'All obstacles should be removed for the earthquake victims to use their right to vote'

Photo: AA

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Out of the nearly two million people displaced due to the massive February 6 earthquakes, 345,977 people changed their addresses to become voters in their resettled districts, according to a statement by Turkey's Vice President Fuat Oktay on March 18.

That less than twenty percent of the displaced changing their addresses worries The Human Rights Foundation (TİHV) of Turkey.

''Although it is impossible to predict the exact number of people who have the right to vote, the fact that only 345,977 people out of millions of displaced people will be able to vote in their new settlements is worrying in terms of the exercise of their citizenship rights,'' the watchdogs writes in a statement published yesterday (March 22), adding that many of the affected voters, in case they want to cast their ballots, will need to go to their electoral districts in the earthquake region which might revoke trauma.

Turkey's government brought the presidential and parliamentary elections forward to May 14, from the previously scheduled June 18, despite the disastrous February 6 earthquakes affecting 11 provinces, killing over 48,000 people, destroying over 227,000 buildings, and displacing at least two million people, with 1.9 million staying in temporary accommodation.

After the announcement to bring forward the polls, authorities started taking measures for people in the affected areas to be able to cast their ballots.

Voters in the affected region, even those staying in dormitories, hotels, prefabricated houses, container houses, tents, and similar places, had until March 17 to reregister their addresses. If they change their addresses, they will become the voters of the district where they are reregistered instead of the district where they resided before the quakes.

TİHV has, in its statement, called on the authorities to take all necessary measures to remove the obstacles and to make it easier for the citizens who were forced to move to another place after the earthquakes to be able to cast their votes where they reside at the moment. The foundation called on both the government and the opposition to hold onto the principle of equality.

February 6 earthquakes

On February 6, two earthquakes with a magnitude of 7.7 and 7.6 struck the southern city of Maraş. The first quake in the Pazarcık district at 4.17 a.m. was followed by the second one in Elbistan about nine hours later.

The quakes affected 11 provinces in Turkey's south and southeast, as well as Syria's northern parts.

The official death toll from the quakes is over 50,000.

Nearly two million people have been displaced due to the earthquakes.

(AS/WM)