Things might get even hairier given the elections and the popularity drop due to both politics and the earthquake.

It’s possible that a state of emergency on account of the earthquake will postpone the elections.

In other countries the population will unite after natural disasters, and leadership is usually given credit for the response as long as they continue support for local response efforts set up in the immediate aftermath. Why would popularity of the leader drop so quickly due to an earthquake? It's been what 36 hours. At this point almost all committed resources will still be highly local...

In autocratic regimes, the leaders get all the cred for things going well, but they also are seen as responsible if things crumble.

Potentially because they cut off social media essential to life-saving efforts, and focus on managing optics rather than providing concrete help? Just a stab in the dark, but who knows.

because Erdogan's relatives were heavily involved in construction industry and these flopped buildings are result of Erdogan's family dealings

Thanks. That is an answer which makes sense.

Well, either Erdogan knows he's deeply unpopular, so he/his lackeys has to censor all the bad news and criticism so he/they can look a bit better, or he's afraid he's deeply unpopular, which means a bit of self-awareness of what a raging asshole dictator but useless leader he is... Fun times!

A leader that actually cares but is overwhelmed would probably not be afraid of admitting that, s/he could rally the population together to overcome the tragedy despite their lack of resources. I think Dubya managed to convey this with 9/11, no one really knew how bad decisions by his administration lead to the threat being unnoticed. Meanwhile with Erdogan, he's been the boss for many years, the public probably thinks: The government's not able to rescue people effectively? Well, that's because it's been a kleptocracy for a long time.

Elections are meaningless if you can print millions of untraceable mail-in ballots and do not enforce rigorous ID requirements. Furthermore, elections are even less meaningless if you can imprison the opposition or destroy them in media under false and contrived pretense.

Sounds like the good old USA.

>millions of untraceable mail-in ballots

I don’t think we print that many fraudulent ballots but without confidence in our government’s honesty who really knows?

>enforce rigorous ID requirements

Definitely USA. Liberals and big money are working hard to simplify methods of canvassing up as many votes as possible for their interests and frankly they are better at it than honest people. Voter ID is a huge blockade to that practice.

>destroy them in media under false and contrived pretense.

Yup MSM to the tee. Reference: Donald Trump and Russia Gate. Yeah that turned out to be true /s. Just the opposite with Hunter Biden. All that was pushed as fake news RE:laptop from hell is actually turning out to be true.

Religion is the Trump card in those countries