Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan put an end to speculation on Wednesday by confirming the holding of presidential and legislative elections on the scheduled date of May 14, despite the February 6 earthquake that devastated the south of the country.
Denouncing the critical voices that have been raised against the management of the cataclysm by his government, the Head of State assured: "
We will provide them with the appropriate response on May 14
".
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, candidate for his own succession, thus excludes de facto any postponement of the ballot despite the situation in the affected regions.
This electoral meeting will be crucial for its future and for that of the country, which is trying to recover and has already counted more than 45,000 dead and 105,000 injured in eleven provinces in the south and south-east of Turkey - more than 50,000 counting the dead in neighboring Syria.
According to President Erdogan, 14 million people were affected by the earthquake.
sharp criticism
The head of state, who has been the subject of strong criticism for the slowness of relief operations, has promised to quickly rebuild more than 450,000 homes, ensuring that the buildings will meet anti-seismic standards.
He had asked "forgiveness" last Monday for the delays observed in the first days in the organization of relief while tens of thousands of people were trapped in the rubble.
He again acknowledged this Wednesday before the parliamentarians of his party, the AKP (Justice and Development Party), that the relief operations had been delayed "due to the chaos and the weather conditions" - the snow in
particular
.
“
However, just hours after the earthquake, our ministers contacted the affected cities and started to coordinate the work
,” he noted.
In power for 20 years, first as Prime Minister, Mr. Erdogan became in 2014 the first Turkish president directly elected by universal suffrage.
In 2017, a constitutional revision significantly expanded its powers.
opposition alliance
According to the AFP teams who visited the site, the electricity and drinking water networks were strongly impacted by the earthquake in most of the towns and regions affected.
More than 11,400 aftershocks have been recorded in Turkey since the two earthquakes of magnitude 7.8 and 7.6 which occurred on February 6.
According to official counts, nearly two million people have left the disaster areas, evacuated or by their own means;
more than 31,000 buildings have collapsed and more than 170,000 others have been severely damaged and will have to be destroyed.
The survivors were installed in tents and in containers or hard dormitories.
Research was stopped ten days ago in nine of the eleven provinces and continues only in those of Karhamanmaras, near the epicenter of the earthquake and Hatay, the most affected, bordering Syria.
A delegation from the electoral commission began a visit to the affected areas on Monday to assess the ability to organize the ballot there.
At 69, President Erdogan, who leads his country with an increasingly firm grip, will face his most perilous election on May 14.
The opposition alliance, which brings together six parties with different leanings, is expected to decide on the name of its common candidate on Thursday.
The Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), a pro-Kurdish left party, is not part of the alliance.