‘Quake city’ won’t vote for Erdogan

“WE NEED change, we’ve had enough,” said Mehmet Topaloglu, one of the first to cast his ballot on Sunday in the southern Turkish city of Antakya, destroyed by this year’s devastating earthquake.

For Topaloglu, the 7.8-magnitude February tremor that killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey and the economic situation have changed the nature of the polls, which could end President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s more than two-decade grip on power.

“I voted Erdogan for his first two terms, but I won’t vote for him again, even if he were my father,” the farmer told AFP at an Antakya school used as a polling center.

Semra Karakas and her 23-year-old daughter Aylin endured a 14-hour bus ride to return to Antakya for the vote, after the quake forced them to leave and settle in the southern coastal city of Antalya.