Antakya, Turkey – Ali Bilgin stayed behind in Antakya after devastating earthquakes on February 6 triggered an exodus from town in southern Turkey.
The human rights lawyer pitched tents outdoors his broken house in a southern suburb and has been fixing the harm himself. A few of his friends stay scared of coming into houses, however he was not too long ago capable of rise up to the roof of the two-floor indifferent home and luxuriate in a view of town.
Forward of Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections on Might 14, he has been coaching volunteers to work as election observers at polling stations throughout the area of Hatay.
“Our intention is to guard each single vote,” stated Bilgin, who volunteers with Oy ve Otesi (Vote and Past). Based in 2014, the civil society group will dispatch about 1,000 observers, principally locals, in Hatay, and tens of 1000’s throughout the nation.
“We wish to stop any transfer that might enable the federal government or any political celebration to solid a shadow over the elections,” he advised Al Jazeera. Whereas civil society observers can’t act on any irregularities, they will alert observers from political events at polling stations.
The elections, by which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan faces the largest problem to his 20 years in energy, are going down three months after earthquakes destroyed components of southern Turkey and northwestern Syria. Almost 51,000 individuals died in Turkey alone.
‘We try to convey them again’
In Antakya, the extent of the devastation is not like anyplace else. Streets and neighbourhoods are lined with crumbling, uninhabited buildings, a number of tales excessive. Lots of the buildings which might be nonetheless standing are severely broken and can must be torn down.
Antakya is a ghost metropolis and holding polls might be a problem. One of many major issues is how lots of the practically 1,100,000 registered voters will be capable to make it to polling stations. Many residents left town for camps or close by rural areas, whereas others moved to completely different areas and must journey again to vote.
“We misplaced a number of our residents. Formally, 23,000,” stated Luftu Savas, the mayor of Hatay’s metropolitan municipality and a member of the principle opposition Cumhuriyet Halk Celebration (Republican Folks’s Celebration, CHP). He advised Al Jazeera that in accordance with the municipality’s depend, roughly 475,000 individuals left the province, principally from Antakya.
“A few of them, 10-15 %, have moved their tackle to a different metropolis and can vote there. The general public who stay within the metropolis centre are our [opposition] voters,” he added. “We try to convey them again, however flights aren’t an possibility,” he stated, referring to the closure of Hatay’s airport to incoming flights, formally due to harm to the runway.
Turkey’s Excessive Election Board (YSK) stated earlier this yr that solely 133,000 individuals from the earthquake area have re-registered to vote elsewhere. That is of an estimated three million who’re displaced, in accordance with the United Nations.
“We’re organising buses from Antalya, Mersin, Konya, however nonetheless, lots of them received’t be capable to come,” Savas added.
The CHP has arrange a logistics coordination workplace based mostly out of containers within the parking zone of a petroleum station on a freeway outdoors town.
The celebration’s district deputy head, Hakan Karatas, stated greater than 16,000 voters from 75 completely different cities utilized for help to journey again to Hatay in the course of the week of the elections.
“The election might have been delayed, or town might have been given particular standing,” Karatas stated, reflecting a sense voiced by many displaced voters throughout Turkey, who suppose they need to have been capable of vote for his or her native parliament member in Hatay with out having to face the logistical challenges of travelling again.
On Might 6, the federal government’s catastrophe aid company, AFAD, introduced assist for individuals who wished to journey again to the earthquake area to vote.
Again solely to vote
Whereas loud rallies happen throughout the nation, there are not any massive gatherings and no songs blasting from buses within the earthquake space, the place campaigning is restricted to conferences with residents, officers stated.
A lot of the area has traditionally been a stronghold of the incumbent president – and there may be little to recommend that the earthquake has considerably dented that help. Nonetheless, Hatay is taken into account a aggressive area, the place Erdogan’s Adalet ve Kalkınma Celebration (Justice and Improvement, AK Celebration) at present holds 5 seats, adopted by the CHP’s 4.
Erdogan has promised to rebuild thousands and thousands of houses inside a yr. The opposition has stated it aimed to reverse the president’s unorthodox financial insurance policies, largely blamed for the freefall of the Turkish lira in opposition to the greenback and runaway inflation. It additionally pledged to put off the presidential system launched after a referendum in 2017 and restore Turkey to a parliamentary democracy.
Within the outdated a part of Antakya, the positioning of the traditional metropolis of Antioch, Roman-era cobbled streets and Ottoman mosques are largely in ruins. The enduring Saray Road is a pile of rubble that has hardly been moved because the earthquakes struck.
Among the shops within the outdated bazaar have reopened. Umut, 28, was sitting at a cellphone restore retailer his good friend not too long ago arrange. He returned from Ankara every week again for the elections.
“I feel we’d like change,” he stated, including that he couldn’t convey himself to be optimistic.
“Take a look at this,” he added, pointing on the rubble that bulldozers are nonetheless transferring. He deliberate to depart once more after the elections.
“I feel I’ll go to Eskisehir [a city in northwest Turkey], for one or two years,” he stated, “I’ll do something, any job. After I really feel higher psychologically, I’ll come again.”
As half of the residents of Turkey take a look at the approaching days with hope for a turning level of their nation’s historical past, residents of Antakya take a look at their devastated metropolis and marvel how lengthy it is going to take earlier than it’s rebuilt.
“Our house is closely broken and should be demolished,” stated Hakan Cam, a 41-year-old safety guard who lives together with his spouse Ayfer, their 10-year-old son and mother-in-law Zahife in a tent camp on the outskirts of town.
“Thank god, we’re alive,” stated Zahife. “However now we have nothing, there may be nothing left.”
Whereas the camp seems comparatively clear and organised, hygiene stays a difficulty as greater than 200 tents are pitched right here.
“On Sunday, I’ll drive Ayfer to the polling station,” stated Cam, who not like his spouse, has voted for the governing celebration up to now. “I might be there. However this yr, I received’t vote.”
