Voters split in the earthquake zone ahead of Türkiye’s elections

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Hatay Türkiye –

Driving in Hatay, Turkey, is like wandering through a war zone in the months after the battle. Some of the apartment buildings are ruins, others are huge piles of rubble and tangled metal.

“This city used to be a rose garden,” says Ali Qandanir, a 62-year-old truck driver at the tented settlement housing families displaced by the February earthquake that killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria. “Now the city is gone.”

Kandener says he is among those who intend to show his anger at the polls this weekend, when Turkey votes in what may be its most important election in decades. But other voters in this tent city say the opposite, that they will proudly re-elect their current leader for another term.

Kandinir lives about 4 kilometers (2.5 mi) away in a temporary metal housing unit known as the Container. He’s trying to collect small amounts of humanitarian aid because his home – along with billions of dollars’ worth of property – was destroyed in the earthquakes.

As Kandener describes how he fled his home in the rain in early February when the ground shook beneath him, his wife, Gul Kandener, wipes tears from her face.

“People here are in pain,” she says.

Divided voters

Ali Qandanir’s face gets slightly redder as he continues to tell his story.

A lot of people died in the earthquakes, he says, and there was a lot of destruction. He says refugees in Turkey – the largest in the world – take resources away from people who are suffering.

“The rescue teams came, but they weren’t fast enough,” he says. “My brother survived because we were able to pull him out ourselves from under the rubble.”

As he spoke, Devlet Ipek, a 48-year-old mother of four, emerged from her nearby tent and watched us through a chain-link fence. She invites us in.

Despite being displaced by the earthquake, Devlet Ipek, a 48-year-old mother of four who lives in a tent in Hatay, Turkey, says she supports the current Turkish government on May 13, 2023.

Ipek says she believes the government has responded to the disaster as well as possible and plans to vote for her to stay in power.

She says the Islamic nature of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s administration is welcome, as are, in her opinion, the millions of refugees in Turkey.

“They are afraid because there is no security in Syria,” she says. “Why should they go?”

opposition issues

Erdogan has led Turkey for more than 20 years, and some political parties say they believe this election could be their chance to intervene.

“It is possible that we will win in the first round,” said a member of the CHP, the main opposition party, who did not want to be identified. If not a single presidential candidate wins more than 50% of the first vote, a second round will be held in two weeks.

Analysts say the tens of thousands of deaths and billions of dollars lost in the earthquakes in February could test the government’s support at the polls in Turkey’s elections. Hatay, Turkey, pictured May 13, 2023, is among the areas devastated by the disaster.

If his party wins, he says, they have promised to reform the justice system and expel refugees within two years.

But analysts say rising prices in Türkiye are the biggest concern for voters. The cost of food and rent has doubled, tripled or even quadrupled in some parts of Turkey.

“It’s not an ordinary time for an election,” says Ipek, as the wind rustles loudly against the walls of her plastic tent. “But it’s what we do, so we’ll do it.”

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