Despite speculation that Turkey’s crucial dual polls would be postponed following the quakes that devastated one-seventh of the country, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisted Wednesday that they will be held on May 14 as he previously declared. 

“God willing, the nation will do what is necessary on May 14,” Erdogan told the parliamentary group of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) as he outlined an ambitious and rapid rehabilitation project for the devastated region.  

Erdogan is expected to center his campaign on “rebuilding Turkey together” as he bids for a third decade in power. Despite angry accusations of a tardy response to the killer quakes and a major tent-donation scandal, the president repeatedly tours the quake-devastated zones with promises of a hasty — and risky — reconstruction and maladroit gestures of handing out small cash donations on the spot. 

“As he heads to the elections, Erdogan will couple his ‘let’s build Turkey together’ discourse with religious rhetoric that the earthquake was an act of God, thus seeking to exonerate his government and the bureaucracy for its late and inadequate response,” said Soner Cagaptay, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the author of  “A Sultan in Autumn” on Erdogan’s rise in Turkey. “In the next three months, we will see the two faces of Erdogan: the compassionate father who will embrace the victims of the quake, and the authoritarian who will crack down on the opposition and the critics of his narrative.”