ANKARA: Turkey on Sunday began voting in a referendum on expanding the powers of the head of state under President Tayyip Erdogan that will determine its future political destiny but whose outcome remains in doubt after a bitterly-contested campaign.
Over 55.3 million Turks are able to vote in the referendum on sweeping changes to the president’s role which, if agreed, would grant Erdogan more power than any leader of Turkey since its founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and his successor Ismet Inonu.
Polling stations opened in Diyarbakir and other cities of eastern Turkey at 0400 GMT, a foreign media correspondent said, with voting in Istanbul, Ankara and other cities getting underway an hour later.
Opinion polls, always treated with caution in Turkey, predicted wildly divergent scenarios with analysts saying the outcome remains too close to call despite the clear advantage in resources and airtime enjoyed by the ‘Yes’ campaign.
As the rival sides held rallies up until the last hour of legal campaigning Saturday to sway undecided voters, Erdogan confidently predicted that the ‘Yes’ camp had victory in the bag.
But he urged people not to succumb to “lethargy” in voting, saying “the stronger result the better”.
“A ‘Yes’ that emerges from the ballot box with the highest margin will be a lesson to the West,” he said in the Istanbul district of Sariyer, the last of a stamina-busting sequence of rallies.