The effects of the February 6 earthquakes on the political preference of the voters in the general elections: "the case of Kahramanmaraş"

The double earthquakes that occurred at 04:17 on February 6, 2023 are called the February 6 earthquakes. The earthquakes that affected 11 provinces of Turkey caused a deep trauma throughout the country, especially the people living in the region, and negatively affected people psycho-socially. The effectiveness of the search and rescue and aid delivery efforts to the region during and after the disaster was revealed by comparing the results of the general election held on May 14, 2023 with the results of the general election held on June 24, 2018. The research problem of this thesis is to determine the effect of the February 6 earthquakes on the political preference of the voters in Kahramanmaraş province. In the conceptual framework, first of all, the issues of disaster and types of disasters were explained with the data obtained from secondary sources, a literature review was made in the literature by using the articles written on the earthquake reality of Turkey, and then the factors affecting the voter and voter behavior were discussed and in the 2023 general elections held after the February 6 earthquakes, whether the voters made any changes in their political preferences in relation to the February 6 earthquakes Survey studies were conducted. By comparing the results obtained as a result of the semi-structured interview with the political representatives of the city with the analysis of the general election results held on 24 June 2018 and the general election results held on 14 May 2023, it was seen that earthquakes did not have a significant effect on the political preference of the voters in the research measure. The province of Kahramanmaraş, which came to the fore due to the fact that it was the epicenter of the disaster and the election results, was specially selected in the study in the earthquake zone affecting eleven provinces, and the study was completed with the survey conducted in the city center of Kahramanmaraş and all other districts and the reporting of the data obtained from the results obtained by interviewing the representatives of the four political parties with the most votes in the province or central district. Since the study is the first in its field, it is expected to contribute to the literature on how much the disaster affects voter behavior in the researches to be carried out on the socio-psychological factors that determine voter behavior, and to determine whether the major disaster, which is described as the February 6 earthquakes, and the activities carried out after the disaster have an effect on the political preferences of the voters.