Why does President Erdoğan resist a full lockdown?

Duvar English

Turkish journalist Murat Yetkin, claimed that both the Ministry of Health and the members of the scientific committee failed to convince President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for a country-wide full lockdown to slow down the spread of the coronavirus in Turkey.

In an article he penned at his personal blog on March 24, Yetkin analyzed the steps taken by Erdoğan's government taken so far to fight the COVID-19 outbreak and voiced common questions that have arisen on how Erdoğan manages the crisis.

"Rumor has it in the political backstage that Koca’s press conference on March 23 was penned with annexes from the speechwriters of the Presidential Palaces, as well as certain penitentiaries in Istanbul. That the minister forgot to read out the last two lines of the last page of his speech and added them afterward once it was time to take questions, could be seen as an indicator that some parts were mounted to the speech later on," he wrote.

Reminding that a penalty reduction is being considered for sexual assault criminals in Turkey, Yetkin asked whether Osman Kavala, Selahattin Demirtaş and other politicians and journalists will be kept in prison while rapists, drug dealers, and the mafia members are released.

"The most important of the things we don’t know is why Erdoğan and his close entourage is against the idea of imposing a general curfew when it’s the first factor in slowing the spread of the disease. Is it because there is an obligation to cooperate with the army during a curfew? Is it because they don’t want to further lose the support of tradesmen?," Yetkin asked.

Yetkin's piece in full can be reached here.