AMN / WEB DESK/ TRT WORLD
Contrary to the common perception that Erdogan and his People’s Alliance will not do well in the quake-hit areas, both won handily in many of the quake-hit provinces, including the disaster’s epicentre Kahramanmaras, and other badly damaged provinces, such as Malatya, Gaziantep, Osmaniye, Kilis and Hatay.
When two powerful earthquakes struck southern Türkiye in February, killing more than 50,000 people, national and international analysts predicted that the disaster would hurt President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s chances of reelection on May 14.
Out of 11 provinces affected by the earthquakes, Erdogan and his AK Party were ahead in eight provinces in both presidential and parliamentary elections while Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the presidential candidate of the Nation Alliance and the leftist main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader were well ahead only in Adana and Diyarbakir.
In Hatay, Kilicdaroglu got a slim lead in the presidential election while the AK Party still received much more votes than the CHP in the parliamentary election, getting 34 percent against 28 percent of Kilicdaroglu’s party.
President Erdogan has paid many visits to earthquake-hit cities, quickly launching a big building project across quake-hit regions, where tens of thousands of structures have either collapsed or severely damaged.
Both President Erdogan and AK Party’s victory in the disaster-hit areas is a testament to Erdogan’s popularity and shows that most Turkish earthquake survivors trust his leadership more than the opposition’s promises.
The Erdogan government plans to build 650,000 housing units which include 143,000 village houses across rural areas, where the earthquakes led to a great deal of damage to both people’s lives and properties.
The government has pledged to deliver at least 319,000 housing units to people within a year and thousands of container houses were also deployed into earthquake areas to meet people’s sheltering needs.
In this sense, Ankara’s growing efforts to improve earthquake victims’ living conditions have appeared to bear fruit with election results significantly favouring the Erdogan-led alliance and the AK Party in the most-destructed provinces.
“When we moved into our new house, the world became ours.”
These newly built earthquake-resistant village houses were completed in just 45 days following the massive twin earthquakes that struck Türkiye on February 6, leaving thousands homeless
Kahramanmaras
This Mediterranean province with more than a million population, whose districts Pazarcik and Elbistan were the two epicenters of the back-to-back earthquakes on February 6 with the magnitudes of 7.7 and 7.6 respectively, was a clear victim of the quakes.
Nearly 72 percent of Kahramanmaras residents voted for Erdogan in the presidential election while only 22 percent voters chose Kilicdaroglu. Erdogan’s Kahramanmaras vote is almost equal with his hometown Rize’s, the highest vote he received across Türkiye with 72.79.
In terms of the parliamentary election results, Erdogan’s AK Party also did very well, receiving nearly 48 percent against CHP’s 16 percent. The AK Party’s ally, National Movement Party (MHP), received 16 percent, equaling the CHP’s share of vote in the earthquake epicenter.
Erdogan visited Kahramanmaras many times and emphasised in many speeches that its people, who lost their loved ones and homes, would not be alone. In March, Erdogan personally attended the groundbreaking ceremonies of 7,353 residences and 620 village houses in Kahramanmaraş.