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In his shop sandwiched between the mud and brick houses in a tiny town at the heart of Anatolia, Mevlut Ickedal says he has long ago turned off the television because he cant stand round-the-clock coverage of his favorite politician: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The 52-year-old appliances merchant from Keskin nonetheless plans to vote yes" on Sunday, approving a set of 18 constitutional changes that will transform Turkish democracy by endowing Erdogan with sweeping executive powers. But not because Ickedals confident such a transformation is in the nations best interest. He just doesnt see anything better out there.

Like many Erdogan supporters, Ickedal isnt as enthusiastic about standing behind the president as he used to be. So what will impel him to vote on Sunday is a fear of the unknown at a time of deepening political and economic malaise for Turkey. From Kirikkale province where Ickedals town is located to Kayseri at the geographical center of Turkey, Erdogan faithful are mindful of the economic slowdown eating into their livelihoods and worried about security threats they perceive to be imminent. More than 10 percent of those who voted for the governing AK Party in the last general election in 2015 now regret their decisions, according to a March study by Istanbul-based polling company Konsensus.

Erdogan speaks during a Yes referendum campaign rally on April 8.

Photographer: Kostas Tsironis/Bloomberg

Sometimes I say Tayyip Erdogan is the perfect man and sometimes I feel hes the ultimate impostor, Ickedal said. Ill vote yes because I dont see anyone else who can govern this country. Either Tayyip will get us out of this mess and take us to the top, or Tayyip will bring us down."

As prime minister for a dozen years and then president for the past three, Erdogan has guided Turkey for nearly as long as the modern republics founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. With polls showing opponents and supporters lining up in roughly equal numbers behind the proposal to make the presidency, rather than parliament, the nations main repository of power, Erdogan has been telling Turks hes the only thing that separates them from utter chaos.

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The vote comes at a time when the nation of 80 million is struggling with purchasing power thats eroded along with a tumbling currency. Retreating from years of China-like growth earlier in Erdogans tenure, Turkeys economy has been sputtering since Erdogan faced a series of challenges beginning with nationwide mass protests in mid-2013. That was followed by a corruption investigation that threatened some of his closest allies and family members, and later by upsurges of violence with Kurdish separatists in the countrys east and a coup attempt by a faction of the military last year.

Im still undecided but I am inclined to vote yes for economic stability and to rein in the dollar, said 35-year-old Kadir Paydas, a two-time Erdogan voter who said his pet shop in Kayseri has been hurt by the liras slump, which made his imported pets and supplies harder to afford. I just want to live in a safe and stable country."

Erdogan supporters at a Yes rally.

Photographer: Kostas Tsironis/Bloomberg

Opponents of the changes warn thatcentering executive power in the hands of a single person leaves little safeguard against authoritarianism. Turkey declared a state of emergency after the failed coup in July, then swiftly purged the civil service of more than 100,000 perceived opponents, shut down more than 100 media outlets and jailed some of its most prominent opposition politicians, including Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, leaders of the main Kurdish party.

Erdogans sway over state institutions has also made it harder for those rejecting the proposed changes to make their case on the streets or on news media controlled by pro-government businesses. Fear of speaking out against the government is one explanation for an unusually high portion of voters who say theyre undecided, which some pollsters say has reached as high as 20 percent.

Is this a good time to express your opinion? asked 57-year-old Yasar Altinbas, who sells curtains not far from Ickedals shop.They come and arrest people," he said. I voted for AKP in November 2015 and also before that. But it doesnt make sense to concentrate all power in one persons hands now.

According to estimates by Turkeys main opposition party CHP, the number of people who were adversely affected by Erdogan-backed purges, including family members of those arrested or sacked, is around a million. That amounts to about 1.5 percent of voters eligible to cast ballots on Sunday.

It also means pollsters could be significantly underestimating the number of no voters who are concealing their preferences,said James Sawyer, an analyst at political risk consultancy Eurasia Group in London. The so-called moderate wing of the AKP risks becoming Erdogans Achilles Heel, given its more pragmatic outlook and skepticism of Erdogans efforts to centralize powers."

How Turkey's President Could Get Even More Power

Nowhere do the purges reverberate more strongly among Erdogan supporters than in Kayseri, the hometown of former president Abdullah Gul, an AK Party co-founder who stepped aside and has retreated from public life since Erdogan decided to run for president in 2014. The city of 1 million has served both as an AKP stronghold and a hub for the grassroots organization of Fethullah Gulen, the U.S.-based preacher Erdogan accuses of orchestrating the failed putsch last year.

One of Kayseris biggest industrial families, the Boydaks, had their assets seized by the government after the coup attempt on suspicion they were tied to the Gulen movement. They employed 13,000 people, and more than 350 companies are part of the conglomerates supply chain in Kayseri alone.

We are in trouble, said Yunus Can, a 52-year-old driver who was resting besides his truck after having driven thousands of miles from Uzbekistan to bring copper to Hes Kablo, a Boydak enterprise. They say the average income per capita is $10,000. I cant see that kind of money in my pocket.

Itll be bad for us if yes votes win, Can continued as a voice blared from the loud speakers:Tea break is over!" and implored workers to get back to work. How many democracies are out there that are run by one man?

That concern was echoed by Hasan Yakupoglu, a 32-year-old who makes his living selling nationalist T-shirts with wolf heads or Gokturk alphabet letters spelling out Turk." But not because hes worried about Erdogan wielding the power.

I read all of the amendments and I dont approve of a single one of them," Yakupoglu said. Our trust in our president now is infinite, but what happens after?"

Environment and Urban Planning Minister Mehmet Ozhaseki, a Kayseri native, scoffed at the notion that the governments seizure of businesses, now about 800 collectively worth some $13 billion, may cost it support in the referendum.

Weve held nearly 10 campaign rallies in Boydak factories, Ozhaseki said. Not a single worker objected.

Back in Keskin, Kazim Cetin is the only person at his table of six laborers who openly rejects the proposed presidential system. He sports the thick, crescent-shaped mustache identified with the nationalist opposition MHP party, whose backing of a strong presidency dismayed many supporters.

Were going to vote no, Cetin said as his buddies praised the proposed changes and Erdogan himself.

No? He must have said that just for fun,a friend shouted from a far corner of the cafe. Then to Cetin: You know I would shoot you in the foot, dont you?

Many in the Turkish heartland said theyd vote to empower the president further because hes their best chance at increased prosperity, even as they complained about mounting financial problems.

It used to be that when you wanted a loan, you went to the bank and they asked for a million documents,"said Davut Erise, 43. Now you can get one with just your ID. Everythings easier."

He was interrupted by Osman Ozkan.

The economys bad and people are in debt," the 22-year-old blurted out before adding: Im going to say yes, but you shouldnt forget that stuff."

Asked how hes doing on the economic front, Ickedal, the shop owner, pulled out his wallet to display an array of 10 or so credit cards.

Ive got 60,000-70,000 liras ($19,000) in debt," he said. And Im one of Keskins few businessmen."

Read more:
Turkish Faith in Erdogan Tested by Constitutional Referendum ... - Bloomberg

In a conversation in Iraqi Kurdistan, Bese Hozat repeatedly decries Turkish 'fascism,' but Ankara notes it's facing a group considered a terror organization by the U.S. and EU as well

It was a calm and quiet dawn on the snowy peaks of Iraqs Qandil Mountains after several days of heavy airstrikes by Turkish fighter jets attacks that didnt even respect the dead. The guesthouse of the Kurdistan Workers Partys martyrs cemetery was left a mound of rubble, amid photographs and charred memories after the planes targeted a Kurdish rebel stronghold.

It was nothing unusual. Turkish airstrikes on this mountain range in northern Iraq have been a fixture since the Kurdistan Workers Party, the PKK which is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union set up bases here in the early 2000s after leaving Syria. The airstrikes are so regular that Kurdish militants and local civilians have gotten used to looking up at the sky.

Apart from the constant threat of an air raid, theres now the strong possibility of a Turkish ground operation against the PKK in Iraqi Kurdistan.

There is such a possibility because an operation against Qandil has been on the agenda for a long time, said Bese Hozat, the co-chief of the Executive Council of the Kurdistan Communities Union, the umbrella group to which the PKK belongs.

Hozat was born in Turkeys Tunceli province in 1978 and joined the Kurdish guerrillas in the late 90s after losing several relatives in fighting against the Turkish army.

Hozat, who spoke to Haaretz in a wooded valley following an exhaustive security protocol, mentioned the AKP President Recep Tayyip Erdogans Justice and Development Party and the MHP, Turkeys far-right Nationalist Movement Party.

There is now a process for a constitutional referendum, and the AKP and MHP fascist groups want to conduct a cross-border operation in order to take the nationalist Turkish votes, Hozat said.

On Sunday, Turks will decide in a referendum whether to maintain the current parliamentary system or switch to an executive presidency, which both Erdogans party and the Nationalist Movement Party support.

While Erdogans government promises that a yes victory in the referendum will bring stability and the end of terrorism to Turkey, the PKK calls the plebiscite a trick to legalize and legitimize the dictatorship of the Islamist president.

The PKK and pro-Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party have called on the Kurds to vote no, a position supported by the main opposition force, the Republican Peoples Party.

The AKP-MHP coalition wants to formalize a one-man dictatorship through this referendum, Hozat said. The Kurds will say no to this dictatorship regime.

Speaking to the local NTV and Star networks last week, Erdogan said the situation was worse in Iraqs Sinjar region, adding that the region was about to become the second Qandil for the PKK, referring to the PKKs stronghold in the Qandil Mountains.

There are around 2,500 PKK terrorists in the efforts to create this second Qandil, Erdogan said.

But as Hozar put it, Ankara has already invaded South Kurdistan [Iraqi Kurdistan], an invasion that has economic, politic and military aspects.

The PKK has always denounced political and military collaboration between Erdogan and Masoud Barzani, the head of Iraqi Kurdistan. We are ready to carry out a very strong defense against the invasive policies of the Turkish government, Hozat said.

Failed diplomacy

In July 2015, a month after the presidential election where Erdogan did not win an absolute majority, a two-year cease-fire between Ankara and the PKK collapsed after a bombing in the town of Suruc killed 32 people, mostly Kurdish activists. Since then thousands have died in the fighting.

According to the UN Human Rights Office, between July 2015 and December 2016, some 2,000 people were reportedly killed in the context of security operations in South-East Turkey.

Based on information received by the United Nations, this would include nearly 800 members of the security forces, and around 1,200 local people, of which an unspecified number may have been involved in violent or nonviolent actions against the state.

Hozat said the reconciliation process in Turkey failed because Abdullah Ocalans democratic proposals were rejected by the Turkish government, referring to the PKK leader now in a Turkish prison.

She said Turkey wanted the PKK to lay down its arms without giving the Kurds anything following a policy of elimination against the Kurdish freedom movement under the name of a solution. When the PKK rejected such an elimination project, fighting continued.

Hozat added: Against all these practices the PKK has been waging a legitimate self-defense armed struggle.

According to the Turkish government, the PKK had conducted a number of attacks that killed and wounded members of the Turkish security forces and other people.

According to Ankara, the Kurdish militants have also taken part in kidnappings, including of children; dug trenches and placed roadblocks in cities and towns; and blocked the provision of emergency health services.

The fascism of the AKP-MHP coalition is waging genocide against the Kurds, Hozat said. They have destroyed many Kurdish cities and killed a lot of Kurds.

According to a UN report, the number of displaced persons in southeastern Turkey is estimated at between 355,000 and 500,000 people, mainly Kurds. These people have reportedly moved to neighboring suburbs, towns and villages, or to other regions in Turkey.

In an attempt to change the demographic map of the Kurdish cities, they are evacuating the Kurdish people and they are replacing them with the families that have an ISIS mentality, Hozat said.

Political and womens rights

According to Turkeys Interior Ministry, 47,155 people remain in custody following massive sweeps by the authorities in the wake of the failed 2016 military coup.

Ankara has also arrested 13 Kurdish opposition politicians, including the co-leaders of the pro-Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party, Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag. It has also taken over 82 councils controlled by the pro-Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party, according to Human Rights Watch.

Europe is responsible for the rise of fascism in Turkey because this silence and indifference are indirect support for Turkish policies, Hozat said.

Ankara accuses the PKK of using suicide attacks to kill civilians, but Hozat denies this. We have not committed any suicide attack against the Turkish cities, she said. Those attacks have been carried out by patriotic youth and people who reacted desperately against the practices of the AKP administration.

Meanwhile, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women has made a raft of recommendations to Ankara to address gender inequality and remove obstacles for women and girls regarding education, employment, justice and reproductive health.

Some nongovernmental organizations have also claimed that womens rights are worsening in Turkey under Erdogan. With the rise of the AKP, male domination of culture and political life has increased sharply, Hozat said.

As the society grows more conservative, the level of crime against women increases. We can observe that in the high level of rape, harassment and also suicides. The AKP government is trying to form a fundamentalist and religious society based on enmity towards women.

Regarding the situation in Syria, Turkey said last week it had successfully ended its seven-month Euphrates Shield offensive in the north of the country. Turkey launched the campaign in August to push Islamic State militants away from its border and prevent the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units from gaining more ground in northern Syria.

Turkey has been pressing NATO and Russia to stop supporting the Kurds and to consider the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units a terrorist organization like the PKK.

Turkey is doing its politics and diplomacy based on enmity towards Rojava, Hozat said, referring to the de facto autonomous region in northern Syria. Ankara defines [the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units] as a terrorist organization, and they want this attitude adopted by the entire world.

She said the world knows that the Kurdish Peoples Protection Unions and the Womens Protection Units are very strong forces that are defending human values, but its always possible that some hypocrite and two-faced states may try to adopt the policies of Turkey against Rojava and the Kurds.

As Hozat put it, if those countries are sincerely against ISIS, they should give full support to the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units and Womens Protection Units and invite Kurds to the next peace talks.

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Kurd Leader to Haaretz: Erdogan and Allies Seek Dictatorship via Turkish Referendum - Haaretz

Putin And Erdogan: Addicted To Power Forbes This dichotomy defines two highly consequential leaders of our time: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, two men who not only have pasts and motivations with a great deal in common, but whose geopolitical ... and more »

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Putin And Erdogan: Addicted To Power - Forbes

The caliph's request was modest. He explained that on Fridays, he would like to wear a turban like the 15th century Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II. He wanted to know whether the president had anything against it. The president, who had only been in office a few months, responded brusquely by telling the caliph that he should instead wear a frock coat, like a modern statesman. The president later declared that the caliphate was "nonsense."

The scene described by the Turkish historian Sukru Hanioglu in his biography of the first president of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal - later known as Ataturk - is typical of the determined and harsh manner in which he opposed the religious and political traditions of the recently-collapsed Ottoman Empire. Ataturk also adamantly made the case for the dismissal of the imam assigned to the Turkish national assembly. "Things like prayers are not needed here," was the president's explanation for the proposal. Hanioglu writes that for the founder of modern Turkey, there was basically one religion - a secular one, the religion of the republic.

The face of Ataturk, modern Turkey's founder, is on the country's currency to this day

Painful reforms

A great part of the population had reservations about the changes. The educated urban elite may have applauded Ataturk's reforms, but the traditional majority did not agree with him. The people did not like that the fact that one no longer swore by god in court but instead took an oath of honor. The Turkish justice system did away with all religious references within years and laicism was declared a basic principle of the Republic in 1937. People took offense to other reforms as well, like the implementation of the Gregorian calendar, the replacement of the fez with European hats, switching from the Arabic alphabet to the Latin alphabet, the introduction of Sunday as a new weekly holiday instead of Friday and the implementation of women's voting rights in 1934.

Ataturk, which means father of the Turks, went down in the history of the Turkish Republic as a modernizer - and he is still one of the most significant representatives of modernization even today, at least officially. But in truth, writes the historian Hanioglu, Ataturk and his comrades misjudged the reality of Turkish society. "The leadership of the early Republic criminally underestimated [] the powers of resistance of social networks in a Muslim society. Like many European intellectuals of the late 19th century and early 20th century, they were convinced - but in retrospect wrongly - of the idea that religion would soon be nothing more than a vague memory of the distant past."

Spanning the divide between traditional and modern Turkey, Istanbul's Hagia Sofia mosque is now a museum

The opponent

If the current president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, pushes through the proposed new presidential system, then he is doing so with Ataturk in mind, suspects Caner Aver, a geographer from the Center for Studies on Turkey and Integration at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Aver believes that Erdogan wants to go down as the most important Turkish statesman in history after Ataturk. And there is something else that compels him: "He wants absolute power and he needs a constitutional change for this. This is the only way the existing presidential system can be secured constitutionally." It is fitting to him that Turkey will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2023, says Aver. "Then, Erdogan will be the great, strong man who has led Turkey out of the current domestic crisis - as well as the conflict with neighboring countries - and into the future." It remains to be seen, however, whether this will actually happen, adds Aver.

In order to obtain sufficient support for the planned presidential system, Erdogan is appealing the majority of the population that has opposed Ataturk's reforms for over a hundred years. This is also a reason why he resolutely pursues symbolic policies. He had a large mosque built on a hill above the Bosporus Strait. He hiked taxes on alcohol, banned its consumption near mosques and has made life difficult for bars and restaurants in European-dominated neighborhoods. He also lifted the headscarf ban in state institutions, such as universities, courts and parliament.

In the name of the Republic: Protesters in Istanbul hold up a flag bearing a portrait of Ataturk

A vote on cultural identity

Ideologically, according to Caner Aver, Erdogan comes from a nationalist, conservative and religious background. "So if he achieves his goals, we will encounter such elements more often in the state institutions." It is probably true that it is unlikely the country will actually become an Islamic republic, says Aver. "However, the nationalist, conservative and Islamic tone will be more strongly felt in institutions and possibly also in legislation, public life, the education system and in academic life."

Erdogan wants to reorganize Turkey politically. He is using cultural means to achieve this transformation. By doing so, he defines himself as an ideological counterforce to Ataturk. According to the historian Hanioglu, Turkey was culturally modern only on the surface. Erdogan is taking advantage of the sleeping conservative potential in the country. The vote on the presidential system is thus also a vote on the cultural identity of the country.

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Erdogan takes on Ataturk - Deutsche Welle

The Putinisation of Erdogan Middle East Eye At what point in the last 15 years of power did Recep Tayyip Erdogan decide that he alone held his country's destiny in his hands? When did he start comparing himself with Ataturk and pull up the drawbridge? Logic dictates that it was on that dramatic ...

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The Putinisation of Erdogan - Middle East Eye