Turkish expats significantly helped Erdogan to victory in his weekend referendum
The vehemence of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s battle for the votes of the Turkish diaspora in Europe surprised many watchers. Was Erdogan really willing to burn bridges with the EU, Germany, and the Netherlands just to impress a few million people who shared his ethnicity but left their country? It turns out Erdogan knew what he was doing: the diaspora in Europe gave him almost 22% of his victory margin in the April 16 constitutional referendum. Diasporas can be powerful forces for strongmen rulers such as Erdogan, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, India’s Narendra Modi or China’s Communist leaders. They are forces with which the West increasingly will have to reckon. Turks voted narrowly to hand Erdogan powers comparable to those of the US president (but greater given the reality of Erdogan’s long-time control of almost all government levers). While almost 50-million people participated in the referendum, Erdogan won by 1.4-million votes. Of that number, 299,176 votes came from ...
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