Will Turkey go to a referendum over a new draft constitution? If you read into the repetitious signals from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and lend an ear to the loudness of its voices, the answer is a loud and clear yes.

It was once more expressed by the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, at a behind-closed-doors party meeting with AKP deputies representing the Aegean (Western Anatolian) region, that the time is getting ripe for a referendum on adopting a constitution, and that it is inevitable.

For those who doubt that such closure is in sight, consider the following: Facing three key elections in next two years, Erdogan feels he has a historic chance for himself and his party to extend their rule over Turkey — with a social contract defining a “new order.”

How democratic the “new order” will be is anybody’s guess. The drafting process had started with a parliamentary reconciliation commission set up of four parties represented in the Grand Assembly; each party got three members on the commission.

Given the commission’s rigid modus operandi and apparent initial disagreements, those who had not given it a chance for achieving tangible progress proved to be right: The commission succeeded only in agreeing on about a third of the articles by the Dec. 31, 2012 deadline after a year’s work.

Disagreements on the fundamental issues of the new constitution, such as its preamble, definition of a national identity, of language, of designing the executive power model, of checks and balances and decentralization were so wide that not even an extension of its mandate up to now has been helpful.

The 12-member commission now seems stuck on 40 key articles, whereas it has found common ground on around 110. At the most, it may continue to work a week or two more, but it has lost its appetite for delivering the goods.

But there are powerful dynamics elsewhere. The peace talks with the PKK triggered new hopes on the social level and have been a game-changer in Turkish politics.

Turkey’s attempts to shake off the murky heritage of a restrictive, authoritarian, obstructive constitutional order — a product of a military coup in September 1980 — have been floundering for a decade under the AKP because of an  immense power struggle between backers of the former secularist regime and reformist actors as well as the incessant bloody clashes between the PKK and the army.

The struggle has been harsh, displaying the mass hypnosis of a nation before its history — filled with denials and unresolved crimes of humanity. It also has shown the unpreparedness of some of its political actors in the opposition, and the professional bankruptcy of its judiciary. A prepared opposition and a professional judiciary are crucial elements for carrying out  the transition.

If any point seems clear, it is that the approach to the Kurdish issue could define the composition and pace of the final phase of Turkey’s normalization.

Turkey’s Kurds, more than 15 million of the country’s 74 million people, have since 2007 been dividing their votes almost equally between the ruling AKP and the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) — the political wing of the PKK. They have demonstrated enough oppositional resilience to encourage Erdogan into thinking that a new constitution is possible only if it their demands on rights and freedoms are met.

The prospect is now strong enough to boost Erdoğan’s determination that a political closure is realistically possible.

There lies the paradox between the deadlock on the parliamentary commission and new momentum giving shape to various exit scenarios.

Erdogan has repeatedly spoken in public about the process of adopting a constitution. He has talked about three scenarios:

Plan A would be an agreement between all four parties, Plan B would hopefully unite the AKP, BDP and the main-opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). Plan C would mean a drafting a text that the AKP hopes would get the outside support of the BDP, given that it meets Kurds’ basic demands.

Plan A is already out. The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), on the extreme right, has remained consistently outside of the ‘quartet,’ refusing even to discuss the Kurdish demands.

Plan B has been based on the assumption that the CHP, which as the main opposition is the staunch defender of the values of Kemal Ataturk, founder of the republic (“Kemalism”), with the emphasis on keeping authoritarian secularism, would cease its policies of constant blocking and filibustering, and shift to a constructive “bargaining mode.”

But despite the notable progress on peace talks with Abdullah Ocalan (who has now brought the PKK to the verge of pulling its armed units out of Turkish soil) and with domestic popular support for ending the conflict and adopting a new constitution, the CHP plunged instead deeper into an internal crisis.

Its leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, demonstrated remarkable flip-flopping over lending support to peace talks, and very mixed signals were received from the party’s opposing — reformist and conservative — flanks over the draft constitution.

In a nutshell, it has become clear that the more successful the peace process is, the more internally ripped-apart the CHP will be.

It is now facing a growing existential battle, in terms of identity and its political objectives. It is so strained that even a defection of sorts of some 10 or even more deputies in parliament is now likely.

This leaves the AKP and the BDP with Plan C — or its derivatives.

Here goes a possible scenario: The AKP needs at least 331 of the 550 votes in parliament to take its draft — preferably “agreed” to by the BDP — to a referendum. The more smoothly peace talks go, the closer this prospect will be. The AKP has 325 deputies; the BDP has 30. If Erdogan can cleverly sell Plan C to his party and to the public — without scaring away the Turkish nationalist segment — he would accumulate enough votes.

Once he does that, the rest is easier: Opinion polls indicate that the overall yes votes in a referendum would be between 55% and 65%.

But, the question in the minds of skeptics is obvious. Will Erdogan find a way to bypass Kurdish demands, dilute them and end up with a presidential model, which will consolidate even more powers in his person?

Victory for him should not to be taken for granted. It is obvious that he will push the issue to its very limits, but he is bound to encounter tough bargaining with the BDP and, surprising though it may be, a considerable number of deputies in his own party may also hesitate. (Let us keep in mind that the vote in parliament will have to be a closed one and around 70 AKP deputies will not be able to run in the next election because of AKP bylaws; that could cause some resentment.

He knows therefore that he must have other options on the table, and they may exclude a shift to an USA-type presidential model. It is likely that he may switch to a French model of presidency at the end of the day.

But what will count more than that is whether or not the draft will guarantee freedoms, rights, proper checks and balances, rule of law, enhanced self-administration, a modern secular model and transparency.

So, the curtain is raised for a battle between four parties, two against two. On one side stand the AKP and the BDP, two real grassroots parties, and on the other are the CHP and MHP, which by ideology stand closer to the state than the masses. Among them, a lot depends, as a game-changer, whether or not the CHP will choose a different, pro-reform direction.

Yavuz Baydar is a contributing writer for Al-Monitor’s Turkey Pulse. A journalist since 1979, he has been a radio reporter, news presenter, producer, TV host, foreign correspondent, debator and, in recent years, a news ombudsmen for the daily Sabah. His opinion pieces can be followed in the English-language daily Today’s Zaman.

ZEHRA CACAN sits on the edge of a fresh grave strewn with flowers and prays quietly. In it lies her 30-year-old son, whose nom de guerre, Serxwebun, means insurrection in Kurdish. He died in January in a clash with the Turkish army on the Iraqi border. Hundreds of his fellow fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) are also buried in the Yenisehir cemetery in Diyarbakir. Their graves are distinguished by the red, yellow and green ribbons adorning their headstones.

A few years ago it would have been unimaginable that rebels’ graves could be marked or that a grieving mother could speak in Kurdish. “We cannot believe how free Kurds are here. Back in Syria we were afraid to speak Kurdish even with our relatives,” says Yarin Abi, a newly arrived Syrian Kurdish refugee.

The outlines of the pact are contained in letters from Mr Ocalan relayed by the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) to rebel commanders in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq and in Europe. The deal is ambitious but simple. The PKK will abandon its 29-year-old fight for self-rule. Mr Ocalan himself says he now favours a unitary state. In exchange the parliament, dominated by Mr Erdogan’s Justice and Development (AK) Party, will pass reforms enabling the Kurds to pursue political goals without risking imprisonment and freeing thousands of activists jailed on the flimsiest of charges.

As part of this, the current constitution, drawn up by the generals following a coup in 1980, will be replaced by a “fully democratic” one that addresses the Kurds’ demands. An article saying that all Turkish citizens “are Turks” will be scrapped, as will another proscribing education in the Kurdish language. Regional autonomy will also be boosted. Under the existing centralised system “my hands are completely tied,” complains the BDP’s Osman Baydemir, Diyarbakir’s mayor. Facing 24 separate court cases on terror-related charges, he complains that he was not even permitted to name a local park after a (Turkish) human-rights activist “because the governor [appointed in Ankara] said no.”

The conflict in Syria, where a PKK-linked Kurdish group is gaining ground, is threatening to spill over the border. Peace with the Kurds is essential if Turkey is to fulfil its dreams of regional leadership. “The prime minister’s political career is at stake, he is utterly sincere,” says Galip Ensarioglu, an AK deputy from Diyarbakir. Not all are convinced. Some think a deal with the Kurds is a tactic to help Mr Erdogan secure his ambition to become Turkey’s first elected president when Abdullah Gul steps down next year. He wants to enhance the powers of the job à la française, which his critics say could make him a dictator. With the main opposition parties firmly against, he has taken to courting the BDP, whose support would win him parliamentary approval for a new constitution to be put to a referendum.

Président Erdogan

The minutes of a recent meeting between Mr Ocalan and the BDP confirmed that the presidency is on the table. To ensure that would-be saboteurs (including Iran and Syria) do not use hundreds of PKK militants based inside Turkey, Mr Erdogan is insisting that they withdraw to northern Iraq. In the coming days Mr Ocalan is expected to call on his men to silence their guns. The chances are that they will; in a gesture of goodwill they freed eight Turkish captives this week. If the army in turn halts its attacks, which are still continuing as part of Mr Erdogan’s carrot-and-stick policy, peace may at last ensue.

The tricky bit is getting ordinary Turks and Kurds on board. Recent opinion polls suggest that most support the talks, and a majority back AK as well. But where would they draw the line? Far more than his Islamist rants against alcohol and abortion, it is Mr Erdogan’s unabashed authoritarianism that worries many Turks. Turkey has become the world’s leading jailer of journalists, many of them Kurds, for example. Yet Mr Erdogan’s supporters counter that the progress Turkey has made in the past decade, including defanging the army and starting talks on joining the European Union, is down to Mr Erdogan’s courage and uninterrupted AK rule. Only a presidential system can avert the paralysis that Turkey endured before AK came along.

As one Kurdish politician says, a stronger presidency is not too high a price to pay for a new constitution that is a stepping stone to greater devolution. The Kurds’ real problem is lack of trust, arising from decades of repression and betrayal at the hands of what they see as an unchanged Turkish state. Such distrust is on show at the Yenisehir cemetery, where Yildiz Capraz, a contractor, performs the Islamic ritual bathing of corpses. Kurdish families do not consider officials “to be respectful”. Her charges have included PKK fighters whose bodies were so horribly mutilated “we could not show them to their families,” she whispers. Meanwhile Mrs Cacan airs the common refrain that “guns won us our rights.” Can they be forgone without ironclad guarantees?

Mr Erdogan’s record suggests he has the skill and the courage to heal Turkey’s biggest wound. His bold embrace of the Iraqi Kurds was among his most successful foreign-policy moves. If Mr Erdogan were now to settle for a presidency with its present powers, not of a French-style monarch, it would go a long way towards easing suspicions about his motives—and clear the way for a constitution embraced not just by Kurds but by Turks of all political and ethnic stripes.