July 8: Turkey’s Islamist-rooted government geared up on Thursday for a September referendum on reforms to curb the judiciary’s powers, after a top court scrapped a only fraction of the disputed package. The constitutional court rejected late on Wednesday a request by the secularist Opposition to cancel the entire package, annulling only three provisions in what observers described as a “surgical” intervention.
The amendments have widened a rift between the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its secularist opponents who argue that the party, the moderate offshoot of a banned Islamist movement, is seeking an authoritarian grip on power. The court ruling represents a “mid-way formula” and “a solution that will not fan further tensions” in Turkey, the liberal Radikal daily wrote.
“The possibility of early elections has been discarded... The danger of political chaos has been eliminated,” the popular Aksam said. The AKP had been widely expected to call snap polls if key elements in the package had been cancelled.