Turkey's Islamist-rooted government on Thursday threatened to call a referendum on constitutional reforms as a deepening row with secularists within the judiciary upset markets in the EU candidate country. The dispute, which pushed lira and stocks down almost one percent on fears the government might call an early vote, has exposed a power struggle between the AK Party and secularists over the direction of the Muslim but secular country.
A Turkish court on Wednesday arrested a prosecutor on charges of belonging to a group accused of plotting to overthrow Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government. But the secularist Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK), known for its opposition to the ruling AK Party, said the prosecutors who ordered the arrest had exceeded their authority and stripped them of their powers. Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc accused the judicial bureaucracy of dealing a "severe blow to democracy" and called the board's decision unacceptable.
Arinc said the AK Party, which ended the secularists' decades-old grip on power in 2002 and has a huge majority in parliament, might call a referendum to change the constitution. Previous government attempts to change Turkey's military-drafted constitution, a key demand to meet EU membership, have been blocked by the opposition, which suspects Erdogan's AK Party of seeking to impose Islamist rule by stealth and overturn the strict separation of religion and state.
Comments
Comments are closed.