Even before a magnitude 7.8 earthquake toppled buildings, killed tens of thousands of people, and left over a million homeless, Turkey was grappling with a currency collapse, runaway inflation, and slowing growth. But while President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government is on shaky political ground, toppling Turkey’s strongman after two decades in power will be no easy feat.
In this Big Question, on February 23, 2023, Project Syndicate asks Seyla Benhabib, Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan, and Sinan Ülgen consider how the unfolding crisis will – and will not – change Turkish politics.
SEYLA BENHABIB « The devastating earthquake and subsequent tremors that have ravaged southeastern Turkey and northeastern Syria since February 6, resulting in more than 46,000 deaths, may yet result in a political earthquake as well.
Turkish people are angry. The disaster revealed that the government had approved shoddy construction contracts, despite the adoption of new building codes after the 1999 earthquake in the Izmit and Kocaeli regions, only 200 kilometers (124 miles) from Istanbul. Moreover, much taxpayer money for Turkey’s Disaster Management Authority (AFAD) has mysteriously disappeared, and rescue efforts have been botched. The corruption and patronage underpinning Erdoğan’s 20-year rule have been exposed as a lethal threat.
The government has declared a state of emergency in the affected provinces, making it likely that the general election, originally scheduled for June 18, will be postponed. According to the Turkish constitution, elections can be postponed only in times of war, but the law can – and most likely will – be changed by parliament, in which Erdoğan enjoys a majority.
Even before the earthquake, Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) was losing popularity and trying to weaken the six-party opposition coalition. Bending to the government’s will, the state prosecutor brought spurious charges against Ekrem İmamoğlu, Istanbul’s charismatic municipality president. İmamoğlu, whom the opposition coalition may have nominated to lead it in the general election, was accused of “insulting” members of the Supreme Election Council and barred from participating in politics for two years.
İmamoğlu is not the only opposition politician who has been targeted by the government. Selahattin Demirtaş – head of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) – has been in prison since 2016. HDP candidates obtained 10% of the vote in 2015, and the party has a large political base in some of the areas hit by the earthquake.
But even if Erdoğan manages to use the disaster to stave off political challenges, he will have to confront the monumental task of rebuilding the earthquake-affected regions. How will a million displaced people return to their homes and lives? Can the government, with its well-known propensity for “magical” economic thinking, obtain the trust and aid of international markets?
My guess is that elections will be postponed at least until the fall – possibly around the centennial of the Turkish Republic’s founding, on October 29. Unfortunately, it will be a sad occasion. »
ŞEBNEM KALEMLI-ÖZCAN « The recent earthquakes have killed over 41,000 people in Turkey alone, with thousands more still missing, while leaving over a million homeless and many million more in need of assistance. The bill for relief and reconstruction will be enormous.
A catastrophe on such a scale should be a political game-changer, as leaders are held accountable for anything and everything that may have contributed to the crisis or worsened its impact, from inadequate or poorly enforced building codes to slow emergency responses. This is certainly the case in a well-functioning democracy, with a reliable system of checks and balances, underpinned by transparency and accountability.
But when there is no democracy, political accountability is replaced by human suffering. While natural disasters are damaging everywhere, they are especially destructive in non-democracies. Once democracy is damaged, it is not clear whether anything – even a major natural disaster with huge economic and human costs – can be a political game-changer.
For many years, Turkish scientists and engineers have warned that such a disaster may be coming, to no avail. Instead, Turkey’s leadership has spent the last two decades granting “construction amnesties” to buildings that failed to meet standards set specifically to ensure that they could withstand earthquakes. Geologists say that issuing such amnesties, rather than enforcing appropriate building codes in a country situated on two major faults, is nothing short of a crime. When greed and cronyism rule the day, one should not be surprised by deadly outcomes.
But Turkey’s problems preceded the recent earthquakes. The economy was already suffering from an inflation rate of over 80%, a rapidly depreciating currency, and a growing debt burden. Moreover, rather than adopt a standard policy response, Turkey’s leaders chose an unorthodox approach – for example, lowering interest rates to fight inflation – that aggravated the country’s problems.
Naturally, the earthquake – and the huge fiscal costs it implies – has raised expectations of even more economic pain. This does not need to be the case, especially because most of the recovery funds will come from foreign donors, international organizations, and global financial markets.
But the relatively mild economic fallout does not mean there is nothing to save. There can be no better time to save Turkish democracy and institutions from the cronyism that the earthquake has made starkly apparent. »
SINAN ÜLGEN « In short, yes. With total deaths exceeding 46,000 at the time of writing and more than 100,000 buildings having either collapsed or become inhabitable, the scale of the calamity is so enormous that politicking over disaster preparedness and management will undoubtedly shape the electoral cycle.
After two decades in power, Erdoğan and his AKP can hardly deflect blame. Yes, it was Turkey largest earthquake on record, and the massive physical destruction it caused would have hampered even the most effective relief efforts. But, ultimately, it is the responsibility of a government – especially one that has been in power for so long – to prepare for natural disasters, thereby reducing their destructive potential and minimizing human suffering.
Turkey’s critical presidential and parliamentary elections – now likely to be held in mid-June – will force the competing political alliances to convince the electorate that they will significantly improve the country’s resilience. This gives the opposition a clear advantage, since Turkey’s current leaders have already been tested on this front – and failed miserably.
But, in order to capitalize on this advantage, the opposition will need to communicate effectively the fundamentals of its own disaster-preparedness program. Meanwhile, the government will seek to bolster its credibility by providing fast and effective relief to the affected population.
Turkey has been here before. The magnitude 7.6 earthquake that struck Turkey in 1999 exposed the ineffectiveness of the state and is generally viewed as the prelude to the political shock that brought Erdoğan’s AKP to power in 2002. Maybe history will repeat. »
Seyla Benhabib is Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and Philosophy Emerita at Yale University and Senior Research Fellow at Columbia Law School.
Şebnem Kalemli-Özcan, a former senior policy adviser at the International Monetary Fund, is Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Sinan Ülgen, a former Turkish diplomat, is Director of the Istanbul-based EDAM think tank and a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe.
Project Syndicate asks Seyla Benhabib, Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan, and Sinan Ülgen, February 23, 2023.