The Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan will emerge strengthened or weakened by the tragedy of earthquake?
In 1999 his political ascent began just when another earthquake it affected the credibility of the then Turkish leader. The elections are three months away and Erdogan’s future has enormous relevance to the Natogiven his controversial role during the war in Ukraine.
Turkey’s humanitarian tragedy occupies our attention, for now the terrible is in the foreground death toll, the suffering of the survivors, the hope of still saving someone in the rubble, the importance of bringing aid to the homeless besieged by the cold and the danger of epidemics. But it is inevitable to look further, and also ask yourself some questions about geopolitical consequences of this calamity.
Turkey is an important country for all of us, its position became even more crucial during the war. It’s a state member of NATO garrisoning the southeastern flank of the Alliance with a vast border with Russia. It’s the only real one Islamic power within NATO (little Albania, a much more recent member, has a Muslim population but does not experience the same religious influence in its politics).
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Erdogan has stood out for many controversial choices.
Don’t apply the sanctions against Putin. The Russian-Turkish border sees a blossoming black market where even Western goods subject to embargo transit. Erdogan has repeatedly proposed himself as mediator, without concrete results with the only partial exception of the negotiation on cereal exports: but it certainly managed to enhance its international visibility. Finally Erodgan “holds hostage” the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATOexercising its right to veto.
He is especially angry with Sweden, first for the refugee status granted to some Kurdish militants whom Ankara considers terrorists; then because Sweden has “authorized” a street demonstration in which a far-right Danish politician burned a copy of the Koran.
There is enough to understand that Erdogan’s political future does not concern only the Turkish population.
In theory, this future will be decided by Turkish voters on May 14thdate scheduled for the next elections.
This reminds us that Erdogan, even if he is sometimes hastily included in the list of “autocrats”, he is still the elected president of a democracy where the sovereign people can drive him out. It is a presidential democracy, which can be categorized as “illiberal” or tainted by authoritarian tendencies, because in recent years Erdogan has increased his powersreduced the guarantees of the rule of law, has affected the freedom of the pressleaned dangerously on fundamentalist religious circles.
Now the fear of the opposition is that he has declared a state of emergency not only for post-earthquake mobilization but perhaps also for postpone the election or perhaps to have special powers to use against other candidates in the final months of the campaign. Since his last presidential election win, in 2018, Erdogan has suffered setbacks: his party has lost the municipal administrations of the two economic and political capitals, Istanbul and Ankara.
What impact will the humanitarian tragedy of these days have? The 1999 earthquake, with epicenter a Izmit, fece 17,000 mortis and left half a million people homeless. The government’s response was criticized for its inefficiency and disaster struck the prime minister at the time, Bulent Ecevit. Since Turkey has not yet adopted a presidential system, the then president Suleyman Demirel did not have the same executive powers that Erdogan has today: the latter instead immediately took over the leadership of operations by sending a force of 55,000 rescuers and 5,000 doctors and nurses .
Erdogan is thus exposed firsthand.
Apart from the Turkish precedent from 1999, Do earthquakes have a lasting political impact? Small personal note: at the beginning of my journalistic career, when I wrote for the PCI weekly Rebirthin one of my first assignments I was sent to Irpinia after the earthquake of 1980. I remember the impact that the visit of the then President of the Republic had, Sandro Pertini, who listened to the complaints of the survivors and denounced the serious delays in the rescue operations. The most relevant consequence was that after Irpinia a process was set in motion which – 12 years late – led to the birth of the Civil protection in 1992.
For the rest, many successive earthquakes have always caught Italy unprepared, for example in compliance with anti-seismic regulations for buildings.
Similar controversies are already brewing in Turkey.
To move to an earthquake that occurred under an authoritarian regime, Bret Stephens on New York Times claims that that of 19 September 1985 in Mexico gave rise to protests and civil society movements that led to the democratization of the country. Also in that case under accusation was the “human component” behind the earthquake damage: the poor quality of the buildings, in violation of the same laws in force, often due to corruption.
Another personal memory is that of May 12, 2008 in Sichuan what did he do 69,000 dead. I was still a correspondent in China, and by pure coincidence I was in that province (my adopted children are from Sichuan). There were – to the extent that the censorship allowed – criticisms and protests for the unpreparedness of the authorities.
There was also the birth of a vast voluntary movement, a spontaneous expression of civil society, which some Westerners wanted to interpret as a challenge to the Chinese Communist Party. The reconstruction of Sichuan was then marked by serious incidents of corruptionwhich perhaps contributed to Xi Jinping’s rise to power (2012), marked by anti-corruption campaigns. But defining a precise political impact of that earthquake seems difficult to me.
In this regard, I want to remind you that the Chinese tradition on the “heavenly mandate of the emperor”, whereby natural disasters are interpreted as a sign that the leader has lost legitimacy, does not seem to automatically apply to the communist nomenclature: otherwise the pandemic would have made Xi waver Jinping.
In general, it is difficult to measure the political consequences of natural disasters. In authoritarian regimes, leaders can sometimes lose prestige as a result of mistakes and inefficiencies. Hardly anyone arrives truly “prepared” for an earthquake, not even in democratic systems: perhaps only Japan has had the ability to minimize damage and victims in an exemplary way?
On the other hand autocrats can use disasters to further tighten control over information, public order, etc.
It may be that Erdogan’s popularity in the medium-long term is affected more by the economic difficulties affecting the whole of Turkey, such as inflation and devaluation, only partially mitigated by the inflow of Russian capital. A historical note on the geopolitical consequences: the 1999 earthquake actually had an impact on foreign policy, because Greece sent humanitarian aid and this contributed to the thaw between Athens and Ankara after a long hostility.
Certainly Erdogan is holding a detailed list of the quality, quantity and origin of aid from abroad.
