President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the ruling Justice and Development Party-led (AK Party) People's Alliance were ahead in the presidential and parliamentary polls in Türkiye's southern region devastated by Feb. 6 twin earthquakes, according to initial results Sunday.
The quakes ripped through 11 provinces and killed over 50,000 people, toppling hundreds of thousands of buildings and severely damaging the southeastern region's infrastructure.
With around 96.49% of the ballot boxes counted, preliminary results put Erdoğan ahead in eight of 11 provinces in the quake zone, including Adıyaman, Gaziantep, Kahramanmaraş, Kilis, Malatya, Osmaniye, Şanlıurfa and Elazığ.
In comparison, opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçadorğlu was ahead in Adana, Diyarbakır and Hatay provinces.
As for the parliamentary elections, preliminary results placed the People’s Alliance ahead in all provinces except for Diyarbakır, dominated by the Green Left Party (YSP), with about 95.55% of the ballot boxes counted.
More than 64 million people, including 3.4 million overseas voters, were eligible to vote. This year marks 100 years since Türkiye's establishment as a republic.
Voter turnout in Türkiye is traditionally strong.
The AK Party has long dominated the 11 provinces affected by the disaster.
Governorships provided free-of-charge transport for citizens staying in container and tent cities and those who did not have access to transportation.
Around 14 million people in the 11 provinces were affected by the earthquake. Nearly 9 million of them were eligible to vote. Some 3 million people reportedly left the quake zone for other provinces.
Following the construction of temporary shelters featuring tents and containers in the disaster zone, up to 1.2 million survivors who had fled to other cities, including Ankara, Istanbul and Mersin, are said to have returned to cast a vote.
Debates had surfaced after the disaster struck about a possible postponement. Still, Erdoğan adhered to the previously announced date when he renewed the elections, saying, “It’s a must for our country to put this election agenda behind us to recover from and eliminate all traces of the earthquakes, and to boost production and employment.”
Erdoğan had centered his reelection campaign on rebuilding the region. He has pledged to build 319,000 homes in a year. At rally after rally, he touted past projects as proof that only his government could restore the region.
The damage caused by the earthquakes is estimated to be over $100 billion, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Operations, including controlled demolition of buildings and debris removal, continue in the region.
The construction process of more than 100,000 residential buildings and village homes has already started. Erdoğan has said the government will not leave the earthquake region until the construction of 650,000 homes is completed.
