Mehmet Ali Fakioglu was made homeless by an earthquake that hit Turkey in February, but made a 15-hour journey back to the disaster zone to vote on Sunday, recalling the fear he felt when the catastrophe struck and his anger that help was slow to come.
Fakioglu, who has been staying with his son in Istanbul since leaving his home in the Antakya region, remembers the earthquake every day - the moment he ran from his apartment with his wife and daughter as walls banged and cracked.that is seen as the toughest political test yet for President Tayyip Erdogan. But as he prepared to cast his ballot, he voiced criticism of the state's slow response to the disaster in which more than 50,000 people were killed.
"I will only say this, everybody should vote with their conscience at the ballot box. We were forgotten, all of us, on that day, the second day even on the third day. Not only in Antakya, but people were forgotten in all those cities," Fakioglu said, referring to the late arrival of help.Critics and earthquake survivors have accused Erdogan's government of both a slow response and lax enforcement of building rules - failures they said cost lives.
"People are interested, people want to go back to vote ... Most of them didn't register new addresses so they will have to go back," said Ertim Orkun, chairman of Oy ve Otesi.
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