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ISTANBUL — Faced with a difficult election just months away, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has unleashed a wave of public spending — to help the millions in his country struggling with economic hardship and to ensure their votes go his way .
The temptations – aimed at students, professionals and business owners, commuters and others – included tax breaks, cheap credit, energy subsidies and even promises of no road and bridge tolls. Their rapid introduction has spelled out voter turnout for Erdogan, a popular leader who has dominated Turkish politics for two decades and played a key mediating role during the Russian war in Ukraine. Despite his reputation at home and abroad, he feels more vulnerable than ever to the challenge of the opposition as publics battered by historically high inflation in many quarters cry out for change.
“The economy is gnawing at its base,” said Berk Esen, a professor of political science at Istanbul’s Sabanci University.
Last month Erdogan abolished a retirement age limit, allowing more than 2 million workers to retire early and receive pensions – a measure he strongly opposed just a few years ago. “Why early retirement?” he said in November 2019, describing the benefit as a measure promoted by nefarious lobbyists and such a massive financial drain that it had crippled nations in Europe.
“I will not participate in anything that harms my nation, even if it loses us an election,” he said at the time.
But so much has changed. The President and his ruling Justice and Development Party have suffered an erosion of popular support during a long economic crisis marked by soaring household prices and the collapse of the currency. The disaster has presented Erdogan’s political opponents with a chance, with opinion polls showing some opposition figures have a slight advantage over the president in the upcoming elections.
The vote is seen here as a customs game in which voters, including disgruntled members of the president’s own base, are up for grabs. Erdogan recently said elections, including for parliament, would take place in mid-May.
Economic measures announced in recent months – “good news,” as Erdogan calls them – included an increase in the minimum wage to $450 a month, a doubling of the increase from a year earlier. Erdogan has offered low-interest mortgages, slashed interest rates on student loans and touted a $10 billion support package for businesses.
On Monday, Erdogan said a draft law would allow “citizens and businesses” to restructure debts to the government, including removing small tax fines. The carrots aren’t just financial: last week he announced the elimination of driver’s license penalties for all but the worst offences, such as drunk driving, and said about 10,000 suspended driver’s licenses would be restored.
But the economy “will certainly be the biggest issue in the upcoming election,” Esen said. “If Erdogan can think of a way to address this crisis — to get voters across that he will save them from the economic wreckage,” he said, the president could potentially persuade disaffected members of his own base to return home — especially outside of big cities where the money would keep flowing. Since late summer, polls have shown that Erdogan’s popularity has risen by a few percentage points, Esen added, an increase he attributed to the government’s economic offers.
For many others, however, the government’s spending spree has made little dent. Nurten Caylak, 44, said the minimum wage her husband earns barely covered her rent, which has risen from about $100 a month to $300 a month in the past year.
“This is what Turkey is about to face,” she said as she went to work in Istanbul’s Kurtulus district earlier this month: her first job in a clothing store, which she took a few months ago to supplement household income. She indicated that she had voted for Erdogan and his party in the past.
“I vote differently in this election,” she said.
But Erdogan has been helped by his political opponents, who have so far failed to name a candidate who will challenge him and offer a “clear alternative,” Esen said.
“The opposition had a chance to deal a heavy blow to Erdogan, but they didn’t really make it,” he added.
The Turkish leader has also used sweeping, autocratic powers to quash challenges to his rule, including a years-long government crackdown on the news media that has stifled independent reporting. Erdogan’s political opponents – including a pro-Kurdish party and one of the president’s main political rivals, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu – have also been targeted by prosecutors.
In December, a Turkish court sentenced Imamoglu to prison for “insulting public figures” – charges derided by human rights groups as politically motivated and which, if upheld by higher courts, would bar the mayor from public office and disqualify him from office would prevent races against Erdogan.
But inflation remains a key weakness for Erdogan. It peaked at more than 80 percent in the fall before falling to 64 percent in December. As prices of common goods have skyrocketed, inflation has brought “about a 5 percent drop in real wages” since 2019, said Erinc Yeldan, an economics professor at Istanbul’s Kadir Has University.
“People have no defenses against inflation,” he said.
The government’s response amounts to “arbitrary, ad hoc, unpredictable interventions in the labor market in the form of wage support programs, the funding of which is very doubtful,” he said. “Politically, it is colored as an Erdogan grant – Erdogan’s gratitude. Who bears these costs economically at the end of the day?” he said, referring to the billions in government spending.
Metin Ozkan, 23, owner of an online sales company, hinted that raising the minimum wage was meaningless as prices seemed to increase every few months. Other recently announced government spending — like the pension program — is “a burden that rests on the shoulders of the youth,” he said.
In Istanbul’s Fatih district, Ersin Fuat Ulku, a 40-year-old manager of a restaurant chain, said any government support could barely keep up with skyrocketing prices, like those on his menu, which have risen 13-fold in the past year.
“There is no middle class anymore. There’s only very rich or very poor,” he said. He plans to move to Germany, he said, despite opposition from his wife, an accountant. But he thought of her little son.
“She’s going to have to agree to this eventually,” he said. “The future here is dark.”
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