Turkish constitutional referendum, 2007

A referendum is held about:

electing the president by popular vote instead of by parliament;
reducing the presidential term from seven years to five;
allowing the president to stand for re-election for a second term;
holding general elections every four years instead of five;
reducing the quorum of lawmakers needed for parliamentary decisions from 67% to 34%.

Date

21 October 2007

Results
	Votes	%
Yes	19,422,714	7001689500000000000♠68.95%
No	8,744,947	7001310500000000000♠31.05%
Valid votes	28,167,661	7001977400000000000♠97.74%
Invalid or blank votes	651,435	7000225990000099999♠2.26%
Total votes	28,819,096	100.00%
Registered voters/turnout		67.49%

Results by province

Yes — No

Source: Turkish Supreme Election Board (YSK)

A referendum is held about:

A constitutional referendum on electoral reform took place in Turkey on 21 October 2007. After the aborted attempt to elect the next president in May 2007, the government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan introduced substantial electoral reforms in parliament which were then passed with the votes of Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party and the opposition Motherland Party.

The President of Turkey, according to the 1982 constitution, was elected by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. This was due to happen in late April and early May 2007 onwards (in at most four rounds of voting to be held on 27 April 2007, 6 May 2007 and later), before Ahmet Necdet Sezer's term expired on 16 May 2007. However, the election failed after the constitutional court declared the first round of voting invalid, on the grounds that a quorum of two thirds was necessary. It was not reached because of a boycott by opposition parties.

The reforms proposed consisted of the following:

Parliament first passed the amendments on May 11, but Sezer vetoed the bill over concerns that the change could pit a president with a strong popular mandate against the prime minister and cause instability. AKP legislators, who currently choose the president in a parliamentary vote, voted 370-21 in favor of the same measure (without changing a word), which demands presidential election by the public.

The President of Turkey is unable to veto a bill a second time, but he could refer it to a referendum for decision. On June 4, opposition lawmakers also said they could seek a cancellation of the vote by the Constitutional Court on the grounds of procedural flaws.

Sezer referred it for a referendum on 15 June 2007. However, at the same time he stated he would ask the Constitutional Court to invalidate the parliamentary vote due to procedural errors. Sezer's strong opposition reportedly comes from fears that a president with a strong popular mandate might produce a deadlock when in disagreement with the prime minister. The court ruled in early July that the reforms were indeed valid, so the referendum took place as planned.

Furthermore, Sezer vetoed another law, which would have made it possible to hold the constitutional referendum on 22 July 2007 instead of in October, making the reform increasingly unlikely to take place before the election.

...
Wikipedia