of a horse, which proceeded to promptly kick him in the groin as it ran off. He says he passed Uskudar with a horse, but neither the horse nor Uskudar accepted him, another social media user tweeted.

The no vote extended to other, formerly more reliable Erdogan areas like the Turkish capital of Ankara, home of Erdogans much-maligned 1,150-room presidential palace, and to the mega-metropolis of Istanbul, where his tenure as mayor in the 1990s catapulted Erdogan to greater national prominence.

Levent Gultekin, a prominent Turkish journalist and columnist, said despite having the convenience of exploiting all state institutions to reach their goals, the yes camp still could not exceed 51 percent.

They lost Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Adana, Diyarbakr, and Mersin, said Gultekin, Despite all the pressure, all the threats, all the lies and the media bombardment, 49 percent of the country resisted them The people refused to grant everything he wanted, to do anything he wanted, to own everything forever.

Critics also note that Erdogan jailed or exiled many opposition figures in the run-up to the referendum, including the co-leaders of pro-Kurdish HDP opposition party. The HDP managed to secure more than five million of a total of 49 million votes in Turkeys last general elections, in November 2015, despite a series of bombings and accusations of having ties with the Kurdish separatist group, the PKK.

That already-heavy hand of Erdogans control on Turkish media and other institutions, particularly since an aborted coup attempt last year that resulted in the arrest or detention of more than 100,000 Turks, actually left more of his opponents almost claiming victory in the results.

He dissected the entire country, and terribly polarized it, said Hasan Cemal, another Turkish journalist, who said the large no vote was a victory for the anti-Erdogan camp, despite all the oppression and all the pressure.

This 49 percent is what gives me hope for democracy, law, and the future of freedom.

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Turkey's Erdogan, once greeted jubilantly, now rejected by ...

ANKARA Turkey's main opposition began a battle on Tuesday to annul a referendum handing President Tayyip Erdogan sweeping new powers, while the bar association and an international monitor said an illegal move by electoral authorities may have swung the vote.

A defiant Erdogan, whose narrow victory exposed the nation's deep divisions, has said Sunday's vote ended all debate on the more powerful presidency he has long sought, and told European observers who criticised it: "talk to the hand".

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, whose job will cease to exist once the constitutional changes take full effect, said Erdogan would be invited to rejoin the ruling AK Party as soon as official results are announced, a sign the government has no intention of waiting to see the outcome of opposition appeals.

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Under the outgoing constitution, the president had been required to remain impartial and renounce party political ties.

Few in Turkey expect legal challenges to the referendum to lead to a recount, let alone a re-run. But if unresolved, they will leave deep questions over the legitimacy of a vote which split the electorate down the middle, and whose polarising campaign drew criticism and concern from European allies.

Turkey's bar association said a last-minute decision by the YSK electoral board to allow unstamped ballots in the referendum was clearly against the law, prevented proper records being kept, and may have impacted the results.

"With this illegal decision, ballot box councils (officials at polling stations) were misled into believing that the use of unstamped ballots was appropriate," the Union of Turkish Bar Associations (TBB) said in a statement.

"Our regret is not over the outcome of the referendum, but because of the desire to overlook clear and harsh violations of the law that have the potential to impact the results," it said.

The main opposition People's Republican Party (CHP), which has said it will take its challenge to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary, presented a formal appeal to annul the vote to the YSK.

CHP deputy chairman Bulent Tezcan said the number of missing votes was "unprecedented", although the exact number of unstamped ballots was unknown.

YSK Chairman Sadi Guven said on Monday the last-minute decision to allow unstamped ballots was not unprecedented as the government had previously permitted such a move.

An Austrian member of the Council of Europe observer mission said up to 2.5 million votes could have been manipulated, almost double the margin of Erdogan's victory, and that the YSK decision on unstamped ballots appeared illegal.

"These complaints are to be taken very seriously and they are, in any case, of such an extent that they would turn around the outcome of the vote," Alev Korun told ORF radio.

The European Commission, which unlike U.S. President Donald Trump has declined to congratulate Erdogan on Sunday's vote, called on Turkey to launch a transparent investigation into the alleged irregularities.

"There will be no call to Erdogan from the Commission, certainly not a congratulatory call," a Western official with knowledge of EU policy told Reuters. "Turkey is sliding towards a semi-authoritarian system under one-man rule".

"CONSIDERABLE COMPLAINTS"

Election authorities have said preliminary results showed 51.4 percent of voters had backed the biggest overhaul of Turkish politics since the founding of the modern republic, a far narrower margin than Erdogan had been seeking.

Erdogan argues that concentration of power in the presidency is needed to prevent instability. Opponents accuse him of leading a drive toward one-man rule in Turkey, a NATO member that borders Iran, Iraq and Syria and whose stability is of vital importance to the United States and the European Union.

Speaking in parliament on Tuesday, Yildirim said "rumours" of irregularities were a vain effort to cast doubt on the result.

"The people's will has been reflected at the ballot box, and the debate is over," he said. "Everyone should respect the outcome, especially the main opposition".

Omer Celik, minister for European affairs, said criticism of the referendum was politically motivated, defending what he said were Turkey's strong legal framework and transparent election process.

The YSK said on its website on Sunday, as votes were still being cast, that it had received "considerable complaints" that voters had been given slips and envelopes without official stamps and that - after an appeal from a ruling AK Party official - it would accept unstamped documents as long as they were not proven to be fraudulent.

The bar association, whose head Metin Feyzioglu is seen as a potential future leader of the opposition CHP, said it had also received phone calls from many provinces about unstamped ballots on Sunday and that its lawyers had advised that records of this should be closely kept once ballot boxes were opened.

But it said that had failed to happen, and that evidence of irregularities had therefore not been properly archived.

On its website, the YSK gave four examples of cases in previous decades where unstamped ballots had been accepted at individual ballot boxes. But those cases only affected several hundred votes and the decision was taken days after the vote and only once the possibility of fraud had been ruled out.

The YSK has also decided to annul elections in the past because of unstamped ballots. It cancelled the results of local elections in two districts in southeastern Turkey in April 2014 and re-held them two months later.

And in Sunday's referendum, the YSK's overseas election branch had already rejected an appeal by a ruling AK Party official to have unstamped envelopes counted as valid.

YSK officials could not be reached for comment.

(Additional reporting by Ece Toksabay in Ankara, Daren Butler in Istanbul, Shadia Nasralla in Vienna, Robine Emmott and Francesco Guarascio in Brussels; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Anna Willard)

PARIS The killing of a policeman by a suspected Islamist militant pushed national security to the top of the French political agenda on Friday, two days before the presidential election.

SYDNEY Denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula can still be achieved peacefully because of Washington's new engagement with China, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said on Saturday, despite growing fears North Korea could soon conduct a new nuclear test.

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Opponents seek to annul Turkish vote as Erdogan's new powers ...

Rising from humble origins to take the helm of Turkey's government in 2003, Recep Tayyip Erdogan quickly attracted a fervent following. But Erdogan, who served as prime minister and then president, also became feared and hated by many who saw him as an increasingly autocratic leader seeking to erode the country's secular traditions by imposing his conservative, religious views.

Constitutional changes that would change the country's system of government from parliamentary to presidential and grant Erdogan even more authority were narrowly approved by Turkey's voters on Sunday, according to unofficial results from the country's election commission.

The changes, one of the most radical political reforms since the Turkish republic was established in 1923, could see the 63-year-old president remain in power until 2029.

The vote's outcome reinforced Erdogan's image as a figure both popular and polarizing. While thousands of flag-waving supporters cheered the referendum's approval, political opponents immediately questioned the legitimacy of the balloting and said they intended to challenge a sizeable share of the count.

Erdogan served three consecutive terms as prime minister as head of his Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party, before becoming Turkey's first directly elected president in 2014.

Supporters found in him a man who gave a voice to the working- and middle-class religious Turks who long had felt marginalized by the country's Western-leaning elite.

He was seen to have ushered in a period of stability and economic prosperity, building roads, schools, hospitals and airports in previously neglected areas, transforming hitherto backwaters.

"He's a real leadership figure because he is not a politician that comes from the outside. He comes from the street," Birol Akgun, an international relations expert at Ankara's Yildirim Beyazit University, said. "He has 40 years of political experience and is very strong in practical terms."

But with each election win, Erdogan grew more powerful, and, his critics say, more authoritarian.

His election campaigns have been forceful and bitter, with Erdogan lashing out at his opponents, accusing them of endangering the country and even supporting terrorism. After surviving an attempted coup last July, Erdogan launched a wide-ranging crackdown on followers of his former ally, Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Erdogan blames Gulen, who lives in the United States, and his supporters for plotting the coup, an allegation Gulen has denied.

The crackdown saw roughly 100,000 people lose their jobs, including judges, lawyers, teachers, journalists, military officers and police. More than 40,000 people have been arrested and jailed, including pro-Kurdish lawmakers.

Hundreds of non-governmental organizations and news outlets have been shut down, as have many businesses, from schools to fertility clinics.

Erdogan has also blasted European countries, accusing authorities in the Netherlands and Germany of being Nazis for refusing to allow Turkish ministers to campaign for Sunday's referendum among expatriate voters.

His critics fear that if the "yes" vote prevails in the referendum, Erdogan will cement his grip on power within a system that has practically no room for checks and balances, opposition or dissent.

"One person will determine national security policies, according to the constitutional changes. Why one person? What if he makes a mistake? What if he is deceived? What if he is bought?" said Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of the main opposition Republican People's Party, during a "no" rally in Ankara Saturday.

"Surrendering the Republic of Turkey to one person is a heavy sin. It's very heavy," Kilicdaroglu continued. "Can there be a state without rights and justice?"

As prime minister, Erdogan garnered support from Turkey's Kurdish minority, which is estimated to make up about one-fifth of the country's population of 80 million people. He eased restrictions on the right to be educated in Kurdish and to give children Kurdish names.

He also oversaw a fragile cease-fire in the fight between the state and Kurdish rebels in the country's southeast, a conflict that has claimed an estimated 40,000 lives since 1984.

But the cease-fire collapsed in 2015, and about 2,000 people have died since then, including nearly 800 members of the security forces. With renewed fighting in the southeastern predominantly Kurdish areas, it is unclear whether Erdogan still would have much support from the Kurdish community.

Erdogan has promised the new presidential system will herald a period of stability and prosperity for Turkey, a country that has suffered several coups in the past few decades.

"He is a harsh leader in character," said Ankara academic Akgun, who used to head a pro-government NGO. "But in Turkey, a country that has so many problems, in societies like ours, the image of strong leadership is necessary to command both fear and respect and trust in society."

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Turkey's Erdogan proves a popular and polarizing figure

Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed victory on Sunday in a referendum on a proposal to massively expand his power, while dismissing the objections of opposition parties who challenged the outcome of the vote.

Erdogans victory sets in motion a transformation of Turkish politics, replacing the current parliamentary system with one dominated by a powerful presidency. According to preliminary results, a small majority of Turkish voters approved the set of 18 constitutional amendments that limits parliaments oversight of the executive, eliminates the office of the Prime Minister, and expands presidential power over judicial appointments. Erdogan and his supporters say the constitutional changes are needed to ensure stability, while opponents denounced the amendments as a step toward an era of autocracy.

The narrow, disputed outcome of the vote also sets the stage for a bitter struggle over the validity of the referendum results. According to Turkeys state news agency, the yes vote won by a margin of 51.2% to 48.8%. However, two opposition parties said they would challenge the result, citing violations in the vote-counting procedure. The campaign also took place in the wake of a vast political crackdown in Turkey following a failed military coup last July. The questions about the referendums results now promise to sow even more division in a country already deeply polarized over the figure of Erdogan and the merits of his proposed presidential system.

Addressing his supporters on Sunday night, Erdogan brushed aside questions of legitimacy, claiming a definitive victory in the referendum. "The discussion is over. 'Yes' has won."

Throughout the referendum campaign, Erdogan has argued the new system of government would introduce political stability and security. It certainly promises to make Erdogan the undisputed leader of Turkey for years to come, inviting comparisons to Vladimir Putin of Russia and other populist autocrats.

Whos going to stop Erdogan? There never was anyone to stop Erdogan, but now, even the formal possibility of there being something is erased from the law, says Selim Sazak, a fellow at the Delma Institute, an Abu Dhabibased think tank.

The dispute over the outcome of the referendum centers on a last-minute decision by the state election board to count ballots that did not receive an official authenticating stamp. The countrys largest opposition party says that as many as 1.5 million ballots did not receive such a stamp, a number that would more than account for the margin of victory in the margin of victory of 1.3 million reported by the state news agency. "At least half the country said no to constitutional change. This shouldn't be carried against the publics will, said Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the centrist Republican Peoples Party, in a televised address on Sunday night. Angry demonstrations erupted late Sunday night in neighborhoods of Istanbul where the opposition is heavily represented.

This is a very close call, so I dont think people are going to let it go necessarily. It will probably be talked about for some time, says Selim Koru, an analyst at the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey. He adds, The President is obviously going to continue and try to enact a transition to make everything irreversible as quickly as he can.

The entire referendum campaign took place amid political crackdown in the aftermath of a deadly military coup last July that failed to dislodge Erdogan and killed more than 200 people. After surviving the coup attempt, Erdogan moved to consolidate power, with authorities jailing thousands and dismissing tens of thousands of civil servants, soldiers, police officers, teachers, justice officials and others from their jobs. In a parallel set of court cases, hundreds of members of one major opposition party the Peoples Democratic Party have been imprisoned on terrorism charges, among them Members of Parliament. The government accuses the party of ties to outlawed Kurdish militants who are engaged in a long-running war with the Turkish state.

The results of the national vote also suggest some weaknesses in the Presidents base of support. In Istanbul, Turkeys largest city, where Erdogan came of age and rose to stardom as the elected mayor in the 1990s, the no votes edged out the yes votes. The "no" campaign also won the capital, Ankara, as well as Izmir, a major coastal city. A significant number of supporters of Erdogans own party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), voted against the constitutional changes, signaling distrust with a the expansion of the power of a President who already has unrivaled control.

In Istanbuls Kasimpasa neighborhood, where Erdogan lived as a teenager and a young man, some of the Presidents supporters said they voted no.

A presidential system doesnt sound right to me, said Nazli Kaya, 32, standing outside a polling station in a school in Kasimpasa. I believe in diversity. I dont want a one-man system, she says.

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Erdogan's Referendum Victory Leaves Turkey More Divided ...

Nine months ago, after fighting off a coup attempt, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed that his opponents would pay a heavy price. And pay they did: The autocratic-minded president embarked on a sweeping purge that left nearly 170,000 compatriots, viewed by the president as enemies, either behind bars or forced from their jobs.

Now the Turkish leader may be setting his sights on another perceived foe: the West.

The confrontation, were it to escalate, could have lasting repercussions for the U.S.-led fight against the militants of Islamic State, Europes migrant crisis and perhaps even the NATO alliance, of which Turkey is one of only two Muslim-majority members. It has the blocs second-largest military.

Erdogan had hoped to put a final seal on his consolidation of power this week by decisively winning a referendum that replaces Turkeys century-old parliamentary democracy with a presidential system. It greatly expands the presidents authority and would allow Erdogan to serve for an additional 15 years in office.

But the margin of victory in Sundays balloting was razor-thin, and the votes legitimacy was sharply questioned by both domestic opponents and foreign observers.

The opposition Republican Peoples Party on Monday demanded the annulment of the constitutional referendum, charging that the rules for counting ballots were changed illegally in the midst of voting. And observers from the Council of Europe issued a scathing report, saying the campaign took place on an unlevel playing field and that the rules for organizing the referendum were not up to international standards.

For the 63-year-old leader, the muddied result was a fury-inducing affront. Addressing supporters in the Turkish capital, Ankara, on Monday, Erdogan denounced the crusader mentality in the West a loaded reference to Europes medieval holy wars aimed at Islam.

Bashing the West, particularly Europe, is a well-thumbed page in the Erdogan playbook, a sure-fire way of appealing to his conservative, nationalistic base at home.

In recent months, the Turkish president has quarreled repeatedly and publicly with European leaders. Most recently, he accused the Netherlands and Germany of Nazi-like behavior when they prevented Turkish politicians visiting those countries from campaigning for the referendum in front of crowds of expatriate Turks.

This time, though, a leader who had once touted himself as a bridge between East and West appeared determined to issue a rebuke to Europe that was more than symbolic. At several appearances Monday, he emphasized his readiness to restore the death penalty, a step that would all but kill Turkeys decades-long campaign to join the European Union.

Playing to popular Turkish sentiment, Erdogan has also said the question of whether to continue seeking EU membership should be put to a referendum.

That resonates well with his constituency, and beyond, said Gonul Tol, the director of the Middle East Institutes Center for Turkish Studies. If you talk to a regular Turk in the street about the European Union, you hear this often: They wont accept us because were Muslim.

While Erdogan may be grappling with Europe, he seems to have retained one Western friend: Donald Trump.

In a remarkably friendly telephone conversation, Trump congratulated Erdogan for the referendum victory, apparently ignoring the narrow margin, allegations of fraud and criticisms of overreaching power, according to an account released by the White House.

Instead, Trump focused on Syria, the "importance of holding Syrian President Bashar al Assad accountable" for the recent chemical attack on his people and the fight against Islamic State, the White House said. He thanked Erdogan for his support.

Turkeys growing estrangement comes at a time when Ankaras cooperation with the West is at a premium. Europe needs Turkey to continue stemming the flow of refugees to its shores via the short sea voyage from Turkey to Greece. And Turkey is an important partner in the anti-Islamic State coalition, with the U.S. using Turkeys sprawling Incirlik Air Base as a major staging ground.

But Turkeys own needs are more in play in its dealings with Washington than with Europe, Tol and others said.

The government still very much values its partnership with the United States, said Tol. That relationship, she said, remained strong despite tensions over Turkeys unfulfilled demand for the extradition of self-exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania and is blamed by Erdogan for fomenting Julys attempted coup.

The referendum result left little doubt that Erdogan is presiding over a deeply polarized country, already beset by violent spillover from the war in Syria and a flaring Kurdish insurgency. The Turkish leader had argued that the wholesale overhaul of the republics political structure would help stave off instability.

Official results were not expected for 10 or 12 days, but Turkish election authorities said preliminary results gave a majority of 51.41% to 48.59% to the package of 18 constitutional amendments.

The vote illustrated long-standing divisions: secular Turks pitted against more pious Muslims, cosmopolitan urbanites versus the conservative rural heartland, and tensions between those who embrace a Turkish role in the wider world and homegrown nationalists.

Erdogan has been in power since 2003, his rise coinciding with Turkeys emergence as an industrial dynamo, though its economy has since faltered, and as a regional heavyweight, with a large footprint in Syrias civil war.

The consolidation of authority makes Erdogan the most consequential Turkish leader since Kemal Ataturk, the founding father of the republic that arose from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. Erdogan often harks back to past imperial glory with grandiose gestures like the construction of a lavish 1,000-room Ottoman-themed presidential palace.

Mindful of Erdogans reputation for holding fast to grudges, European leaders urged him to consider the narrow referendum result a mandate to reach out to his political opponents. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in a statement issued along with her foreign minister, said the closeness of the contest pointed to a big responsibility for the Turkish leadership and for President Erdogan personally.

But analysts expressed doubt such rapprochement would occur, with the exception of a possible effort by Erdogan to try to mend fences with the Kurds and restart negotiations aimed at halting the insurgency.

Hes a double-down kind of guy hes not going to be more moderate and reach out to the opposition, said James Jeffrey, a former ambassador to Turkey who is now an analyst with the Washington Institute.

The bitterness was apparent on both sides of the referendum question.

This referendum will take its place in the dark pages of history, said Bulent Tezcan, the deputy leader of the Republican Peoples Party, or CHP. This referendum will always be remembered as illegitimate.

The CHP, founded by Ataturk, called for annulment of the result. Its primary complaint was that ballots are required by law to have the stamp of the Supreme Board of Elections to be valid, but the board decreed midway through the voting that unstamped papers were valid unless there was clear evidence of fraud.

The CHP said at least 1 million ballots were stamped after they were handed in. Thats close to the winning margin for yes, which according to unofficial results received 24.3 million votes, compared to 23.2 million for no votes.

The report by the international referendum observer mission, meanwhile, said the legal framework for the vote was inadequate for a genuinely democratic referendum. It also faulted Turkish authorities for holding the vote during a state of emergency, under which the government issued decrees that affected the outcome but could not be challenged.

The observers were from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which monitors compliance with human rights norms, and the Council of Europe, which sets them. They complained that coverage by the news media, which has been significantly purged of critical voices under Erdogan, was significantly imbalanced, with three-quarters of the coverage going to the yes campaign.

Special correspondent Gutman reported from Istanbul and staff writer King from Washington. Staff writer Tracy Wilkinson contributed to this report from Washington.

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UPDATES:

8:50 p.m.: The article was updated with news of President Trumps phone call to Erdogan.

5:05 p.m.: This article has been updated throughout with details, quotes, background, analysis.

This article was originally posted at 12:10 p.m.

An earlier version of this story said Turkey was the only Muslim-majority nation in NATO. It is one of two. Albania is the other.

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Turkey's Erdogan lashes out at West after disappointingly ...