Erdogan’s future on the edge after earthquake calamity

The collapsed buildings in Turkey following last week’s earthquake threaten to pull down President Erdogan. Unless he can persuade the public that the corrupt system which allowed them to be constructed to such unsafe standards is not his fault then the electorate may turn on him in this year’s elections.

Erdogan came to power in similar circumstances. In 1999 an earthquake hit Istanbul and Izmir. Many people felt the government mismanaged the response with some party officials accused of profiting from the quake. In the same year Erdogan was released from prison after serving a four-month sentence for inciting religious hatred, he then rode a wave of public outrage over the earthquake scandal all the way to the top. He’s been there ever since.

Twenty years on and the same outrage has been sparked by the probability that thousands of lives have been lost because of unscrupulous building contractors who have systematically ignored the strong regulations introduced after the 1999 earthquake. Some of the companies involved have links with Erdogan and/or senior officials in his AKP party. A network of corruption extends around the entire country linking building contractors to municipal governments and their regulatory bodies, many of which appear to have spent two decades turning a blind eye to building work which flagrantly disregarded safety regulations. 

In 2018 a law was passed which legalised the status of thousands of unlicensed and poorly constructed apartment blocks. This allowed residents to own them, and so Erdogan praised the move saying the government had solved the residents’ problem. Now the problem is that thousands of the residents are buried under the rubble of their homes.

The government’s response since the 6 February earthquake has also been criticised. Opposition parties claim the government has been ineffective and was too slow to utilise the military. They point out that the billions of liras, collected via a special earthquake tax since 1999, were not used to strengthen infrastructure or the emergency response system. The budget for the 2023 Disaster and Management Authority was reduced by 33% last year.

The public is asking “who is to blame?” Erdogan is happy to blame anyone except himself despite having spent the last two decades centralising power and installing loyalists into the most senior positions in government. This was accelerated after the failed 2016 coup attempt against him when a presidential system, with minimal check and balances, was consolidated. When the AKP came to power the Global Corruption Index ranked Turkey 64^th, last year it was 101^st.

He is of course “Shocked! Shocked I tell you” at learning that building regulations may have been flouted and has vowed there will be justice for victims. More than 100 arrest warrants have been issued against constructors, architects, and engineers with links to collapsed buildings. Vice-president Fuat Oktay announced the setting up of an earthquake crimes investigation unit. So far, the investigation has failed to scrutinise politicians. Just in case anyone was not entirely convinced by this thirst for justice, Erdogan looked elsewhere for responsibility saying “Such things have always happened. It’s part of destiny’s plan”.

Not everyone agrees and some have said so on social media. The response to this has been legal proceedings against several hundred people for “sharing provocative posts”. At least 78 arrests have been ordered and more than 20 people already held in detention. Some of this is aimed at scammers phishing for donations, but it is also about using new laws about “spreading disinformation” to silence criticism. The laws, passed last year, can bring a three-year prison sentence.

The president was already trailing in the polls and cannot afford to have his leadership abilities called into question by the response to the earthquake. The economy is in freefall with inflation running at above 60% and the catastrophe this month means funds earmarked for raising salaries, lowering the retirement age, and a national social housing scheme will have to be used to rebuild entire cities, towns, roads, and railways. The elections are thought to be scheduled for 14 May by which time reconstruction will barely be underway.

Erdogan has the power to delay the elections until 14 June but, according to the constitution, no longer than that. However, he has almost complete control of the state, including the media, which in the 2018 election struggled to win any significant airtime. He also has the “state of emergency” card to play. It has been imposed for three months in the earthquake-hit regions, but given the president’s grip on all the levers of the state it is plausible to argue he could get away with extending it to the whole country and for several extra months.

There are already signs that this is being considered. One of the founding members of the AKP, Bulent Arinc, has called for a postponement, tweeting: “There are still bodies in the rubble. How can we talk about elections when the voters are not there?”

The opposition parties, after years of fractious disputes with each other, have finally come together in a bloc called “The Table of Six” which includes the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). They oppose a delay. Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a probable presidential candidate, and leader of the CHP, said: “The constitution is very clear. Elections can be postponed only at times of war. Since we are not at war, elections cannot be postponed.”

Erdogan remains a formidable operator, his AKP party grips the country, but the tremors from the far south-east of the country are jangling nerves in Istanbul and Ankara.

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