OSMANIYE, Turkey — When powerful earthquakes struck southern Turkey on February 6, killing more than 50,000 people and destroying hundreds of thousands of buildings, many hoped the disaster would hurt President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the polls.
The extensive destruction raised questions about whether his government’s rush to develop property had resulted in unsafe buildingsand many earthquake survivors complained that the government’s initial response had been slow, leaving people trapped in rubble or shivering in the cold as they waited for food and shelter.
But results from the first round of Turkey’s presidential election on May 14, which set the stage for Sunday’s runoff, indicated the disaster had a limited effect on how residents of the affected area voted.
“I am definitely an Erdogan supporter,” said Eda Akgul, who was still living in a white tent near her damaged home nearly four months after the earthquake.
She had also survived a smaller earthquake in the southeastern province of Elazig in 2020, she said, and she hoped Erdogan would help her now as he had then.
“Erdogan made very good contributions to Elazig after the earthquake there,” he said. “Otherwise, people wouldn’t have voted for him.”
Interviews with earthquake survivors indicated many reasons why the disaster had not changed their political outlook. Some described the quake as an act of God that any government would have had trouble responding to. Some whose houses were destroyed said they had more faith in Erdogan to rebuild affected areas than in his rival, opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu.
Erdogan, who won 49.5 percent of the vote in the first round to Kilicdaroglu’s 44.9 percent, won eight of the 11 provinces hit by the February earthquake. His ruling Justice and Development Party and its political allies fared even better, winning the majority of votes in simultaneous parliamentary elections in all but one of the quake-hit provinces.
Voter turnout in the earthquake zone was also high, despite concerns that many voters displaced by the destruction would find it difficult to return home to cast their ballots. Although turnout in the 11 earthquake-affected provinces was below 88.9 percent of eligible voters who voted nationwide, in none of those provinces did turnout fall below 80 percent.
In Osmaniye, where Ms. Akgul lives, the destruction from the earthquake is clear. There are vacant lots where collapsed buildings once stood and blue and white tents housing earthquake survivors are scattered throughout the city.
Rather than vote based on the government’s response to the earthquake, residents said they focused on other issues.
Suleyman Asilturk, who runs a tobacco shop in the city center, said he preferred nationalist politicians like Erdogan because of the city’s history of sending young men into the army to fight Kurdish militants who have been fighting for decades against a war. bloody. he fights against the state for autonomy.
“We have given so many martyrs,” Asilturk said, referring to local soldiers killed in action. “Our vote will again go to the patriots.”
