Anger over quake response challenges Erdogan
GAZIANTEP, TURKEY>> A power ful ear thquake struck northwestern Turkey in 1999, killing more than 17,000 people, exposing government incompetence and fueling an economic crisis. Amid the turmoil, a young, charismatic politician rode a wave of public anger to become prime minister in 2003.
That politician was Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Now, as president, Erdogan faces challenges similar to those that brought down his predecessors — posing what is perhaps the greatest threat of his two decades in power to his political future.
The deadliest earthquake to strike Turkey in almost a century killed at least 24,000 people last week, with the bodies of countless others still buried in the rubble. It hit after a year of persistently high inflation that has impoverished Turkish families, leaving many with scarce resources to bounce back.
The quake’s aftermath has highlighted how much Erdogan has reshaped the Turkish state, analysts said. Critics accuse him of pushing the country toward autocracy by weakening civil rights and eroding the independence of state institutions, like the Foreign Ministry and the central bank. And in a series of moves aimed at undercutting his rivals and centralizing control, he has restricted institutions like the army, which could have helped with the earthquake response, while stocking others with loyalists.
Erdogan acknowledged Friday that his government’s initial response to the disaster had been slow, and anger was building among some survivors, a sentiment that could hamper his bid to remain in power in elections expected May 14. Many also were questioning loudly whether shoddy construction was to blame for some of the death and destruction.
“I have been voting for this government for 20 years, and I’m telling everyone about my anger,” said Mikail Gul, 53, who lost five family members in a building collapse. “I will never forgive them.”
The president, who faced harsh criticism in 2021 over his government’s failure to control disastrous wildfires, has long portrayed himself as a leader in touch with the common citizen. He visited communities hit hard by the quake in recent days. Dressed in black, his face grim, he visited the wounded and comforted people who had lost their homes and emphasized the magnitude of the crisis.
“We are face to face with one of the greatest disasters in our history,” he said Friday during a visit to Adiyaman province. “It is a reality that we could not intervene as fast as we wished.”
The 7.8- magnitude earthquake — the most powerful in Turkey in decades — and hundreds of aftershocks toppled thousands of buildings along a 250- mile- long swath in the south, causing billions of dollars in damage. Across the border in Syria, nearly 4,000 dead have been counted, a toll that is expected to rise significantly.
“This is the largest- scale disaster that Turkey has to manage, and, inevitably, this will create a backlash against the government,” said Sinan Ulgen, the director of Edam, an Istanbul-based think tank. “But much will depend on how effectively it can address the needs of the affected population.”
The Turkish government has begun an extensive aid operation, dispatching 141,000 aid and rescue workers to search for the dead and wounded, to distribute food, blankets and diapers and to erect tents for the tens of thousands of homeless people, many of them sleeping in cars to avoid the subzero winter chill.
Nevertheless, many survivors have expressed frustration with the government’s response, saying the state was nowhere to be found during the initial aftermath, leaving residents alone to find shelter and free trapped loved ones from collapsed buildings.
The scarcity of trained rescue squads and machinery during the critical first days most likely increased the death toll because many people who could have been saved were not.
When government agencies arrived, residents said, their equipment seemed insufficient and they failed to coordinate the efforts of volunteers who were struggling to help survivors.
During his two decades as prime minister and president, Erdogan has argued that changes to the way Turkey was run were necessary to protect it from a range of domestic and foreign threats, including military coups and terrorist groups. He also restricted the army, which played a key role in the government’s response to the 1999 earthquake.
Turker Erturk, a former Navy admiral who was a commander in the crisis center set up after that quake, said the army had swiftly intervened. But in the years since, Erdogan’s government had limited that ability, and the army had stopped planning and training for it, he said.
After Monday’s quake, the government called on the army only after public criticism, according to Erturk.
“It is because of one- man rule,” he said. “In authoritarian governments, those decisions are made at the very top, and they wait for his commands.”
On Friday, the army said soldiers had been helping “from the first day” and now had more than 25,000 soldiers deployed. But their presence has not been obvious in many of the hardesthit areas.
Leading the government ’ s earthquake response is the Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, which critics say Erdogan has stocked with loyalists and empowered at the expense of other organizations, like the Turkish Red Crescent.
The earthquake left behind billions of dollars in damage, and government plans will require billions more at a time when the state budget is strained.
Before the quake, Erdogan’s government unleashed billions of dollars in new spending aimed at cushioning the blow of high inflation to citizens before the election, a cash injection that some economists predicted could tip the country into recession this year.
On top of economic hardship, the earthquake will deepen Turks’ distress, and not in a way that makes them feel that they are contributing to a greater cause, said Selim Koru, an analyst at the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey.
“This, by its nature, comes out of nowhere, and it makes people even more miserable, and not just in the earthquake zone,” he said. “The economy is going to suffer, and I’m not sure it gives that suffering any meaning.”
The earthquake’s proximity to the presidential and parliamentary elections that must be held on or before June 18 could lead to other challenges.
Reuters quoted an unnamed Turkish official as saying that the earthquake’s devastation posed “serious difficulties” for the vote. It was the first hint that the government could seek to postpone it.
Trying to unseat Erdogan is a coalition of six opposition parties that want to bolster the economy and restore independence to state institutions. They have started trying to turn the quake response into an election issue.
“We failed this test,” Ismail Ozaslan, 58, a longhaul truck driver, said in a park in Gaziantep inside a tent. “We are like patients left to die. There is no management here.”