Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is increasingly criticised for the approach to relief efforts after the severe earthquake. He also tries to silence the critical voices. “The government was not well prepared for this earthquake,”.
On Wednesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan travelled to the disaster area. Only two days after the massive earthquakes left about 400,000 people homeless. That late visit and the feeling in Turkey that aid has started slowly has been extensively criticised. But “everything is under control,” Erdogan said in his speech. However, he acknowledged that there were problems in the beginning.
No country could solve this alone, and foreign aid is necessary anyway; foreign journalist Inge Vrancken nuances. “But the criticism of the president today is mainly about how unprepared the country was.”
However, after the powerful earthquake of 1999, some measures were taken. For example, a kind of earthquake fund was set up. “People have had to pay taxes for that for 20 years,” says Vrancken. “The fund contained more than 5 billion euros and was intended to prepare Turkey for earthquakes and relief and relief efforts. But, unfortunately, people don’t see the result of that.”
In addition, new laws were passed on building regulations, and new residential blocks had to be better researched and controlled. “Even those new residential blocks collapsed like a house of cards in this earthquake,” says Vrancken. “So either those regulations were not followed, or not enough was checked.”
On Wednesday, something remarkable happened. Twitter and Telegram’s social media channels were barely accessible for almost twelve hours. Nevertheless, affected people used those channels to keep each other informed. The government was probably behind it. “Erdogan did not want the criticism to circulate further,” says Vrancken.
“The Turkish president never responds well to criticism. For example, 18 people have been arrested for expressing criticism on social media. That is seen as ‘provocation’.” Erdogan, who has been in power since 2014, has also been criticised for his authoritarian policies and the way he has handled the skyrocketing inflation of recent years.
In addition, the presidential elections are approaching, and President Erdogan is aware of his declining popularity. So he brought forward the elections from the end of January to May 14. “He did that to give the opposition less leeway,” says Vrancken.
It is unclear whether elections will be held because of the earthquake. “It seems very difficult to hold elections two weeks after the end of the state of emergency,” says Vrancken. “He has declared a state of emergency until the beginning of May. That also gives the opposition very little room to campaign and profile itself.”