A Sad Day For Turkey
04/20/2017 10:49 am ET
The razor-thin victory (51.3% to 48.7%) of Turkey’s President Erdogan in the referendum held on April 16 in fact denies Erdogan the mandate to govern with the sweeping powers the new constitution grants the President, especially when the results of the referendum are seriously contested. Even if there was no outright fraud or irregularities in the votes (which by all accounts were rampant), the conditions under which the referendum was held made a mockery of free and fair elections. Given Erdogan’s domestic and foreign policy conduct leading up to the referendum, the US and the EU must now seriously reevaluate Turkey’s role in NATO, its viability as an ally in the fight against ISIS, and its trustworthiness under the presidency of Erdogan.
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