Ask any two Turkish nationalists how they will vote in their country’s upcoming referendum, and you’re likely to get two different answers. In just under a month, Turks will vote on a constitutional amendment that, if passed, will usher in the biggest political revolution since Kemal Ataturk founded the modern republic. It would shift the country from parliamentary democracy to executive presidency.
This weekend I called round my contacts from Turkey’s various nationalist groups and asked them how they will vote. Exactly half said they will tick the box supporting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in his bid to become executive president with almost unchallenged power, and a potential mandate until 2029. The other half said they will vote no, and accompanied their answers with streams of unprintable profanities. In Turkey, they substitute sushi for Marmite when speaking of things that are deeply divisive; for the nationalists, Erdogan is a sushi politician.
The Turks who define themselves as nationalist – or ‘milliyetci’ – span from the mainstream Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the fourth biggest party in the Turkish parliament, to the fringe Rights and Equality Party, whose supporters cling to conspiracy theories about Zionist world domination.
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