Turkish lira plunges as Erdoğan claims mandate to continue divisive rule
The Turkish lira has hit a record low after the election win of the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in a renewed sign of the economic troubles his country is expected to face in the third decade of his rule.
The lira fell against the dollar as Erdoğan pronounced victory. On Monday morning, the US investment bank Morgan Stanley predicted the Turkish currency would drop further this year, reaching 26 or even 28 to the dollar more quickly than previously anticipated.
Addressing his supporters from the balcony of the presidential palace in Ankara on Sunday evening, Erdoğan struck a hawkish tone after his victory, taking swipes at his political opponents and committing to continue his unorthodox economic policies before reciting a nationalist poem.
The Turkish leader was triumphant after a win over his rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, fending off an unprecedented second-round election challenge to beat the head of the opposition with 52.16% of the vote to Kılıçdaroğlu’s 47.84%.
“This result will tempt Erdoğan to say he can stay the course,” said Soner Cagaptay, a biographer of the Turkish leader and an analyst at the US thinktank the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Cagaptay pointed to Erdoğan’s comfortable 4%-winning margin, the result of a divisive election campaign during which both sides deployed misinformation and the incumbent labelled his opponents supporters of terrorism, securing a mandate to continue the same rogue foreign policy decisions and unconventional economic policies of recent years.
Can Semercioğlu of the factchecking organisation Teyit said: “There was a huge amount of disinformation deployed before the elections. It seems we will keep seeing this disinformation across television and social media.”
Erdoğan’s ability to secure a third term in an increasingly polarised country, against a concerted challenge to his leadership, had previously seemed in doubt. Just three months before, his presidential sedan weaved between mounds of rubble where grieving citizens hunted for their relatives’ bodies after two powerful earthquakes that killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey.
Across the country, citizens complained of a biting cost of living crisis, one that Erdoğan recently attempted to remedy temporarily by providing free natural gas for a month and hiking the minimum wage a second time shortly before the election.
The election result, including a win for Erdoğan in regions affected by the earthquakes, suggested that among the electorate he had risen above criticisms often directed at his Justice and Development party (AKP) even if the conditions causing objections to his rule remained.
When pronouncing victory, Erdoğan reiterated promises of free natural gas to his supporters, boasting of Turkey’s economic independence from the International Monetary Fund and repeating his belief that cutting interest rates would reduce, rather than increase, inflation.
“Resolving the problems caused by the increases in prices due to inflation and compensating for the welfare losses will be the most urgent items on the agenda of the upcoming days,” he said, adding: “It is not difficult for us to resolve these problems.”
Erdoğan reiterated a promise to continue a policy of repatriating Syrian refugees after riding a wave of hardline nationalist sentiment that saw the former ultranationalist presidential candidate Sinan Oğan joined him to declare victory in Ankara.
The same nationalist sentiment also resulted in the most rightwing parliament in Turkey’s recent history, prompting observers to warn that Erdoğan was likely to increase attacks on the LGBTQ+ community and women. Declaring victory on top of