"This is a reform related to Turkey's future", Erdogan said. But investors aren't so sure, seeing the possibility of more policy gridlock and further elections.
A narrow majority of Turks will vote "Yes" in the referendum, two opinion polls showed on Thursday.Erdogan and his supporters argue that strengthening the presidency would avert instability associated with coalition governments, at a time when Turkey faces major security threats from Islamist and Kurdish militants.His critics fear a further drift into authoritarianism under a leader they regard as bent on eroding modern Turkey's democracy and secular foundations.
Fisherman Birol Bahtiyar, wearing a cap emblazoned with a "Yes" slogan, dismissed suggestions by opponents that the referendum was a power-grab by Erdogan or that he was leading Turkey into a one-man regime. "Tens of thousands of suspected coup sympathisers and political opponents were arrested", says the Wall Street Journal.
Despite threats to rip it up and open the floodgates again, "Turkey also has its own interest in maintaining the accord", said Marcou, citing European Union aid of 3.0 billion euros a year tied to its implementation.
"They come to us and want "Yes". These will include improvement of the investment environment, and tax and judicial reforms". It put the level of undecided voters at 9.9 percent. Ratings agency Moody's has predicted 2.6 percent growth for this year.
"What counts is that he is cleaning the country of this dirt now", he said, referring to the crackdown after the attempted putsch. We will probably see some soul-searching within the AK Party. "I'm not very optimistic on that front".
Despite all this pressure, until just recently polls were predicting a "no" vote in the referendum.
Scorpion stings United passenger after dropping from overhead bin
At a City Council committee hearing Thursday, aldermen ripped officials from United and the department about the episode. After what happened, Dao "has no interest in ever seeing an airplane" and will probably be driven to Kentucky, he said.
The vote, in which millions of Turks will decide whether to replace their parliamentary democracy with an all-powerful presidency, may bring the biggest change in their system of governance since the modern Turkish republic was founded on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago.
But supporters say that the system - which would eliminate the post of prime minister - is needed to eliminate the political crises that marred the 1980s and 1990s before the rise of Erdogan's Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP). While some investors appear to be positioning themselves for a victory of the "yes" camp, the immediate reaction is likely to be short-lived, with markets soon turning their attention on what will happen next.
Also held since November 2016 are Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, the co-leaders of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), the third largest party in the Turkish parliament, on accusations of supporting the PKK.
But it has become an unlikely ally in Erdogan's quest for a presidential system to enhance his powers.
The rhetoric of Erdogan, who has described Europe as both a "rotting continent" and the "center of Nazisim", has raised questions over whether the Turkish membership bid saga is crashing to an unhappy end. If we had fallen into their hands, we would have been destroyed. By contrast, a "yes" vote would institutionalize a populist authoritarian system that risks cataclysmic collapse, similar to what is now happening in Venezuela, except that Turkey is far more important.
The two main candidates in Bulgaria's upcoming parliamentary election singled out Turkey yesterday (20 March) in separate interviews with AFP for what they see as interference in the campaign.
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