Turkey set for close vote on boosting Erdogan's powers, polls suggest

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan greets the audience during a meeting in Ankara, Turkey March 29, 2017. Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Presidential Palace/Handout via REUTERS

ANKARA/ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Less than three weeks before Turkey votes on sweeping new powers sought by President Tayyip Erdogan, opinion polls suggest a tight race in a referendum that could bring the biggest change to the system of governance in the country's modern history.

Two senior officials from the ruling AK Party told Reuters that research it commissioned had put support for "yes" at 52 percent in early March, down from 55-56 percent a month earlier, though they expected a row with Europe in recent weeks to have fired up nationalists and bolstered their camp.