AKP to target women, urban Kurds, urban MHP voters in final referendum campaigning

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) will focus on winning "yes" votes from women, city-based Kurds and city-based Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) voters in the final weeks of campaigning for the referendum on shifting Turkey to an executive presidential system.

The party is finalizing its strategy for the last two weeks of campaigning and decided to target voters from these three undecided and hesitant groups, amid concern that polls still show a tight race between "yes" and "no" voters ahead of the April 16 referendum. 

The AKP will reportedly focus on discourse aiming to ease concerns about pressure on women's lifestyles, based on polling that the rate of women planning to vote no in Istanbul is high. 

Analyses also showed that Kurds and traditional MHP voters living in cities do not support the constitutional changes at the level that the AKP wants to see. As a result, Kurdish-origin lawmakers and MPs and ministers who have good relations with the MHP will be assigned to perform "regional duties" in line with persuasion efforts. 

Turkey will hold a referendum on April 16 to decide whether to change the government system into an executive presidency with vastly enhanced powers for the president or to protect the current parliamentary system. 

The "yes" vote is endorsed by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the AKP and the leadership of the MHP, while the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and the Kurdish issue-focused Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) are campaigning for a "no" vote.

The government is concerned that there may be "secret no voters" among people who tell pollsters that they plan to vote "yes," so the AKP plans to carry out its campaigning based on this calculation. Party...