Turkey’s parliamentary and presidential elections, originally planned for 14 May, may have to be postponed due to the impact of two devastating earthquakes on Monday and their aftershocks since, an official told Reuters on Thursday.
There will be “very serious difficulties” in holding elections on the date Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pointed to weeks earlier, the unnamed official said.
While it is too early to discuss the matter in full, the area affected by the 7.8 and 7.6 magnitude twin earthquakes is home to some 15 percent of Turkey’s population, the official said.
The ten affected provinces in southeastern Turkey have majority Kurdish and Arab populations, and are among the electoral districts where Erdoğan’s and his ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) vote is lowest.
Erdoğan declared a three-month regional state of emergency on Tuesday, and and the Turkish parliament voted the declaration into force on Thursday afternoon. The state of emergency will end just before the proposed election date, but could be prolonged.
Even utilising vast emergency powers, Erdoğan’s government may not be able to return the provinces of Adana, Adıyaman, Diyarbakır, Gaziantep, Kahramanmaraş, Hatay, Osmaniye, Şanlıurfa, Malatya and Kilis to normalcy, and elections may have to be postponed.
