ISTANBUL: Tens of thousands packed one of Istanbul’s biggest public spaces on Saturday as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hosted a giant rally seeking votes in next week’s referendum on enhancing his powers.

Lambasting Turkey’s enemies and taking pot shots at his opponents, Erdogan said a ‘Yes’ vote in the April 16 referendum would give the country more stability and power.

“On April 16, do you want to say ‘Yes’ to a strong Turkey?” Erdogan asked the crowd, who waved a sea of red and white crescent moon Turkish flags.

“Do you want a great Turkey? Do you want to say ‘Yes’ to stability? Will you be there Istanbul?” he added, as the crowd roared back ‘Yes!”.

Erdogan arrived by helicopter to cheers at the vast open ground in Istanbul’s Yenikapi district, on the shores of the Sea of Marmara.

It was here last August that he held a mass rally calling for national solidarity in the wake of the failed July coup blamed on the US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, and Erdogan clearly wanted to capture the spirit of that day.

Erdogan said the likes of Gulen, who denies being behind the coup, and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) wanted to see a ‘No’ vote.

And he charged that ‘No’ voters were also against his bid to transform Turkey through modern infrastructure projects such as bridges and tunnels.

“They said ‘No’ to the bridges. They say ‘No’ to a modern Turkey,” he roared, prowling around a walkway that extended from the stage like at a rock concert.

Analysts see the referendum as tightly contested, despite the domination of the ‘Yes’ campaign in the media.

If approved, the new system will see the scrapping of the post of prime minister, the creation of vice presidents and the empowering of the president to appoint ministers.

The changes will also allow the president to be affiliated with a party, allowing Erdogan to restore his ties with the Justice and Development Party (AKP) that he co-founded and helped sweep to power in 2002.

Published in Dawn, April 9th, 2017