Tag Archives: Election

Brexit to dominate as May sets out stall for UK re-election

FILE PHOTO: Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May speaks to the media outside 10 Downing Street in London, Britain April 18, 2017. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth/File Photo

By Kylie MacLellan

LONDON (Reuters) – Whatever Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservatives promise in their manifesto before a June election, managing Britain’s exit from the European Union will limit her opportunity to push wide-ranging radical domestic change.

Brexit is already diverting government attention from other, often pressing, issues – the number of laws coming into force has dived to a 20-year low – and parliament will be occupied for a long time in deciding the fate of EU legislation introduced during Britain’s four-decade membership of the bloc.

May, who was appointed prime minister shortly after Britain voted last year to leave the EU, has framed the election on June 8 as an opportunity to bolster support for her Brexit plan, while saying it will help her put her own stamp on government.

She will rip up several of the pledges made by predecessor David Cameron and hope a bigger majority will secure parliamentary backing for some more contentious measures, such as opening new selective schools and capping energy prices.

But beyond a few flagship policies she is most passionate about, Brexit will dominate.

The complexity of delivering Brexit will sap government and parliamentary time, possibly requiring as many as 15 pieces of major legislation, and leave little room for domestic policy promises.

“The reality is that Brexit eclipses so many other legislative priorities, and will do for years to come,” said Daniel Greenberg, a legal adviser on domestic legislation to the lower House of Commons.

The manifesto, expected to be published early next month, will set out the promises May has made on Brexit, including plans to leave the EU’s single market, end free movement of people from the remaining member states and pull out of the European Court of Justice, which rules on EU law.

But it is unlikely to go into detail on her negotiating stance after months of keeping her cards close to her chest.

DIVERTING ATTENTION

Analysis by Thomson Reuters legal business shows 1,642 pieces of legislation were introduced in 2016, down 29 percent from the previous year and the lowest level since 1997.

“The last government slowed down on legislative activity ahead of the vote, and now the decision has been taken to leave the EU, only the more favored non-Brexit related issues are going to see significant legislative attention,” said Greenberg.

The government proposes to convert all EU laws into domestic legislation, after which further parliamentary time will be spent deciding which should then be amended, replaced or repealed.

On top of this, the Institute for Government (IFG) think tank predicts 10 to 15 new bills and thousands of pages of secondary legislation will need to be passed by parliament to put in place arrangements in areas such as immigration and customs before Britain’s expected EU departure in March 2019.

On average the Queen’s Speech, which sets out the government’s legislative programme for the year, contains around 20 flagship bills, leaving little room for non-Brexit measures.

The government, which is cutting spending to reduce the budget deficit, also does not have the capacity to focus on major new policies unrelated to Britain’s EU exit.

Some of the ministries set to be heavily involved in Brexit preparations, such as the Home Office and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, have faced the biggest cuts to their budgets and staffing levels, according to the IFG.

“Brexit is going to take so much public policy time, political time and cabinet time that I am not sure how this country can address all of the other things it needs to address,” said Brigid Laffan, director of the European University Institute’s Robert Schuman Centre.

BREXIT-OBSESSED

Beyond leaving the EU, voters cite healthcare as the next biggest issue facing the country, followed by immigration, the economy, housing and education, according to pollsters YouGov.

The government has been under pressure on many of these issues, with housebuilding falling well short of its promised level, immigration running at nearly three times its target, and schools complaining of cuts to funding.

The Conservative manifesto for the last election in 2015 included a pledge to spend at least an additional 8 billion pounds ($10 billion) on the National Health Service (NHS) by 2020, but the chief executive of NHS England has said it needs as much as 21 billion pounds.

That manifesto also promised to cap residential social care charges for the elderly from 2016, but shortly after the election the government announced this would be delayed to 2020.

“Having such a Brexit-obsessed government means that they are not doing their day job. They are not providing the decent public services that people want,” former Liberal Democrat leader and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg told the BBC.

Yet with the opposition Labour Party divided and accused of lacking a clear message on Brexit, polls suggest May’s Conservatives will be returned to power with a bigger majority.

That gives her the freedom to focus on Brexit and a handful of other measures which she might otherwise have struggled to get past even her own party, such as new selective grammar schools, or those which are less traditionally associated with the Conservatives’ laissez-faire economic policy.

May’s “modern industrial strategy” – a interventionist approach to rebalance Britain’s heavily services-based economy – will feature, while ministers have said there will also be a pledge to act in the energy market, possibly through a cap on prices for domestic customers.

The Conservatives have also raised the prospect of scrapping a 2015 promise not to raise three taxes which are the state’s biggest revenue raisers and to protect pension increases.

Last month finance minister Philip Hammond was forced to reverse plans to raise payroll taxes for the self-employed amid accusations that it broke that manifesto pledge.

“It’s self-evidently clear that the commitments that were made in the 2015 manifesto did, and do today, strain the ability of the government to manage the economy flexibly,” Hammond said during a trip to Washington last week.

($1 = 0.7802 pounds)

(editing by David Stamp)

Top U.S. officials to testify in Trump-Russia probe reboot

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), accompanied by Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), vice chairman of the committee, speaks at a news conference to discuss their probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 29, 2017. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee said on Friday it had invited FBI, NSA and Obama administration officials to testify as it restarts its investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

After stalling over the committee chairman’s ties to President Donald Trump’s White House and disagreements over who should testify, the bipartisan committee said it sent a letter inviting James Comey, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Admiral Mike Rogers, director of the National Security Agency, to appear behind closed doors on May 2.

A second letter invited three officials who left the government as President Barack Obama’s administration ended – former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates – to appear at a public hearing to be scheduled after May 2.

The planned hearings are the first the committee has announced since its chairman, Republican Representative Devin Nunes, recused himself from the Russia investigation on April 6 after receiving information at the White House about surveillance that swept up some information about members of Trump’s transition team.

Echoing Trump, Nunes suggested that Obama’s administration had handled that information incorrectly.

Nunes remains the committee’s chairman.

TIES TO TRUMP

Comey and Rogers testified in a public hearing on March 20. At that hearing, Comey confirmed for the first time that the FBI was investigating possible ties between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia as Moscow sought to influence the election.

Nunes was a supporter of Trump’s campaign and a member of his transition team. His decision two days after the public hearing to hold a press conference about the information and discuss it with Trump before disclosing it to Democrats raised questions about whether he could lead a credible investigation.

Committee Democrats also were angered when Nunes scrapped a scheduled public hearing with Brennan, Yates and Clapper. A planned closed hearing with Comey and Rogers also was put off.

The House panel is examining whether Russia tried to influence the election in Trump’s favor, mostly by hacking Democratic operatives’ emails and releasing embarrassing information, or possibly by colluding with Trump associates.

Russia denies the allegations, which Trump also dismisses.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is conducting a separate, similar investigation.

Senate investigators currently are interviewing analysts and intelligence agents who prepared public and classified reports in January that concluded that Russia had interfered in last year’s election on Trump’s behalf, an official familiar with the congressional activity said.

At this point they are a long way from scheduling interviews or hearings with any principal witnesses from either the Obama or Trump administrations, the official said.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, additional reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Mary Milliken)

France mobilized for election security after Paris attack

The eleven French presidential election candidates take part in a special political television show entitled "15min to Convince" at the studios of French Television channel France 2 in Saint-Cloud, near Paris, April 20, 2017. REUTERS/Martin Bureau/Pool

By Leigh Thomas and Marine Pennetier

PARIS (Reuters) – France said its security forces were fully mobilized for a presidential election at the weekend after the killing of a policeman by an Islamist militant threw a dark shadow over the last day of an unpredictable campaign.

With the first round of voting in the two-stage election due to take place on Sunday, centrist Emmanuel Macron still held on to his position as frontrunner in the closely contested race.

An Elabe survey of voter intentions, carried out before the Thursday night shooting on the Champs Elysees shopping avenue in central Paris, showed Macron with 24 percent of the first-round vote and far right leader Marine Le Pen falling back slightly to 21.5 percent.

Two other candidates – former conservative prime minister Francois Fillon and the far left’s Jean-Luc Melenchon – were snapping at their heels with 20 and 19.5 percent respectively.

Campaigning and the publication of voter surveys are banned from midnight on Friday until polling stations close. Sunday’s round of voting will be followed by a second-round runoff on May 7 between the top two candidates.

The Champs Elysees attack was claimed by militant group Islamic State. One attacker was killed and officials said they were looking for a potential second suspect.

Emerging from an emergency meeting of security officials, Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve announced a full mobilization of security forces, including elite units, to back up 50,000 police already earmarked to ensure citizens’ safety during the election.

“The government is fully mobilized. Nothing must be allowed to impede the fundamental democratic process of our country,” Cazeneuve told reporters. “It falls to us not to give in to fear and intimidation and manipulation which would play into the hands of the enemy.”

The shooting abruptly pushed national security up the agenda, potentially making the outcome of Sunday’s first round vote even more difficult to call. With their hardline view on security and immigration, the positions of Le Pen and Fillon may resonate more strongly for some voters.

But attacks that have taken place soon before elections, including the November 2015 attacks in Paris ahead of regional elections and the shooting in a Jewish school before the 2012 presidentials, have not appeared to change the course of those ballots.

An assault on a soldier in February at the Paris Louvre museum by a man wielding a machete also had no obvious impact on this year’s opinion polls, which have consistently said that voters see unemployment and trustworthiness of politicians as bigger issues.

CROWDED CONTEST

Le Pen, who leads the National Front, has made immigration and security a core part of her campaign.

She wants to tighten French borders controls and build more jails, and says authorities are not doing enough to protect citizens from militant attacks, which have killed more than 230 people in France since January 2015.

“Today fundamentalist Islam is waging war and … the measures are not being taken to limit the risks,” she said on RFI radio.

Macron, who from 2014 to 2016 was economy minister in the Socialist government that Le Pen has criticized repeatedly for its security record, said the solutions were not as simple as she suggested.

“I’ve heard Madame Le Pen saying again recently that with her in charge, certain attacks would have been avoided,” he said on RTL Radio. “There’s no such thing as zero risk. Anyone who pretends (otherwise) is both irresponsible and deceitful.”

In the Elabe poll, which was conducted on Wednesday and Thursday, both Fillon and Melenchon were seen narrowing Macron and Le Pen’s lead over them.

Should Macron and Le Pen do make it to the second round, the former economy minister was projected to win the runoff – and thus the presidency – with 65 percent against 35 percent for Le Pen, the survey for BFM TV and L’Express magazine showed.

For the first round, Macron’s projected 24 percent of the vote represented a steady score from the last time the poll was conducted three days earlier. Le Pen’s 21.5 percent was a fall of 1.5 percentage points.

Fillon, who has slowly clawed back some ground lost after being hit by a fake jobs scandal, saw his score in the first round rise half a percentage point to 20 percent.

Melenchon, who would hike taxes on the rich and spend 100 billion euros ($107 billion) of borrowed money on vast housebuilding and renewable energy projects, gained 1.5 points to 19.5 percent as he built further on momentum he has seen after strong performances in television debates.

If Melenchon makes it to the runoff, he is projected to beat both Le Pen and Fillon by comfortable margins although he is seen losing to Macron 41 percent to 59 percent.

The number of people surveyed who expected to definitely turn out for the first round rose to 71 percent, the highest so far during the campaign although that is nonetheless low by historical standards.

(Additional reporting by Elizabeth Pineau, Ingrid Melander, Laurence Frost, Bate Felix; Writing by Richard Balmforth; Editing by Andrew Callus and Pravin Char)

One police officer killed, two wounded in Paris shooting

Police secure the Champs Elysee Avenue after one policeman was killed and another wounded in a shooting incident in Paris, France, April 20, 2017. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann

By Julien Pretot

PARIS (Reuters) – One policeman was killed and two others wounded in a shooting incident in central Paris on Thursday night, police and the interior ministry said.

The shooting, in which the assailant was also killed, took place on the Champs-Elysees shopping boulevard just days ahead of France’s presidential election.

A witness told Reuters that a man got out of a car at the scene and began shooting with a machine gun. A police source also said more shots had been fired at another location near the scene.

A French interior ministry spokesman said it was too early to say what the motive of the attack was, but that it was clear the police officers had been deliberately targeted.

The French prosecutors’ office said the counter-terrorism office had opened an inquiry.

Three police sources said, however, that the shooting could have been an attempt at an armed robbery.

“I came out of the Sephora shop and I was walking along the pavement where an Audi 80 was parked. A man got out and opened fire with a kalashnikov on a policeman,” witness Chelloug, a kitchen assistant, told Reuters.

“The policeman fell down. I heard six shots, I was afraid. I have a two year-old girl and I thought I was going to die… He shot straight at the police officer.”

Police authorities called on the public to avoid the area.

TV footage showed the Arc de Triomphe monument and top half of the Champs Elysees packed with police vans, lights flashing and heavily armed police shutting the area down after what was described by one journalist as a major exchange of fire near a Marks and Spencers store.

The incident came as French voters prepared go to the polls on Sunday in the most tightly-contested presidential election in living memory.

France has lived under a state of emergency since 2015 and has suffered a spate of Islamist militant attacks that have killed more than 230 people in the past two years.

Earlier this week, two men were arrested in Marseille whom police said had been planning an attack ahead of the election.

A machine gun, two hand guns and three kilos of TATP explosive were among the weapons found at a flat in the southern city along with jihadist propaganda materials according to the Paris prosecutor.

(Reporting by Richard Balmforth; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Leigh Thomas and Andrew Callus)

Turkey’s AKP eyes gradual Erdogan return to party after referendum win

Turkey's Prime Minister Binali Yildirim addresses members of parliament from his ruling AK Party (AKP) during a meeting at the Turkish parliament in Ankara, Turkey, April 18, 2017. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

By Tuvan Gumrukcu, Ece Toksabay and Tulay Karadeniz

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s ruling AK Party set out plans on Wednesday for President Tayyip Erdogan to gradually take back the party reins, in a sign it would begin implementing changes approved in Sunday’s referendum despite opposition attempts to annul it.

Prime Minister and AKP leader Binali Yildirim said Erdogan can rejoin the party he founded in 2001 once official results of the plebiscite, granting him sweeping powers, are announced. Those results are expected before the end of the month.

But he said the AKP would not hold a party congress until 2018, indicating Erdogan would not officially become its leader until then. There were widespread expectations he would take over the leadership almost immediately after the vote.

“When the High Electoral Board (YSK) announces official results, our president will be able to return to the party,” Yildirim told reporters in front of AKP headquarters.

His comments came as the YSK met to evaluate appeals to annul the referendum and after the bar association and an international monitor said the board had acted illegally by allowing unstamped ballot papers to be counted, and may have swung the vote.

A defiant Erdogan, whose narrow victory exposed the nation’s deep divisions, has said Sunday’s vote ended all debate on the more powerful presidency he has long sought, and Turkey would ignore criticism of the referendum from European observers.

The pro-Kurdish opposition HDP filed an appeal on Wednesday for an annulment on the grounds there had been widespread violations, a day after a similar move by the main opposition CHP. [I7N1G2024]

HDP deputy chairman Mithat Sancar said the vote was undermined by the fact that the campaign was held under emergency rule while the party’s co-leaders were under arrest, that its candidates for polling station monitors were rejected, and that state resources were used in the “yes” campaign.

He said the electoral board’s last-minute decision to allow unstamped ballots had prevented proper record-keeping, meaning that it was now impossible to determine how many invalid or fake votes may have been counted. Some voters had been unable to cast their ballots in private, he added.

“This referendum will forever remain controversial,” he told reporters. “You cannot build a change in the political system on such a controversial and unfair referendum.”

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Wednesday a critical report by European observers on the referendum contained several mistakes which he believed were deliberate.

Observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe said Sunday’s referendum had been an uneven contest.

“The OSCE’s report has no reliability as their observations lack objectivity and are extremely partial,” Cavusoglu told a news conference in Ankara.

(Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by David Dolan and Mark Trevelyan)

Democrats aim to ‘make Trump furious’ in Georgia election

Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff for Georgia's 6th Congressional District special election speaks during an election eve rally in Roswell, Georgia. REUTERS/Kevin D. Liles

By Andy Sullivan

SANDY SPRINGS, Ga. (Reuters) – For U.S. President Donald Trump, an off-year congressional election on Tuesday in the reliably Republican northern suburbs of Atlanta could spell trouble if Democratic upstart Jon Ossoff pulls off a surprise victory.

A 30-year-old political novice, Ossoff is running as the lone Democrat against a field of 17 Republicans for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives vacated when Trump named Tom Price as his health secretary.

An Ossoff win would not tip the balance of power in the Republican-controlled House but could weaken Trump’s already shaky hold on his party there by encouraging those in competitive districts to distance themselves from him.

Ossoff faces formidable odds. Georgia’s 6th District has elected Republicans to the House since the late 1970s. Trump won the Southern state by about 5 percentage points in November’s election.

Still, opinion polls show Ossoff leading his many rivals. With the slogan “Make Trump Furious,” he aims to galvanize opposition to a president struggling with low approval ratings.

“We have an amazing chance here, an extraordinary moment for Georgia,” Ossoff told campaign volunteers as they headed out for a final round of door-knocking on Monday afternoon.

Ossoff raised a stunning $8.3 million in the first quarter, forcing Republicans to spend heavily against him. Those in the race are split among Trump supporters and candidates trying to hold the president at arm’s length.

Trump defeated Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton last year, and Republicans have controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress since January. But they have yet to enact major legislation to fulfill campaign promises.

The president’s approval rating has not topped 50 percent since he took office on Jan. 20, Reuters/Ipsos polling shows.

Trump, a businessman and TV celebrity who previously had not held political office, has blasted Ossoff as a “super Liberal Democrat.”

In several tweets on Tuesday, he said Ossoff was “very weak on crime and illegal immigration, bad for jobs and wants higher taxes” and urged Republicans to vote to force a run-off.

Ossoff aims to win an outright majority in Tuesday’s vote, a “jungle primary” with all 18 candidates from both parties on the same ballot. If no one reaches 50 percent, the top two vote-getters square off on June 20.

Republicans say they could beat Ossoff in a one-on-one contest. The party avoided embarrassment last week when it narrowly held a conservative Kansas seat vacated when Trump tapped Republican Representative Mike Pompeo to head the Central Intelligence Agency.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Lisa Von Ahn)

‘Dirty’ Jakarta election looms as religious politics resurfaces

An election official prepares ballot boxes before distributing them to polling stations, in Jakarta, Indonesia April 18, 2017. REUTERS/Beawiharta

By Fergus Jensen and Tom Allard

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Luar Batang is one of the Indonesian capital’s oldest neighborhoods, founded in the 17th century to collect tolls from ships sailing in from the Java Sea when the city was the center of the Dutch East Indies spice trade.

Now, it is being demolished and many of its residents are being evicted to make way for a giant seawall meant to keep Jakarta from sinking under rising sea levels. That has made it ground zero for the election of the city’s governor, dubbed one of the most divisive election campaigns Indonesia has ever seen.

The incumbent governor, Basuki “Ahok” Purnama, was cruising toward a decisive election victory last September when he allegedly criticized a verse from the Koran that warns Muslims against allying with Christians and Jews.

Hardline Islamist groups responded with mass protests demanding that Purnama, an ethnic Chinese and Christian, be prosecuted. Police eventually did charge him with blasphemy.

It was Purnama who ordered the evictions from Luar Batang’s slums to make way for one of his many infrastructure projects aimed at modernizing this clogged and chaotic city.

Many of those who filled the streets of Jakarta to protest against him late last year were among the displaced, and violence broke out in Luar Batang after one of those demonstrations.

Luar Batang residents had just about given up their fight against evictions when the controversy over the Koran comments erupted, said one woman who did not want to be named, sitting outside a small shack amid the rubble.

“We see it as a gift from God,” she said, describing the slur as a means to bring down Purnama.

NECK AND NECK RACE

Opinion surveys show Purnama running neck and neck with his challenger Anies Baswedan, who, like some 85 percent of Jakartans, is a Muslim.

Purnama, 50, inherited the governorship after Joko Widodo was elected president in 2014. His brash talking style, a contrast with the soft-spoken Javanese politicians who dominate the ruling class, has grated on some voters.

Purnama won the first round of voting in February in a three-way race with 43 percent of the ballots to set up Wednesday’s second round with Basedan, who won 40 percent.

The campaign has been “the dirtiest, most polarizing and most divisive the nation has ever seen,” the Jakarta Post said in an editorial on Tuesday.

Calling the capital “the barometer of Indonesia’s political pulse”, the daily said the election would have a bearing on the next presidential election in 2019.

Police on Monday blocked plans by hardline Islamist groups to guard polling booths, citing the risk of clashes after a campaign fraught with religious tensions, and said around 66,000 police and military personnel will be deployed on voting day.

‘VOTER FRAUD’

Prabowo Subianto, head of the Gerindra Party that Baswedan represents, said in a video message recorded over the weekend that “religious people need a leader who respects their beliefs”. Prabowo lost the 2014 election to President Widodo.

Purnama faces up to five years in jail if convicted of blasphemy. His trial will resume on Thursday, when prosecutors will submit their sentence request.

Prabowo said he was concerned about potential voter fraud.

“Cheating is a common enemy to us. We don’t want to cheat,” he said. “However, we will not hold back if we are cheated.”

Hardline Islamic cleric Habib Rizieq, who helped organize the anti-Purnama demonstrations during the campaign, last week urged Muslims to travel to Jakarta and be ready to “finish” their opponents.

“This is not a battle between Anies and Ahok. This is a battle between … defenders of Islam and those who blaspheme against Islam,” Rizieq said at an event in the city of Surabaya.

“Those who can come to Jakarta better have the guts to do so and prepare a will for your family,” he added, as the crowd roared in response.

At Luar Batang, where Prabowo’s party has set up tents for those evicted from their homes, the woman at the street cafe said people are tired of politicians’ false promises and warned that frustration could boil over if Purnama wins the vote.

“If (Purnama) is elected again something extraordinary will happen,” she said.

(Editing by Bill Tarrant)

Erdogan makes final push before vote on presidential powers

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan addresses his supporters during a rally for the upcoming referendum in Istanbul, Turkey, April 15, 2017. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

By Tuvan Gumrukcu

ANKARA (Reuters) – President Tayyip Erdogan appealed for support from Turkish voters in final campaign rallies on Saturday, the eve of a referendum which could tighten his grip over a country bridging the European Union and a conflict-strewn Middle East.

Opinion polls have given a narrow lead for a “Yes” vote in Sunday’s referendum to replace Turkey’s parliamentary democracy with an all-powerful presidency, a move Erdogan says is needed to confront the security and political challenges Turkey faces.

Opponents say it is a step towards greater authoritarianism in a country where 40,000 people were arrested and 120,000 sacked or suspended from their jobs in a crackdown following a failed coup attempt against Erdogan last July.

Western countries have criticized that tough response, and relations with the EU – which Turkey has been negotiating to join for a decade – hit a low during the campaign when Erdogan accused European leaders of acting like Nazis for banning referendum rallies in their countries on security grounds.

He has also said Turkey could review a deal under which it limits the flow of migrants – many of them refugees fleeing war in neighboring Syria and Iraq – into the European Union unless the bloc implements plans to grant Turks visa-free travel.

At a rally in Istanbul, one of four he held in the last hours before Sunday’s vote, Erdogan described the constitutional proposals as the biggest change in Turkey since the country was established nearly a century ago, and the culmination of the response to July’s abortive putsch.

“Sunday will be a turning point in the fight against terrorist organizations. We will finish what we started on July 15 this April 16,” he told a crowd in Istanbul’s Tuzla district, decked with Turkish flags and giant pictures of the president.

Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted AK Party has enjoyed a disproportionate share of media coverage in the buildup to the vote, but the result may be close. A narrow majority of Turks will vote “Yes”, two opinion polls suggested on Thursday, putting his support at only a little over 51 percent.

“Tomorrow is very important, you must absolutely go to the polls,” Erdogan urged the crowd. “Don’t forget that the vote is our honor.”

“TURKEY AT CROSSROADS”

Some 55 million people are eligible to vote at 167,140 polling stations across the nation, which open at 7.00 am (12.00 midnight ET) in the east of the country and close at 5 pm (1400 GMT). Turkish voters abroad have already cast their ballots.

The package of 18 amendments would abolish the office of prime minister and give the president authority to draft the budget, declare a state of emergency and issue decrees overseeing ministries without parliamentary approval.

Proponents of the reform argue that it would end the current “two-headed system” in which both the president and parliament are directly elected, a situation they argue could lead to deadlock. Until 2014, presidents were chosen by parliament.

They also argue that the current constitution, written by the generals who ruled Turkey in the years following a 1980 coup, still bears the stamp of its military authors and, despite numerous revisions, must be overhauled.

“The presidential system we are bringing with this constitutional change is necessary for the development, growth and stability of our nation,” Erdogan said.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), said Turkey was at a crossroads between a democratic parliamentary system and a “one-man regime”. A “Yes” vote would put the country in danger, he said.

“We will put 80 million people onto a bus … we don’t know where it is headed,” he told an opposition rally in the capital Ankara. “We are putting 80 million on a bus with no brakes.”

Also opposing the proposed changes, the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) held a rally on Saturday in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, which was addressed by its jailed co-leader Selahattin Demirtas.

“This campaign was not carried out fairly and equally,” Demirtas, who was arrested last November on terrorism charges, said in a joint letter with other detained HDP members which was read out at the rally.

“The reason behind our arrests was to prevent us from calling to our nation. The entire resources of the state were at disposal to support the ‘Yes’ campaign of the AK Party.”

Erdogan views the HDP as the political wing of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, which has waged a three-decade insurgency in the southeast and claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on a police compound in Diyarbakir on Wednesday.

The PKK is considered a terrorist group by the United States and European Union.

(Editing by Dominic Evans and Andrew Bolton)

Turkey set for close vote on boosting Erdogan’s powers, polls suggest

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan greets the audience during a meeting in Ankara, Turkey March 29, 2017. Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Presidential Palace/Handout via REUTERS

By Ercan Gurses and Humeyra Pamuk

ANKARA/ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Less than three weeks before Turkey votes on sweeping new powers sought by President Tayyip Erdogan, opinion polls suggest a tight race in a referendum that could bring the biggest change to the system of governance in the country’s modern history.

Two senior officials from the ruling AK Party told Reuters that research it commissioned had put support for “yes” at 52 percent in early March, down from 55-56 percent a month earlier, though they expected a row with Europe in recent weeks to have fired up nationalists and bolstered their camp.

Turks will vote on April 16 on constitutional changes which would replace their parliamentary system with an executive presidency, a change Erdogan says is needed to avoid the fragile coalition governments of the past and to give Turkey stability as it faces numerous security challenges.

Publicly-available polls paint a mixed picture in a race that has sharply divided the country, with Erdogan’s faithful seeing a chance to cement his place as modern Turkey’s most important leader, and his opponents fearing one-man rule.

A survey on Wednesday by pollster ORC, seen as close to the government, put “yes” on 55.4 percent in research carried out between March 24-27 across almost half of Turkey’s 81 provinces.

By contrast, Murat Gezici, whose Gezici polling company tends to show stronger support for the opposition, told Reuters none of the 16 polls his firm had carried out over the past eight months had put the “yes” vote ahead. He expected a “no” victory of between 51-53 percent, based on his latest numbers.

None of the polls suggest the 60 percent level of support which officials in Ankara say Erdogan wants.

“Right now we have not seen a result in our polls that did not show the ‘yes’ vote ahead. But we want the constitutional reform to be approved with a high percentage for wider social consensus,” said AKP spokesman Yasin Aktay.

The wide disparity of the poll results is partly due to the political sympathies of Turkey’s polling companies.

But it also reflects a sense that a section of the public remains undecided, including some AKP loyalists uncomfortable with too much power being concentrated in Erdogan’s hands.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim held a meeting last week with former AKP ministers and officials, seeking to shore up wider support for the “Yes” campaign.

But former prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu and former president Abdullah Gul, both high-profile members of the AKP who fell out with Erdogan, did not show up and were also absent from the AKP’s campaign launch in late February.

“NO EARLY ELECTION”

Erdogan assumed the presidency, currently a largely ceremonial position, in 2014 after more than a decade as prime minister with the AKP, which he co-founded. Since then, pushing his powers to the limit, he has continued to dominate politics by dint of his personal popularity and forceful personality.

Critics accuse him of increasing authoritarianism with the arrests and dismissal of tens of thousands of judges, police, military officers, journalists and academics since a failed military coup in July.

With the constitutional overhaul, the president would be able to retain ties to a political party, potentially allowing Erdogan to resume his leadership of the AKP, a move that opposition parties say would wreck any chance of impartiality.

Abdulkadir Selvi, a pro-government columnist in the Hurriyet newspaper, said the latest numbers presented to the AKP headquarters showed the lead for the “yes” campaign widening, boosted partly by Erdogan’s row with Europe.

Bans on some campaign rallies by Turkish officials in Germany and the Netherlands have prompted Erdogan to accuse European leaders of “Nazi methods”.

“The stance of the Netherlands and Germany is expected to motivate nationalist voters at home and abroad and add 1-1.5 percentage points to the ‘yes’ vote,” Selvi wrote on Thursday.

The constitutional changes envisage presidential and parliamentary elections being held together in 2019, with a president eligible to then serve a maximum of two five-year terms. Those elections could be called early if Erdogan wins the referendum, enabling him to assume full executive powers sooner.

But AKP officials said such a move was unlikely, citing concern that a slowing economy could weaken their parliamentary majority and pointing to voter fatigue after four elections in the past three years.

“Whether there is a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ vote in the referendum, leaving this parliamentary majority to have another election does not make sense for us,” a senior AKP official said.

(Additional reporting by Orhan Coskun in Ankara, Daren Butler in Istanbul; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Nations urge Venezuela on elections, warn of diplomatic ‘last resort’

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro speaks during a pro-government rally, next to his wife Cilia Flores (L), in Caracas, Venezuela March 9, 2017. REUTERS/Marco Bello

By Frank Jack Daniel and Matt Spetalnick

MEXICO CITY/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A group of 14 nations on Thursday urged Venezuela to hold elections and release “political prisoners,” in a joint statement that kept open the option of seeking to suspend the South American country from the Organization of American States.

The statement, which Mexico’s Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said was aimed at encouraging Venezuela to “re-establish democracy,” called for dialogue and negotiation to resolve a crisis in the oil-exporting country, which is suffering severe food and fuel shortages.

Suspending Venezuela from the OAS was a last resort, the nations said, and something that should be avoided unless other diplomatic efforts have been exhausted.

“We reiterate that inclusive and effective dialogue is the right path to achieve lasting solutions to the challenges faced by the Venezuelan people,” the statement said.

Venezuela has jailed around 100 government opponents it accuses of inciting violence and planning the overthrow of President Nicolas Maduro. Opposition activists and human rights groups say they are prisoners of conscience.

Venezuela’s election board in October suspended the opposition drive for a recall referendum against Maduro despite the country’s crushing economic crisis, the government’s unpopularity and public opinion in favor of a plebiscite.

Venezuela has also delayed until 2017 elections due in December for state governorships.

The declaration by the 14 nations called for the separation of powers, the rule of law and the establishment of an electoral calendar for postponed elections.

The group that signed the declaration, which includes regional powerhouses the United States, Mexico, Canada and Brazil, also called on Venezuela to recognize the legitimacy of the country’s national assembly, which has been defanged by Maduro’s government since the opposition won a majority in 2015.

Delcy Rodriguez, Venezuela’s foreign minister, accused Washington of leading the new push to isolate her country, which has been at loggerheads with the United States since the left-wing government of the late President Hugo Chavez.

“What are they trying? To wound Venezuela?” Rodriguez said on Twitter shortly before the statement was released. “We will denounce these actions country by country. We will not allow any aggression against our sacred homeland.”

The pressure by countries including several former Venezuelan allies follows a call by the head of the OAS to expel Venezuela if it does not quickly hold general elections, a move that would require the support of two thirds of the Washington based body’s 34 General Assembly members.

Luis Almagro, secretary general of the OAS and a former foreign minister of Uruguay, calls Maduro’s government a dictatorship. Earlier this month he said if Venezuela did not quickly comply it should be suspended for violating rules that require members to adhere to democratic norms.

In the past the OAS suspended Cuba and Honduras for breaking with democracy, but was criticized for not taking such action against right-wing dictatorships during the Cold War.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the United States was concerned by the state of democracy in Venezuela.

“We urge the Venezuelan government to comply with the constitution … and hold elections as soon as possible,” Toner told a briefing for reporters.

“We’re not pushing for Venezuela’s expulsion from the OAS at this time. We do think that the OAS is the appropriate venue to deal with the situation in Venezuela.”

However, a senior White House official said suspension from the regional body remained an option. Although numbers supporting Thursday’s declaration fell well short of the requirement to take strong action through the OAS, the official said the statement was a significant first step.

“If Venezuela continues down the path that it’s on, the notion that it’s going to belong to an organization committed to democratic principles doesn’t make much sense,” the official told Reuters, adding that the United Sates could also consider sanctions. “There are going to be ramifications,” the official said.

Mexico’s decision to openly take a stance on the situation in Venezuela is a shift from a usual preference by Latin America’s second-largest economy not to interfere in other countries’ affairs.

“We should not continue to be indifferent, we cannot continue to be indifferent,” Videgaray said earlier on Thursday, emphasizing that Mexico would respect Venezuela’s sovereignty and act according to international law and in agreement with the countries of the Americas.

Mexico’s change in tack may reflect an effort to have constructive relations with the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly antagonized Mexico.

“Having the Mexicans in the lead is beneficial for us in attracting additional support,” the White House official said.

(Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick and Lesley Wroughton in Washington, David Ljunggren in Ottawa, Daniela Desantis in Asuncion and Girish Gupta and Diego Oré in Caracas; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Leslie Adler)