Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hit back at critics on Wednesday in a rare admission of weakness as he responded to concerns about the government’s response to this week’s devastating earthquake.
He also used a visit to the collapsed city of Kahramanmaraş, near the epicenter of Monday’s earthquake, to lash out at those who allegedly took advantage of the disaster to push their own cause. The rhetoric reflects the challenge of maintaining public support during one of the country’s worst natural disasters, just three months before an election that is set to be the toughest of his two decades in power.
“I don’t want you to give provocateurs a chance,” he said during a visit to areas devastated by two major tremors, which killed more than 11,000 people in Turkey and Syria. “Media [should] don’t give it a chance. . . Now is the time for unity, solidarity.”
Erdoğan oversaw a period of economic prosperity at the start of his tenure, but he has tilted toward a more authoritarian style since mass protests in 2013 and a coup attempt three years later. In recent years, journalists have been jailed and civil liberties have been curbed as Erdoğan has tightened his grip on state institutions.
May’s presidential and parliamentary elections are one of the few occasions on which his opponents – the first to form an alliance to take him on – will have to change the balance.
In a sign of the tension, Twitter, a popular medium for venting anti-government frustrations, was disrupted on the day of Erdoğan’s visit to the quake-hit region, according to internet monitor Netblocks.
The president’s popularity had plummeted before the disaster, as the country faced a severe cost-of-living crisis, which economists say was the result of unconventional economic policies pursued by the government and central bank.
What happens next depends on how the 68-year-old leader’s response to the deepening crisis is perceived by the voting public. Analysts offer varying opinions on whether the upheaval will damage or improve Erdoğan’s election prospects.
“Given the magnitude of the disaster, the response was quick and quite strong,” said Emre Peker, European director at the Eurasia Group think-tank. “If the level of intensity of the response can be maintained, then Erdoğan will benefit during the election.”
But Selim Koru, an analyst at the Ankara-based think-tank Tepav, countered that “people are miserable and they tend to vote for change when they are miserable”, citing both the earthquake and scorching inflation. He thought the government would try to delay the election, partly because of the logistical challenges of gathering votes in the heavily damaged region.
Turkey’s opposition parties have been following the quake and its response, looking for opportunities to criticize the president. “If anyone is responsible it is Erdoğan,” said Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of the main opposition Republican Party (CHP). “Over 20 years, this government has not prepared the country for an earthquake.”
The disaster will now dampen the election campaign as the focus is on finding and caring for survivors, clearing the rubble and rebuilding infrastructure. Already, the CHP-led opposition party alliance has postponed a meeting next week when it is expected to announce a challenger to Erdoğan.
The three-month state of emergency that Erdoğan declared in the affected regions – which gave the government more power and was previously imposed after a 2016 coup attempt – may play into the president’s hands.
Peker said it gave him “an expanded platform to display his power and burnish his image as Turkey’s unstoppable prime minister.”
“We will not recognize emergency rule if its power is abused,” said Gökçe Gökçen, CHP vice chairman. Erdoğan initially snubbed the mayor of the opposition-led city in the earthquake zone, and the central government blocked an aid convoy from the CHP-run Istanbul municipality because all aid must be coordinated by the country’s disaster relief agency, Gökçen said.
“If they say, ‘You can help, send your personnel,’ then help can reach Hatay seven or eight hours faster,” he said, referring to one of the hardest-hit provinces.
Wolfango Piccoli, a political analyst at Teneo, said that Erdogan’s initial decision not to call the opposition mayor was a mistake, adding that “trying to score political points after the dead does not play well”. A tweet from the president’s office about nine hours after the quake said he had spoken with the CHP mayor of Hatay’s largest city.
Koru said there was an “all-out perception war” in the media about the quake, which showed a deep divide over the government’s response.
Analysts agree that Erdoğan will be judged by his response to the 1999 earthquake that killed 17,000 people. The ruling coalition was later criticized for rejecting international aid and providing vague updates.
In contrast, Erdoğan has shown “strong, visible and relatively transparent leadership, and quick mobilization of all available resources and does not make a problem of pride and immediately accepts and facilitates international aid,” Peker said. He said the government’s move to launch a TL100bn ($5.3bn) support package showed “better coordination” than in 1999.
But as a reminder of the importance of Erdoğan’s response before the election, Piccoli also warned that “mistakes will be expensive”.