WITH just over a week before a referendum on constitutional changes that would give him practically unchecked powers, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, ought to be coasting to victory. The media have been defanged. Critics, including members of his own party, are afraid to speak up. The secular opposition is tripping over its own shoelaces. Yet Mr Erdogan is not assured of a win on April 16th. Most polls show the “no” and “yes” sides too close to call. The outcome now hinges largely on two groups that have long been at each other’s throats: Kurds and nationalists.

In Diyarbakir, the heart of the Kurdish southeast, battered over the past two years by fighting between insurgents from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Turkish security forces, the referendum is not a burning question. “Kurds have no rights in the current constitution, and they have no rights in the new one,” says Sah Ismail Bedirhanoglu, a businessman. “People here lost homes, family members and jobs,” says Vahap Coskun, a professor at Dicle University. “There is no article in this constitution that will bring them peace.”

Across Turkey, the “No” campaign has been hamstrung by restrictions and intimidation. In Diyarbakir, “Yes” billboards and banners depicting Mr Erdogan, who held a rally here on April 1st, crowd the avenues. “No” banners are nowhere to be seen. “When we put them up in front of our headquarters, the police take them down,” says Ziya Pir, an MP from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). More than campaign materials, the HDP is missing campaigners. Some 5,000 party officials, including 85 mayors and 13 parliamentarians, are jailed on terror charges. The crackdown went into overdrive since last July’s coup attempt against Mr Erdogan. Under emergency law, the authorities shut down many Kurdish radio stations and TV channels. More recently, they banned the Kurdish-language version of the HDP’s campaign song, “Say No”, claiming that it incited “hatred and enmity”.

Some Kurds think Mr Erdogan, who presided over negotiations with the PKK before abandoning them in 2015, will restart the peace process if he gets what he wants. “Erdogan is our only hope,” says Hamza, a car dealer and “Yes” voter. Most Diyarbakir residents seem to think otherwise. “A vote for this constitution is a vote for yet more repression,” says one shopkeeper. But gauging the mood in the southeast is nearly impossible. Abdurrahman Kurt, a former MP from the ruling Justice and Development (AK) party, expects 60% of the region to vote for the new constitution. A recent poll puts the figure at just over 30%.

Mr Erdogan has other reasons to be uneasy. The grand alliance of Islamists and nationalists that he knitted together after the coup seems to be fraying. The leadership of the main nationalist party, the MHP, has backed Mr Erdogan’s constitution. But many of its supporters have not. Durmus Yilmaz, a former central bank chairman and one of a pack of MHP parliamentarians who broke with the party last year, estimates that four out of five nationalist voters will vote “no” in the referendum. “The MHP grassroots have always favoured the parliamentary system,” he says. “And these amendments put all power in the hands of one man.”

One thing that unites Kurds and nationalists, other than opposition to the new constitution, is anxiety about the aftermath of the vote. Some in the southeast hope a “Yes” might get Mr Erdogan to stop hounding opponents. Others fear it would give him licence to do so more ruthlessly. A “No” vote also entails risks. Denied the powers he craves, Mr Erdogan may resort to the tactics he used to win back a parliamentary majority in 2015: an onslaught against PKK strongholds, a war of words with Western countries and an early election. “No matter what happens,” says Serkar, a student in Diyarbakir, “the Kurds will probably end up paying the price.”