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00:00 Well, after that report from Antakya, we're able to talk a little more about this, the
00:07 aftermath of the earthquake in Turkey, which was a year ago now.
00:12 We're able to join Berk Esen, who is associate professor of political sciences at Sabanca
00:18 University.
00:20 Thank you very much for joining us and giving us your time, sir.
00:25 I want to start, first of all, we saw and had reports of some people being quite angry
00:31 at these commemoration ceremonies, for example, in Antakya.
00:36 Some government officials would booed residents.
00:39 Still, it seems very angry about the official response to this one year on.
00:45 Can you tell us more about that?
00:47 Yes, residents of Hatay, which is one of the cities that was severely damaged by the earthquake
00:56 that happened a year ago, are enraged at the government and are very critical of the limited
01:03 reconstruction efforts undertaken by this government, as well as the insufficient relief
01:10 and assistant efforts of this government.
01:14 Just to give you a sense of the sheer scale of the crisis, nearly 700,000 buildings have
01:22 been either completely destroyed or near destroyed as a result of the earthquake.
01:29 In Hatay, only 4% of these buildings were reconstructed over the past year.
01:36 I'm underlining Hatay in this particular case because Hatay is an opposition stronghold,
01:42 is controlled by the main opposition party who heads the municipal government there.
01:49 It seems that politically, the city was targeted by this increasingly authoritarian government,
01:56 which is shifting public resources, services, assistant efforts to other regions that are
02:03 populated by government voters.
02:06 There was also a lot of anger directed at the government representatives because during
02:12 the first 72 hours following the earthquake, the government was nowhere to be seen, and
02:19 that many of these protesters lost their relatives during these critical 72 hours because not
02:28 sufficient help was provided to them to help them to get their relatives out of the destruction
02:35 and the rubble that followed.
02:39 I think there is very palpable anger in many of these areas in the earthquake zone, but
02:46 particularly in Antakya.
02:50 You've been saying that it's been very uneven, that opposition areas have not been prioritized.
02:59 Government strongholds have received a lot of attention, had rebuilding done.
03:04 How is it that Recep Tayyip Erdogan was so comfortably reelected after this, if such
03:10 a large number of people were neglected after this massive earthquake, which wasn't long
03:15 before the election?
03:16 Well, first of all, Erdogan wasn't elected with a very comfortable margin.
03:22 So in the previous two presidential elections in which he was the candidate, he easily won
03:28 election in the first round.
03:30 Whereas in this particular case, the election was thrown to a runoff and Erdogan won by
03:36 only 52% support.
03:38 So let me emphasize the fact that this wasn't really a comfortable victory by his standards.
03:45 I think the second point that needs to be emphasized is that Turkey is governed by an
03:50 increasingly authoritarian government, and that elections in this country are neither
03:54 free nor fair, and that close to 90% of the national media is dominated or controlled
04:03 by pro-government actors, and really assisted this government in its propaganda efforts,
04:10 such that during the election campaign, the government's propaganda was quite effective.
04:21 And third, I think even though many voters were angry at Erdogan, they simply could not
04:27 find a credible alternative in the opposition ranks that would allow them access to relief
04:33 efforts.
04:34 When you are already being governed by an authoritarian government, voting for the opposition
04:40 is a very risky endeavor, because if the opposition ends up losing the election, you're going
04:45 to feel the anger and the wrath of the government.
04:50 And indeed, Erdogan himself, actually in the footage that you're now showing live, he actually
04:59 highlighted the fact that Hatay was left without much support and help because it was governed
05:06 by the opposition and did not really elect a mayoral candidate from the ruling party.
05:13 And lastly, many voters living in the earthquake zone, the earthquake affected 11 provinces
05:21 across Turkey's southern and southeastern provinces.
05:26 The local electorate tends to be a lot more pious than the voters in other parts of the
05:31 country.
05:32 I think many voters ended up supporting Erdogan because they basically agreed with his portrayal
05:40 of this earthquake as something that is caused by God and that that was something that his
05:45 government could not really do much about.
05:48 And Erdogan effectively could avoid blame by shifting it to local authorities, contractors
05:55 and low level officials.
05:58 And I think many voters in the region vote that argument.
06:00 Well, thank you very much there for your thoughts on that.
06:04 It's very interesting to hear from you.
06:06 Burk Esen there speaking to us from Sabancı University there by Skype from Istanbul.
06:13 Thanks very much for your time.