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Is it too much of a stretch to suggest that President Erdogan of Turkey orchestrated the coup himself back in July 2016 to precipitate the need for a purge of tens of thousands of the most benign and obscure ranks of the bureaucracy? After that exercise and abuse of Presidential power, what bureaucracy would dare proclaim a no vote, even if that’s what the official count delivered?
The rise and rise of the bespoke, lounge suited Recep Tayyip Erdogan is another example of how even a moderate, westernised Muslim nation, similar to Iran back in the late 80’s, can go rogue and be radicalised in a very short space of time.
We shouldn’t be at all surprised in the not too distant future, if Erdogan with his new turbo charged Presidential powers uses the ensuing street protests in light of the close referendum result, as his pretext for dissolving parliament and becoming the 21st century’s version of the North Korean Kim dynasty right on Europe’s doorstep.

With the following quote I think we can assume that the President Erdogan’s train has reached his chosen destination. “Democracy is like a train. You get off once you have reached your destination” ( Recep Tayyip Erdogan)
 The passages below from The Economist February 2016, are chilling.
“….But now that the party has risen, the story is getting darker. Early in his career Mr Erdogan made a telling remark he was later to regret. Democracy is like a train, he said; you get off once you have reached your destination. Now many of his party’s critics fear that Turkey’s president may be getting close to that goal.
One example is the use of legislation that penalises insults to the head of state. Turkey’s criminal code has contained such a law since 1926, but it was rarely applied before Mr Erdogan was elected president in August 2014. Opposition MPs say that since then state prosecutors have investigated more than 1,500 people for insulting the president, a crime that can carry a sentence of more than four years. In the first ten months of 2015 nearly 100 people were held in custody on such charges, including cartoonists and journalists, but also teenage boys who had defaced campaign posters or posted Facebook messages. A woman in Izmir was recently sentenced to 11 months in prison for a rude hand gesture directed at Mr Erdogan…”
 “…A particularly dramatic case of state interference in the press involved the takeover by the government, days before the November election, of Koza Ipek Holding, an industrial group. One of Koza Ipek’s television stations, already confined to the internet after Turkish satellite carriers were asked to drop its broadcasts, showed live footage of law enforcers invading its Istanbul headquarters before abruptly going off air….”

 From John Lyons Turkey Leaders Extraordinary Power Play in The Australian “..He showed how he will use his power last year after a failed coup against him. He launched a brutal crackdown across the country, claiming that as many as 60,000 people had supported the coup. His security forces detained 9000 people and sacked thousands of teachers and government officials. Many of the 9000 who were imprisoned were judges, police and soldiers. It appeared that the teachers who were sacked were simply critics — or alleged critics — of the government. Clearly, Erdogan used the crackdown to take revenge on anyone regarded as a critic of his presidency..”