Erdogan pays electoral price for Turkey’s tumbling economy
ANKARA: After a decade and a half of dominance built on Turkey’s buoyant growth Tayyip Erdogan has paid a heavy electoral price for an economic slump and will make changes to his government to halt the damage, senior officials in his party said.
Erdogan saw his Islamist-rooted AK Party lose the capital Ankara in Sunday’s local elections and appeared set for defeat in Turkey’s largest city Istanbul – stunning reversals in two bastions of the party since he took power in 2003.
The setbacks came despite a relentless two-month campaign by the president who addressed up to eight rallies a day, condemned his opponents as terrorists and warned that the vote was a “matter of survival” for Turkey.
The secularist Republican People’s Party ( CHP) overcame overwhelming media support for the AKP and an environment which European observers said fell short of requirements for “genuine democratic elections”.
The AKP said it would appeal against the results in both cities.
Turkey has experienced years of rapid economic growth under Erdogan, underpinned by a construction boom and cheap loans, that have driven living standards ever higher and ensured the AKP won votes well beyond its core constituency of pious and conservative Turks.
But the recent economic troubles took a toll on party support, two AK Party sources said, after the lira slumped against the dollar last year, inflation jumped to 20 per cent, unemployment climbed and the economy tipped into recession.
“We saw the impact of the economy in the field, because there was serious unease,” one of the sources said, adding that Istanbul accounted for 40 per cent of Turkey’s economy, meaning that any slowdown would hit the city hard.
In total, three party sources told Reuters Erdogan was likely to implement cabinet changes in response to the setback, but gave no details.
“There will certainly be changes in some places,” one source said.
After Erdogan won elections last June which ushered in a powerful new executive presidency, he also appointed his son-in-law Berat Albayrak as Finance and Treasury Minister.
The sources declined to say whether Albayrak’s position might be affected.
“If ( Erdogan) cannot create a solution, it’s inevitable that there will be greater losses in the period ahead,” another party source said.
Erdogan appeared to recognise the scale of the challenge ahead, pledging on Sunday night to use the four years until Turkey’s next national elections to carry out economic reform based on free market rules.
“We now have a four- and- ahalf-year uninterrupted period to work,” he said.
However, economists say the president has made similar reform pledges after all recent elections, before focusing instead on short-term fixes. This time, his economic choices are narrowed by the conflicting priorities of supporting a fragile currency and restarting a stalled economy.
Turkey’s benchmark interest rate of 24 per cent barely keeps the currency stable and at the same time puts a prohibitive cost on borrowing for Turkish firms. — Reuters