Blankets donated by Iraqi Turkmens for the victims of two powerful earthquakes that struck Turkey last year are being distributed now as election giveaways by a municipality run by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in southeastern Turkey, the Birgün daily reported.
The Gaziantep Municipality is distributing the blankets, with its logo even affixed to the packages, days before the local elections to be held this Sunday.
There is also a note accompanying the blankets that says, “Aid from the Turkmen Nationalist Movement to the earthquake victims.”
Gaziantep was one of 11 provinces affected by magnitude 7.8 and 7.5 earthquakes that hit Turkey’s south and southeast on February 6, 2023, claiming the lives of more than 53,000 and leading to massive devastation.
The Gaziantep Municipality has come under fire for keeping the blankets in warehouses for 13 months and not distributing them to earthquake victims who had to cope with harsh weather in the aftermath of the earthquakes.
A Gaziantep resident who spoke to Birgün on condition of anonymity questioned why the municipality did not deliver the blankets to the people when they were shivering in the cold and waited for the elections to distribute them as giveaways to get people’s votes.
Uğur Kalkan, a local politician from the main opposition Republican People’s Party in Gaziantep, told Birgün that the municipality is delivering the earthquake donations during the campaign to woo voters in the local elections.
“They are so reckless that they didn’t even take the time to remove the ‘earthquake donation’ notes on the blankets, and they even put the Gaziantep Municipality logo on the packages. We understand now why our people had to endure so much due to lack of basic necessities,” said Kalkan.
Meanwhile, the Gaziantep Municipality released a statement countering the accusations after photos of the aid packages circulated on social media. The city denied the accusations of delivering the blankets as election giveaways but declined to explain why a municipal logo was put on the packages.
The AKP government came under fire due to what many said was its poor response to the earthquakes and its failure to provide earthquake victims with food, sanitation and proper housing. There were also claims about the poor management of the donations for earthquake victims that poured in to Turkey from around the world.