Talk:2010 Turkish constitutional referendum

Results Image

I have made a map that shows the results using a gradient from green to red for yes and no respectively and the color saturation for voter participation. It provides much better insights than the regular maps. Here is the link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/53883839@N02/4984969584/ I am OK with letting Wikipedia articles use it for free with a link to the original page. I am not sure about how to go about uploading the image.

POV

"Prosecutors and judges will not encounter unfair treatment, as was the case with Ferhat Sarıkaya and Sacit Kayasu." This sentence seems like pure political activism to me, and I propose to remove it. Lampman (talk) 22:27, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

The paragraph reading:

The voting took place in a secret ballot. Prime Minister Erdoğan criticised the boycott decision of the CHP leader and accused him of lack of party democracy in CHP and not trusting his own MP's. Erdoğan said "how can one ask the people to vote 'no', when they themselves did not vote in the parliament?"

seems terribly pro-Erdoğan. I don't know enough about this subject to edit it properly, but I think it should undergo a serious revision before it goes on the Main Page. Lampman (talk) 22:54, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I am concerned that there's no mention of the anti-reform movement here, Şevket Pamuk etc. Lampman (talk) 00:40, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

i think we can add back the Erdogan stuff with the requisite tag so someone can find a cite who knows better. There is no mention of the opposition to the vote, but the Pamuk stuff can go there. i could be contrued as POV on the other side if his coutner-condemndation was removed.Lihaas (talk) 05:41, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Falg/templates/tags

this edit [1] removed several (all) of the tags without adequate reason for doing so. Flags are put up for a reason ebcasue the article/section is deficient it is not then enough to remove them without answering the reasons for its place, NOR a note on talk.Lihaas (talk) 05:47, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Artilce 69

Still unclear about this. The source doesnt have article 69 and dont understand the X vs. the checks on there. Drrmd to indicate by the numbers that it passed, then why the X.Lihaas (talk) 10:34, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

threshold for articles to pass in parliament and voted in a referendum is 330. Therefore article 69 fails to meet that with 327 MP votes.--Cerian (talk) 02:06, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Result section v. result infobox

I don't really see the need for an infobox. It has a much more limited result table than {{Referendum}} and everything in the infobox can be explained in a results section within the article. I also don't see how an infobox is useful for referendum articles. It's not comprehensive and all it does is move information that is easily accessible in the body of the article to the top of the article, even though it is not the most relevant information. The purpose of an infobox is to give a brief overview or provide very general information of a long article. In this case the infobox does neither. – Zntrip 21:15, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

One infobox or table should be enough. I don't like the fact that the {{Infobox Referendum approved with map}} has no line for "Valid votes". However, the map is cool, and for the {{Referendum}} table I don't like it that the Yes and No percentages do not add up to 100% (as is usual in presenting referendum results, and as they also do at the YSK website).  --Lambiam 22:34, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

The "yes" and "no" percentages in {{Referendum}} do add up to 100%. The "100%" isn't shown because it is obvious that valid votes are comprised of yes and no votes. It is possible to have the map in the article without the infobox. All I am saying is that the infobox doesn't seem to serve any particular purpose because it doesn't give a brief overview of the article and it doesn't provide general information about a long article. This here is what the page would look like if the map was in the results section and the infobox was removed (the "Results by province" section would go under the results section). Note that the map could be substantially larger than it currently is in the infobox. – Zntrip 00:21, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I think it's great to have a infobox as it gives you a clear idea what's the total votes, results of regions with just one look at one place.--Cerian (talk) 02:09, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

That information would be included in the article and it would be easy to find. But why does it have to be in an infobox? – Zntrip 02:19, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Infobox at top of the page seems to be a better layout. I don't think it a serious discussion though, it's much of a preference if nothing else.--Cerian (talk) 02:29, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Provincial polarization

According to the data, 95.7% voted yes in Ağrı, yet only 18.9% voted yes in Tunceli. Would someone please concisely explain (and cite) the sociopolitical factors that lead to this provincial polarization?   — C M B J   01:08, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I didn't search for sources but I can contribute some info I guess. Tunceli is the home city of main opposition party CHP's leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. That can be the reason for overwhelming "No" votes. Also Tunceli is known to be on the other side of the referendum's majority results for a long time. Don't know what's the background of it though.--Cerian (talk) 02:13, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Interesting. What about Kırklareli, Muğla, Mersin, and Adana?   — C M B J   04:28, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I believe the reason for Tunceli being pro-CHP is the fact that it is populated largely by Alevis (Shias) who are opposed to the AKP which is Sunni. Western Turkey in general is more Westernized than the east. The combination of pro-Western and anti-democracy might sound strange to some, but in fact it is quite common worldwide. Causantin (talk) 20:18, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

A confounding factor is the boycott promoted by the BDP, but taking that into account it is even stranger if you compare Ağrı Province with Hakkâri Province (the data are for the provinces, not the towns), which are both geographically and socio-economically closer to each other than to Tunceli Province. While Ağrı had the highest percentage of yes votes of all provinces, and Hakkâri is also very high with 94.3%, the percentages of yes votes among all potential voters is extremely different: Ağrı Province 52.0%, Hakkâri Province only 7.7%.  --Lambiam 17:04, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

The data on Hakkâri Province is very strange indeed. According to the table, only 9.05% of voters from that province even turned out to vote. Are there any credible allegations of fraud in that particular district?   — C M B J   04:28, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

As Lambiam mentioned before, BDP decided to boycott referendum. This shows us that BDP has a very powerful grip on Hakkari province.--Cerian (talk) 10:35, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

To call a spade a spade, support for the BDP is caused by the fact that the population is mostly Kurdish. Causantin (talk) 20:18, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I see about the BDP. But still, how can a political party cause 90.98% of a population to simply not vote at all? Is that the way they coordinated the boycott?   — C M B J   06:22, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

There are mainly 3 reasons why the turnout was low in the southeast region of Turkey (Diyarbakır, Hakkâri, Şırnak etc.):

1. The region had never the highest turnout of Turkey in referenda. For example, Diyarbakır had in the 2007 referendum a voter turnout of 52.98%, in which the BDP decided not to boycott.

2. The decision of BDP to boycott the referendum of 2010.

3. Different sources say that PKK-sympathisants have threatened people to boycott the referendum. 1,2, 3. I don't know if it's true, but even a rumour can cause a large effect in the desicion of the people in that region. Randam (talk) 10:59, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Why was the "no" vote concentrated along the southern and western coasts? AnonMoos (talk) 10:14, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

You can think of it like Southern part of USA where GOP votes dominate over Democrats. Same is here; CHP > AKP in most cases in the western and southern parts of Turkey.--Cerian (talk) 10:33, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Erdogoan speech

Does anyone have a transcript of his post election speech? I read it somewhere but cant find it. It could be an external link.Lihaas (talk) 11:36, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Here is the Turkish source. Couldn't find an English one. referendum speech --Cerian (talk) 18:14, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Misinformation in Reuters article

The Reuters article "Factbox: Turkey's constitutional amendments" seems to have some bogus information in it. In particular, the info about widows and orphans of martyrs and veterans seems to be incorrect as no such provisions were actually presented in the referendum. Perhaps these were based on an earlier proposal. Regardless, the Reuters article is cited several times in our article, so someone should double check all the facts we are citing to it. Kaldari (talk) 20:56, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

The Official Gazette of Turkey (13 May 2010 - in Turkish) and the official transation by the Ministry of Justice (in English) states that "The measures to be taken for children, elderly, disabled people, widows and orphans of martyrs as well as for invalid and veterans shall not be considered as against the principle of equality." We should use this version. Randam (talk) 11:43, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Women's rights

This article previously stated that measures protecting women's rights were enacted as part of the referendum. This is (mostly) incorrect. What the amendment actually says is that measures enacted to ensure equality between men and women will not be considered contrary to the principal of equality. I know that sounds absolutely absurd and meaningless, but that's what it actually says. Nothing else in the amendments deals with women's rights. Kaldari (talk) 21:00, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

This is true. Randam (talk) 11:43, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Reversion

It looks like all of my corrections, which I took the time to explain in the 2 sections above, were immediately reverted without explanation by User:Randam and have remained so. Kaldari (talk) 19:53, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I've restored the corrections for now. If anyone wants to revert them, at least provide an explanation, please. Kaldari (talk) 19:58, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

First let me start with an apology for reverting your contributions. I did not look at the talk page. See my comments in the sections 'Misinformation in Reuters article' and 'Women's rights'. Randam (talk) 11:42, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Did it pass?

The initial copy says: "A constitutional referendum on a number of changes to the constitution was held in Turkey on 12 September 2010. The results showed the majority supported the constitutional amendments, with 58% in favour and 42% against."

But it doesn't say whether the referendum passed or not, and no indication is made whether 51%, 60% or some other percent was needed for passage. Wakablogger2 (talk) 05:07, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

It passed yea. Maybe it should be mentioned in the lead.--Cerian (talk) 07:52, 18 September 2010 (UTC)