Turkey’s President Is Close to Getting What He’s Always Wanted
- The ‘Anti-Ataturk Ataturk’ unpicks the secular state
- Turks will vote on a new constitution in a referendum
What Can Turkish Referendum Mean for Lira, Markets?
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Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s statue in the main square of Rize, a small town nestled among tea plantations on Turkey’s Black Sea coast, has been gone since December. Its absence is a powerful symbol of the future.
Rize is the birthplace of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and his critics believe the question of what he really wants is finally clear after 15 years of his rule: To erase the secular state Ataturk rescued from the dismembered Ottoman Empire and recast the republic in his own, equally autocratic yet more Islamist image.