Monday’s devastating earthquake in southern Turkey is “significantly complicating” elections scheduled for mid-May, a Turkish official said today, providing the first indication that authorities may be considering postponing elections. elections.

The president Tayyip Erdogan, seeking to extend its tenure into a third decade, said last month that elections would be held on May 14. Polls released before the quake indicated it would be the toughest electoral challenge he has faced to date.

Erdogan’s popularity has already been undermined by the rising cost of living and the falling lira. He is now facing a wave of criticism over his government’s slow response to the emergency that followed Turkey’s deadliest earthquake since 1999, shortly before the Turkish president took office.

Whatever the political implications of the disaster, the logistical challenge of holding elections in the affected areas is enormous. About 13 million people live in the area affected by the earthquakes, and hundreds of thousands need somewhere to sleep after the earthquake destroyed their homes or it becomes too dangerous to live in them again.

“It’s actually too early to talk about elections,” the Turkish official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“The state of emergency has been in effect for the third month. 15% of the population lives in this region, which generates almost 10% of GDP.”

He said Erdogan’s party (AKP) and its parliamentary ally MHP would look into the matter, but hinted that it was too early to make any decisions in the immediate aftermath of the quake and while the death toll was still rising.

Criticism of earthquake management

“It seems that we have come out of the pre-election period that we entered. We will follow the developments, but at the moment there are serious difficulties with the elections on May 14.”

Erdogan was expected to officially announce in March that the presidential and parliamentary elections would be held on May 14, and not in mid-June as planned.

Criticism of Turkey’s emergency response to the earthquake is mounting, with survivors and opposition politicians accusing the government of slow and inadequate relief efforts.

Turkish journalist Can Dudar, who lives abroad and was sentenced in absentia to 27 years in prison on charges of espionage and aiding a terrorist organization, said Erdogan came to power after the 1999 earthquake and could be expelled from the country. .

Criticism of the response to the 1999 earthquake that killed 17,000 people was one of the factors that led to the weakening of support for the then government and helped the AKP win in 2002.

“Erdogan came to power after the 1999 earthquake, it looks like he will leave after the 2023 earthquake,” Dudar said in a Twitter video. “This earthquake, which claimed the lives of thousands of people, will bury him under the rubble.”

^{Source: APE-MEB, Reuters}