Erdogan’s Most Faithful Followers Reconsider Loyalties as Turkey Election Looms

For years, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was politically untouchable in Turkey’s religious and largely rural southeast, winning two-thirds of the ballots cast here in the 2018 election. Drawing on his roots in an Islamic political movement, Erdogan gave voice — and cheap loans — to the region’s “pious generation,” an underclass of Islamic conservatives who offered him support in exchange for a path to prosperity. 

Then, on Feb. 6, two massive earthquakes devastated the southeast, killing more than 50,000 people and prompting an estimated 3.5 million more to flee. As scenes of leveled apartment buildings and people screaming for government help dominated screens, Erdogan’s government struggled to respond to the tragedy.