“Why would I want an electric car if I can’t even pay the electric bill?” asks Mehmet, a resident of Kasimpasa who goes to the mayor’s office in this neighborhood where Recep Tayyip Erdogan was born to ask for help. Wherever the eye is fixed, there are images of a president who has made the premiere of TOOG one of his campaign landmarks, the first electric car in a country where citizens are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet. However, the economic crisis casts a shadow over Erdogan, who is facing the second round of the presidential elections as the most likely candidate, according to opinion polls. In front of him will be opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu.
Mystery grows in the streets before the next panorama after the presidential elections and everyone who can convert their liras into dollars or euros. The net foreign exchange reserves of the Turkish Central Bank declined for the first time since 2002, and the opposition accuses the president of emptying the reserves to prevent the collapse of the value of the lira against the dollar before the elections. In September 2021, the dollar was equivalent to 8 liras, after one year it was 19 liras, and now it exceeds 20 liras, and the direct result of this reduction is strong inflation.
“The main reason why the economic crisis has not affected Erdogan as much as expected is that people prioritize security over the economy and (anti-LGTBQ) family values over bread on the table,” says the analyst. Amdat Oner. This researcher at the University of Florida’s Jacques D. Gordon Institute bridges Argentina and warns of the dangers of a Turkish “corralito” because “both countries have high inflation and have negative net reserves. In Argentina, this has led to the creation of multiple exchange rates. The government imposes foreign currency controls on the population I expect similar cases in Turkey after May 28. The black market has really started to emerge in the past few weeks and I think currency controls will be introduced, which will deepen the black market currency depreciation.”
For now, limit $5,000 (4600€ to change) for companies as a maximum daily amount they can use from their account.
Interests and Islam
Turkey’s inflation rate has reached 44 percent 85 percent In October, however, on the eve of the final appointment with the polls, the central bank announced that it was keeping interest rates at 8.5 percent. Erdogan is the one who controls the country’s economy and does not intend to deviate from his strategy of keeping interest rates low “because his religious ideological interest is haram (sin) and he will continue this approach in full,” one bank explains. An international expert with more than two decades of experience in the country.
Erdogan’s theory is that high interest rates generate inflation and no one in his inner circle objected to a single decision for a long time. What has caused him to persist so far is the uncontrolled rise in prices to levels that have made the price of onions or cucumbers a subject of electoral debate.
Gulf money
The crisis is sinking, but Erdogan found Gulf countries that he did not want to be rescued and sent money to solve treasury tensions in the short term. In an interview with CNN-Turk, the president accused the opposition of resorting to “shadow forces” with the aim of collapsing the economy and revealed that Some Gulf countries They helped ease the “short term” situation of the central bank. Erdoğan, certain of his victory in the elections, confirmed that he would visit the leaders of each of these countries to thank them for the infusion of money.
All little help in the face of a major election before which the president has thrown the house out the window to pay the nation’s gas bills, raising the minimum wage for his appointment 8,500 lire (about 460 euros) or early retirement of civil servants.
The Economist Bilge Yilmaz One opposition member took to Twitter to warn that if Erdogan wins, “the economy will stop, businesses will go bankrupt, the black market will flourish and unemployment will grow. This election is the last chance to save our economy.”
There is no space in the Turkish media for these messages and they only show the progress the government has made in recent decades, with preferential space for innovations such as TOGG, the car that brought Mehmet down the street from Kasim Pasha’s bitterness. The vast majority of the country teaches in Turkish, does not speak another language and follows the national media. They do not know the rate of inflation or human rights violations, the only thing that exists in this part of Turkey is Erdogan who has turned the country into a military power and it will be their vote for Erdogan.
