As the Sept. 12 referendum on the constitutional reform package nears, political party leaders are starting to follow in the footsteps of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has been holding two rallies per day in different provinces as part of his “yes” campaign for the referendum.

As Erdoğan calls for “yes” votes, leaders of the Republican People's Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) have also taken to public squares, calling on their supporters to vote against the measure. Erdoğan's latest meeting was in Adıyaman on Sunday. He accused the MHP of mindlessly following the CHP but said the roles have now been reversed, and the CHP is following the MHP, doing everything this party does without questioning.“We as the Justice and Development Party [AK Party], since the day of our founding, have been putting up a struggle to improve politics, clean up political discourse and transform politics into a tool of service, but unfortunately these gentlemen are doing all that they can to lower the standard of politics.”In a referendum rally at Emniyet Square in Adıyaman, Erdoğan accused opposition parties of hurling insults at AK Party members and its voters. “The minute it entered Parliament, the MHP started following the CHP. This was how it went. But now these roles have been reversed. What we see now is that it is the CHP following the MHP,” he said.He alluded to a speech delivered by CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu on Friday in Malatya, saying he did not approve of the CHP leader's speech style. “He is using the same language, same style, same ugly insults and the same destructive concepts and words as the MHP,” he said.CHP mayor referred for party discipline after announcing ‘yes' voteCHP Deputy Chairman Hakkı Suha Okay announced on Sunday that they will refer party member Mehmet Şerif Memioğlu, the mayor of Yedisu, located in Bingöl province, to the party's disciplinary committee after Memioğlu said he is going to vote “yes” in a referendum scheduled for Sept. 12.Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan addressed a rally in the southeastern province of Bingöl on Saturday. Speaking at the event, Memioğlu noted that while he is a CHP mayor, he would vote “yes” as his party votes “no” in the upcoming referendum on the constitutional amendments. In the wake of Memioğlu's remarks, Okay noted that Memioğlu will be referred to the party's disciplinary committee because of his public statements contradicting the party's position. CHP Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu also said that they would meet with Memioğlu. Ahmet Dengeşik Bingöl The prime minister said that the CHP can only do so much with sails blown by a fake wind, saying Kılıçdaroğlu's leadership was the result of the media hype about him, without naming him directly. “Those who come with the headlines go with the headlines. Those who betray their own friends, their own leaders, become victims of betrayals themselves,” he said, referring to Kılıçdaroğlu's candidacy, which was announced after former CHP leader Deniz Baykal stepped down from the post despite signals from the former leader that he had plans to return. He also criticized Kılıçdaroğlu for being inconsistent in his statements, saying he had corrected a statement within hours of his initial statement. He said “such people” should feel ashamed in front of their children and the country's youth, if they are not ashamed of themselves and have no shame in front of their voters.The prime minister later travelled to Malatya for his second referendum rally of the day. Meanwhile, MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli announced that he would be starting his “no” campaign with a rally in Adana, where the city's governor ordered the local MHP administration to remove posters with anti-package messages from its building, an order that was followed by a brawl between police trying to remove the posters and MHP supporters. Bahçeli said he had chosen Adana as his starting point in protest of the incident. A similar situation occurred in the eastern city of Kars, where the MHP had also put up posters against the referendum package. 26 July 2010, MondayERDAL ŞEN  ADIYAMAN