A former deputy prime minister of Turkey and longtime ally to Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggested on Monday the nation should consider delaying this year’s presidential election in light of the country struggling to deal with the fallout from last week’s series of massive earthquakes.
Eastern Turkey, and much of western Syria, experienced a 7.8-magnitude earthquake on February 6, followed by multiple severe aftershocks of magnitudes as high as 7.5. The death toll in both Syria and Turkey surpassed 37,000 people as of Tuesday and was expected to climb significantly over time, as rescuers struggle to comb through entire neighborhoods’ worth of rubble in regions where blocks of buildings entirely collapsed.
Erdogan, long struggling against growing dissatisfaction with his extended tenure at the helm of the country – and handling it largely by arresting the country’s most promising presidential candidates on dubious charges – now faces widespread public anger in response to his government not sufficiently enforcing anti-earthquake building codes. Police under Erdogan not only largely failed to punish developers using cheap materials and building flimsy constructions, but Erdogan himself touted a policy of disregarding building safety as a path to economic development. Erdogan branded his policy of allowing developers to build unsafe residential complexes “zoning amnesty” and claimed it invited more investment into key Turkey cities.
The earthquakes hit the largely Kurdish eastern region of Turkey, already an opposition stronghold and one of the few regions reliably voting against Erdogan even in the face of unfree and unfair elections. Some of its largest cities, most prominently Gaziantep and Diyarbakir, are facing a tremendous homelessness crisis as people sleep in their cars fearing their buildings will collapse on them overnight, or seek out shelter in local restaurants and cafes in cases where the rubble also destroyed their vehicles. In addition to rubble, the earthquake destroyed systems in place to handle human waste and other garbage, raising the potential of widespread disease.
Turkey is set to vote in nationwide elections, including presidential ones, on June 18. Erdogan suggested last month that he would move up voting to May 14, but the government never confirmed if this was the case. At press time, the two most popular opposition candidates floated as presidential contenders – Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and former People’s Democratic Party (HDP) leader Selahattin Demirtaş – are in prison.
The head of the establishment opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, is now likely to become the official opposition candidate and has spent much of the past week touring earthquake disaster sites and condemning Erdogan for slow and insufficient emergency response. The main opposition coalition has not yet chosen a candidate, however, and must now do so in a time crunch under the stress of a natural disaster. The decision was scheduled to be made on Monday, but postponed. İmamoğlu is a CHP member; the HDP is not part of the main opposition coalition.
Bülent Arınç, a former deputy prime minister who helped Erdogan found his Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP), suggested in comments posted to Twitter on Monday that the infrastructure to hold elections in earthquake-stricken regions simply does not exist.
“The elections cannot be held, neither in May nor in June,” Arınç wrote. “The elections must be postponed immediately in order for our state bureaucracy to focus on healing the wounds of our citizens.”
Arınç noted that the Turkish constitution only allows for elections to be delayed during “wartime” and does not provide for any similar protocol following natural disasters.
“Yes, there is this provision but constitutions are not sacred texts, the legislative body can always repeal, amend or renew an article,” the AKP founder asserted. He urged Erdogan to meet with the leadership of opposition parties and negotiate an agreement for a constitutional amendment that would pass Parliament. Two-thirds of the Turkish Parliament must approve a constitutional amendment for it to pass, a larger number than the AKP delegation currently in the legislature.
The regional outlet Middle East Eye, citing sources close to the AKP, suggested Erdogan was considering all options, including potentially delaying the elections. AKP spokespersons have refused to publicly comment, however, insisting that earthquake relief was too great a priority for that debate to take place currently.
Election delays are exceedingly rare in free societies, and even under pseudo-free regimes such as Turkey’s. The most prominent recent example was the decision by far-left authoritarian Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand to delay that country’s general elections in 2020 allegedly to prevent the spread of Chinese coronavirus. Ardern effectively banned the opposition from campaigning and severely restricted freedom of association and other civil liberties; she handily won the delayed election.
Kılıçdaroğlu, the head of the CHP, immediately rejected the Arınç proposal.
“Look, there was a big earthquake, we are aware. There are migration movements, we are aware. However, with today’s technology, these problems can be easily overcome,” Kilicdaroglu asserted. “Everyone has a Turkish identification number. The Supreme Election Board has everyone’s personal details. Address changes can also be easily detected.”
“Elections cannot be postponed since there is no war. Nobody can make up justifications that are not legal and constitute a legal framework to fit themselves,” Kılıçdaroğlu emphasized.
Demirtaş, the former HDP leader, called postponing the election a “political coup.” The HDP, and Demirtaş himself, relied heavily on Kurdish support to splash onto the Turkish political scene in 2015, winning enough seats to form a formidable bloc in Parliament challenging both the AKP and CHP. Erdogan’s government has spent years attempting, unsuccessfully, to shut down the HDP, accusing it of ties to the Kurdistan People’s Party (PKK), a Marxist terrorist organization.
Given the location of the HDP, Demirtaş and the HDP are in a position of particular significance, as east Turkey is the party’s stronghold and home to most of Turkey’s Kurdish population. Demirtaş is the most prominent ethnic Kurdish politician in the country and ran for president from prison in 2018.
The head of the other major opposition party in coalition with the CHP, Iyi (Good) Party leader Meral Aksener has also insisted on June elections, rejecting the Arınç proposal. The Iyi party has supported İmamoğlu as a presidential candidate over Kılıçdaroğlu. While İmamoğlu is a more popular leader, Erdogan’s government has banned him from public office and he remains in prison, making him a risky candidate.
İmamoğlu rose to prominence campaigning for the mayorship of Istanbul during the unfree 2019 elections, defeating Erdogan’s hand-picked choice, former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim. An outraged Erdogan invalidated the results of that election and scheduled a re-do in 2019 – which İmamoğlu won by an even wider margin, a message from traditionally anti-Erdogan urban voters rejecting his interference.
The Turkish government imprisoned İmamoğlu in December for allegedly insulting public officials, a crime in Turkey, prompting a wave of thousands of protesters to take the streets in support of their mayor. He was sentenced to two years and seven months in prison.
İmamoğlu’s removal from the political scene had left the opposition in a state of disarray even before the earthquake. In addition to concerns about who, exactly, to run for president, opposition leaders reportedly disagreed on the matter of including the HDP in their alliance. The HDP could potentially deliver the critical eastern Turkish Kurdish vote, but Erdogan could succeed in fully criminalizing the party before the elections, a risk similar to that presented by betting on İmamoğlu.
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