The referendum brings to the surface divisions within the Islamist camp in Turkey by Bilge Yabancı Hak ve Adalet Platformu Istiklal Street march. Source: https://www.facebook.com/hakveadaletplatformu/ The undemocratic referendum process has made deep divisions within the Islamist camp crystal clear. The entire process of constitutional change has been undemocratic from the drafting of 18-point constitutional change by a small clique of MPs from the AKP and nationalist MHP to the electoral campaign that represses parliamentary opposition and civil society. Under the extended state of emergency measures, the Turkish electorate will actually decide whether to dismiss the parliamentary system and cabinet and whether to grant one person exclusive powers to appoint and dismiss vicepresidents and ministers, issue executive decrees, control the budget, and appoint the members of the Council of Judges and Prosecutors. In short, Turkey might be using a basic democratic tool to commit ‘democratic suicide’. There is no single aspect in the constitutional amendment package to hope that Turkey will return to democratisation path and Kurdish peace process. The government and -in breach of the ConstitutionPresident Erdoğan have been running a campaign based on excessive formalism, Erdoğan’s personality, unproven assumptions about the presidential system’s almost magical powers to render Turkey a politically and economically ‘stronger’ country and even distorted facts about the content of the 18-point amendment package. As the ends justify the means, the AKP has not also hesitated to utilise religion as an instrument to garner ‘yes’ votes and scale up the loyalty of its supporters. Erdoğan has been followed by party apparatchiks and mouthpieces to consciously promote the idea that the ‘no’ campaigners are ‘infidels’, ‘anti-Islam’ and ‘anti-Muslim’. Most recently, Erdoğan declared that no campaigners are the same antiIslam secular groups who closed down the Imam Hatips (religious high schools) and banned headscarved women from universities in the past. What is more, Diyanet [state’s Directorate of Religious Affairs] was used for political means during the campaign. Diyanet-appointed imams used sermons to mobilise people who attend mosques in favour of the upcoming constitutional referendum, labelling those who reject the proposed changes as traitors and enemies of religion. Resorting to religious appeals stirring secular versus pious enmity in order to maintain its popularity is nothing new for the AKP. Though it seems now that this time the AKP’s instrumentalisation of religion and labelling ‘no’ voters as anti-Islam traitors have amplified the already-existing discomfort among some Islamist circles in Turkey. The AKP’s unprecedented success was a result of its ability to articulate its political message in democratic garb to appeal not only liberal and liberalised leftists but also Islamists who suffered from secular authoritarianism in the past. The party declared its mission would be to redefine secularism to bring the voice of “the silent Muslim majority” to the field of politics against the “the influential secular elite” and their modernising ideology that scorns the religious traditional values. Cihan Tugal labels the AKP’s success as Islamists’ passive revolution in Turkey. Initiated by its predecessor Refah (Welfare Party) by embracing and taming the radical Islamist elements within civil society (i.e. grassroots networks and pious social movements) in 1980s and 90s, the AKP successfully crowned the passive revolution by combining Islam with the market economy and democratisation agenda and carrying it to power. Yet, the AKP diverse hegemonic bloc has been suffering a haemorrhage since 2011 and especially since the 2013 Gezi revolts as liberals and leftists once amongst the AKP ranked against the secular authoritarianism have gradually left the bloc as the AKP and Erdoğan intensified democratic rollback. The AKP initially owed its success to the ability in articulating a message that appealed the diverse groups of Islamists –civil society, Sufi orders, Islamic charities and foundations- whose claims had been ignored or utilised for electoral gains by centre-right parties in the past. The Islamic bloc was once divided between radical and moderate elements, but these groups were gradually de-radicalized and brought together by Erbakan and Welfare Party and later by the AKP’s grassroots mobilisation. The AKP wanted to redress the tutelary regime’s oppression on the pious masses. With the referendum process, the AKP has turned to evidently partisan and militant use of Islam, it opens up deep rifts within the Islamist camp. Several Islamist intellectuals, writers and civil society organisations have formed campaigns across Turkey to reach out devout masses (who are dominantly AKP voters) to organise resistance against the imposed constitutional changes. This has not only brought them –perhaps inadvertently- into the same camp with seculars, liberals-leftists and HDP, but also put them in direct conflict with the AKP. One of the most visible of these dissenter Islamist groups is the Hak ve Adalet Platformu [Rights and Justice Platform] that brought together prominent Islamist intellectuals, politicians and civil society activists who were known close to the government or even took active part in the AKP. Yeni Asya community within the Nurcular has also openly declared their rejection of the constitutional referendum. Another Islamist actor that also openly called for the rejection of the constitutional amendments is Saadet Partisi (Felicity Party). Saadet was founded upon the closure of Refah by the Constitutional Court after the 28 February military intervention that forced Erbakan’s government to resign. It was the heir to the Islamist Refah before the neoliberal and young ranks within Saadet deserted the party to establish the AKP under Erdoğan’s leadership. Considering that the AKP has forced smaller religious movements to openly declare loyalty after the 15 July coup attempts and the Islamist groups that rejected the constitutional amendment have been attacked by the AKP media, some Islamist organisations and groups might have preferred staying silent. No campaigners within the Islamist camp are motivated by various reasons. The most important one is the resentment and distrust towards the AKP due to the former alliance between the AKP and the Gülen movement. It is no secret that this alliance worked to the detriment of the Islamist movements. The Gülen community sought to monopolise the Islamic civil society and with the consent of the AKP, it successfully marginalised organised Islamist associations active in the charity sector, cemaats and tarikat networks until the AKP-Gülen fallout. Put simply, several Islamist intellectuals and organisations (especially Yeni Asya group but also MAZLUMDER) find it difficult to buy in the AKP’s apologetic rhetoric nowadays about its close ties with the Gülen community. Besides the reaction to their earlier marginalisation by the AKP-Gülen alliance, several Islamist groups are also motivated by the unjust and unlawful mass purge of thousands of people from their public jobs through executive orders following the 15 July coup attempt. Second, there is also a group within the Islamist camp that is genuinely concerned about the future of freedoms for pious population in Turkey. Today, they argue that the constitutional amendment does not rule out the possibility the president with such unchecked powers could be elected from the Kemalist/secular camp; and recent democratic gains granted under the AKP rule for devout groups would be eventually withdrawn. Some Islamists also voice a genuine dislike for the AKP’s militant and partisan monopolisation of Islam and Islamic symbols for political gains. As a reaction to Erdogan’s recent claim that no campaigners also supported the headscarf bans following the 1997 military intervention, Nurten Ertuğrul, the previous AKP Bingöl mayor, argued that the AKP seeks to generate an artificial and unconvincing argument for the constitutional change by utilising women who suffered from the repressive headscarf ban following the military intervention. Erdoğan demands unconditional loyalty from Islamist civil society following the coup attempt. Although Islamist civil society has allied with different political parties in the past, these organisations kept their relative autonomy from the state and political society while they were in a position of negotiation with the right wing governments for electoral support. Today, the voluntary cooptation that would define and confine Islamist groups’ actions to the government’s political strategy as demanded by Erdoğan contradicts with the historical autonomy of the Islamist civil society from the state. Can dissenters within the Islamist bloc finally challenge the AKP’s political hegemony? Regarding the referendum campaign, their mobilisation of the pro-AKP electorate might have an impact on the results. The polls have so far revealed that there is no clear victory for the AKP, despite the government’s use of state resources lavishly for a partisan campaign and everyday intimidation, repression and imprisonment of no campaigners. This is due to the significant number of right-wing voters (who traditionally vote for the AKP and MHP) who are either on the ‘no’ side or undecided. The right-wing voters including pious Kurd, unconvinced Islamists and dubious MHP voters who do not approve Bahçeli’s alliance with the AKP will determine the referendum result. In this sense, the role of the dissenters within the Islamist civil society becomes important with regards to convincing the undecided right-wing voters. What makes the no campaigners within the Islamist bloc vital for the referendum is that they are familiar with the concerns and expectations of the devout, conservative right-wing electorate. Compared to the CHP and the HDP, they know how to make themselves heard by these groups using familiar language and symbols and drawing parallels between the violation of the rule of law under the AKP rule and following the 1980 and 1997 military intervention. For instance, Hak ve Adalet Platformu uses a targeted rhetoric to appeal the concerns of Islamist and conservative voters. Alluding to the discourse of the Refah’s Milli Gorus tradition, the platform asked the electorate to vote ‘no for rights and justice’, ‘no to voice the wronged and mistreated’ and ‘no for the morals’. In order to explain the content of the foreseen constitutional changes, they blend secular and democratic objections to corruption, power abuse and the virtual one-man regime under the foreseen presidential system with Islamic references. They incorporate references to the life of Mohammed and parts of Quran that narrate the perilous consequences of rulers’ abuse of power or that assert human kind’s vulnerability to temptation and corruption to explain the dangers of dismissing the parliamentary system. These messages surely resonate with the AKP voters and possibly also with the MHP electorate who share a similar religious-nationalist ideology with the AKP electorate. These electorates are also more comfortable with attending the public meetings and campaign stands of dissident Islamist intellectuals and politicians than the ones organised by secular CHP or HDP. These groups draw parallels between the violation of the rule of law under the AKP rule and following the 1980 and 1997 military intervention. In fact, the Islamist no campaigners have organised several public meetings, marches, distribution of leaflets and banners at market places and busy shopping streets in mixed or conservative districts of Istanbul to convey their message. Their voluntary and determined mobilisation -albeit state intimidation and their meagre resources- reminds conservative voters of small districts and neighbourhoods the fledgling Islamist mobilisation of 1990s under the leadership of Refah, compared to the AKP’s oppressive use of state resources for the referendum campaign. It is to be seen whether the cracks within the Islamist bloc will generate a new opening for a political movement within the right to challenge the AKP’s long political monopoly. It is true that the AKP owes its long-term success in appealing the right-wing voters that is a result of its ability in maintaining an extensive ‘pact’ that brought together conservative business and communal elites, middle classes, urban poor and Islamists. The AKP has established such large scale mass support and an image of invincibility through strong leadership backed by unified party elite, although intra-party dispute is not new for the AKP. Earlier, influential figures (Ertuğrul Günay, Abdullah Gül, İdris Naim Şahin, Bülent Arınç) left the party over disputes with Erdoğan and his heavy-handed party leadership or over criticisms of the AKP’s authoritarian turn. So far, Erdoğan’s leadership and tight party discipline allowed the AKP to sail through these intra-party elite disputes. Yet, this time the challenge originates from Islamist civil society that for so long supported the party ideologically and helped maintain the popular support. Now, it seems that after liberals and leftists, some Islamist intellectuals and politicians who invested in the party’s ideological and operational roots as well as some Islamist cemaats also openly reject the authoritarian and Erdoğan-centric AKP. Given that historically there is no significant interbloc electoral swing within the Turkish party system (that is electoral transfers between parties happens between ideologically close parties in Turkey rather than between left and right blocs), the only genuine alternative to the AKP would eventually come from within the right spectrum and from within the AKP cadres. What really makes widening rifts within the Islamist camp crucial is that anti-AKP Islamists have the potential power to reach out to the grassroots and convince the right-wing conservative AKP voters. However, some caveats are in order. First, the dissenters within the Islamist bloc are still a minority. Several Islamist associations and platforms, business associations like MUSIAD as well as tarikats and cemaats declared their support for the constitutional amendment. The second reason to be cautious is that some no voters within the Islamist bloc see the referendum as an exception. In other words, rejecting the AKP line for the constitutional amendments would not change their support for the AKP at national and local elections. In the end, the fractions within the Islamist camp have widened during the referendum process. It is still difficult to predict whether and how the intensified disintegration within the Islamist bloc might bring a real alternative to the AKP’ monopolisation of religious appeal in the future. A well organised Islamist opposition can challenge the AKP’s invincible image by exposing the limits of the utilisation of religious appeal and polarisation of the society along the secular-religious cleavage for political gains and mobilise collective action among the right-leaning voter. If challenged within the Islamist camp, Erdoğan’s charismatic leadership (read Erdoganism) will not be sufficient to maintain the popularity for the AKP among the conservative voters. Yet, reversing the authoritarian trend, restarting the democratisation process and finally achieving societal reconciliation in Turkey will require creative activism of both right-wing/Islamist and left-wing political forces and social constituencies in order to be able to create an all-encompassing response to the authoritarian populism under the AKP. Such a political and social mobilisation is yet to be seen regardless of the result of the upcoming referendum. Originally published in Independent Turkey, 2017