AKP using Atatürk in its 'yes' campaign

President Tayyip Erdoğan was asked in a live interview on Habertürk TV on March 27 about German newspaper Bild's headline in Turkish and German that day. Bild's headline said, "Atatürk would have said 'no,'" implying that if the Turkish Republic's founding father, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, were alive today, he would have cast a "no" vote in the April 16 referendum to consolidate all executive powers in presidential hands.

"I don't see any relation," Erdoğan said, slamming the Bild headline. "And also, I could say that if Atatürk were alive today, he would have said 'yes' because he suffered from the same [duality] problems."

The answer is interesting because up until recently, Erdoğan did not use the word Atatürk much; when he had to, he frequently used "Ghazi" Mustafa Kemal instead of that, since the Islamist-conservative tradition in Turkey rejects the surname that Atatürk adopted for himself (surnames only appeared in the republican era), which means "Father of the Turks."

The Islamist-conservative tradition in Turkey has always remained distant to Atatürk, giving him credit for leading the War of Independence against the invaders right after World War I but disagreeing with his move to abolish the caliphate and separate government affairs from religion by adopting a rather hardline version of secular rule. 

With under three weeks left until the polls, surveys carried out by the AK Parti headquarters reportedly show that in big cities, especially in Istanbul where nearly 20 percent of the country's 80 million people live, the "no" side is doing better, prompting the AK Parti to intriguingly begin relying on Atatürk in its "yes" campaign. 

One of the recent examples of that is a letter sent to millions of young voters by...