The devastating earthquakes that killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey (and at least 7,000 in northern Syria) in February have exposed deep-rooted problems in the run-up to potentially epochal presidential and parliamentary elections on May 14. Turkey, it is now clear, needs more than a change of government; it needs a fundamental transformation of its politics and economy. That means confronting the hugely powerful construction lobby and attempting to rebuild the country's flailing democracy.
Though the earthquakes were acts of nature, the devastation they caused was the result of corruption within the construction industry and beyond. But this did not stop Turkey's strongman president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, from blaming the huge death toll on nature, even as he admitted that the authorities were caught off guard. The Turkish people have been asked to believe that everything is now under control, and that Mr Erdogan should be trusted with the post-disaster reconstruction.
