Turkish President Erdoğan’s Grip on Power Threatened by Devastating Earthquake

Accurate phone number list discussion.
Post Reply
Maruf Hassan
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Feb 20, 2023 9:44 am

Turkish President Erdoğan’s Grip on Power Threatened by Devastating Earthquake

Post by Maruf Hassan »

The earthquake that struck Turkey on Feb. 6, 2023, is first and foremost a human tragedy, one that has taken the lives of at least 45,000 people to date. The disaster also has major implications for the country’s economy – the financial loss from the damage is estimated to be US$84 billion – and its politics. Analyzing this human tragedy and its long-term implications for Turkey is difficult for me. I am a scholar of Turkish politics. But I also grew up in the affected region and lost relatives and friends in the cities of Antakya and Iskenderun. Nevertheless, I believe it is important to examine the implications of the earthquake on Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan – not for reasons of political intrigue, but because it is crucial in determining how Turkey recovers from the disaster and better prepares itself in the future.

President Erdoğan deflects blame Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections are due to take place in June 2023. Erdoğan had a declining popularity even before the earthquake, due in part to an economic crisis and growing popular concern over his autocratic style of governance, especially among younger voters. Erdoğan has been at pains to mitigate any political fallout from the earthquake and deflect any blame. His Justice and Development Party, AKP, the media under his control, and the Job Function Email List government agency running mosques, called the Diyanet, were quick to define the earthquake as “the disaster of the century.” The implication is that Erdoğan couldn’t have done anything to avoid the extent of the human cost.


Image


Lack of preparation and coordination Certainly, Erdoğan’s record makes him vulnerable to claims of culpability over the scale of destruction. Over the past 20 years, Erdoğan prioritized construction as a motor of economic growth. Initially during his time in office, bureaucratic and nongovernmental institutions tried to regulate the construction sector, mindful of the devastating 1999 earthquake in the country’s northwest that killed over 17,000 people. Yet after 2017 constitutional amendments, Erdoğan established a new presidential regime with almost no checks and balances. He hollowed out bureaucratic institutions, placed loyalists in key positions and enriched crony contractors. He did not impose necessary construction regulations. Instead, he gave amnesty to the owners of millions of faulty buildings as part of a populist policy that also raised taxation. After the earthquake, videos of the president bragging about this “amnesty” went viral. Erdoğan’s administration has also faced allegations of being too slow and disorganized to coordinate the rescue operations after the earthquake.
Post Reply