“Turkish President Erdogan’s Role in Crucial Election and Earthquake Reconstruction”

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – As Turks prepare to go to the polls on Sunday in a crucial election, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan distributes gifts.

The final week before the vote, Erdogan declared that Turks would enjoy free natural gas, raising the salaries of public sector workers by 45% after hikes earlier this year.

At a mass rally in Istanbul last weekend, the president broadcast an allegedly fake video showing a group of Kurdish militants expressing their support for his rival. Both Kurdish militants and their election rivals are often described by Erdogan as enemies of the state.

“This is very important,” he said quoting The Guardian, Sunday (14/5).

At the ballot box, the choices facing voters are clear. Erdoğan, who heads the AKP party, has promised a “Turkish century”, a grand vision containing plenty of super-nationalism and populist rhetoric that will allow him to maintain his grip on the country.

The Turkish opposition, led by Kılıçdaroğlu, campaigned on the promise that “spring will come again”, vowing to overhaul Erdoğan’s policies that had reshaped the country during his two decades in power, one of which was a return to parliamentary democracy.

The opposition proposal for change is a reaction to Erdoğan’s 20 years of rule. “Nobody really knows what post-Erdoğan Turkey will look like in reality,” said James Ryan of the US thinktank the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

A broad and rapid reconstruction plan that will reshape much of the country’s south that was devastated during the recent earthquake has become a key part of Erdogan’s campaign for re-election.

Just weeks after buildings were leveled across the city of Nurdağı, mechanized diggers clawed the ground to build foundations on the outskirts of the city, expanding existing government housing for the hundreds of people sleeping in tents near their destroyed homes.

“Our goal is to raise the earthquake zone,” Erdogan told survivors a month after the quake. He added that the government will build 319,000 houses in the first year, for a total of 650,000.

Construction and infrastructure have been the backbone of Erdogan’s two decades in power, projecting a state presence through smooth roads, new airports and sprawling new buildings in even Turkey’s smallest cities – amid accusations of widespread corruption in the construction industry.

(fsd/fsd)