2024-04-03 13:55 United News Network Yang Tinghui Erdogan banners on the streets of Istanbul. Before the election, Erdogan claimed that he would participate in the 2024 Turkish local elections…
On March 31, 2024, Türkiye will hold a new local election. After the election results came out, foreign media interpreted it as a major victory for the Turkish opposition. However, as early as after the 2019 Turkish local elections, foreign media could not wait to predict that the opposition’s victory would be expected to overturn the 2023 Turkish presidential election, but the results disappointed them. How should the significance of this local election result for Turkish politics be interpreted? Compared with the development trend after the 2019 local elections, what are the similarities and differences between the current situation in Turkey and that time?
The 2023 Turkish presidential election was originally regarded by the outside world as the opposition’s best hope of overthrowing strongman President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been in power for more than 20 years. However, with Erdogan’s victory and re-election, the Western world appears to have A bit overwhelmed.Of course, some foreign media commentedemphasize, the West cannot be dismayed by the results of Turkey’s presidential election without trying to maintain a certain transactional and cooperative relationship with Erdogan. However, overall, the foreign media’s enthusiasm for paying attention to Turkey’s political situation has obviously declined because the results of the Turkish presidential election were not as expected. Before Türkiye held local elections this time, most foreign media no longer explicitly stated that they were optimistic about the Turkish opposition’s victory.But in any case, there are alsoCommentThink of this Turkish local election as a precursor to the next presidential election.
Erdogan claimed before the election that the 2024 Turkish local elections would be the last election he would participate in. In fact, there have been repeated reports of Erdogan’s poor health in recent years. This time Erdogan expressed his intention to withdraw from politics, and there is inevitably speculation that it is related to his poor health.However, Erdogan was only talking to the Turkish Youth Foundationduring the meetingThis is mentioned rather than made through any formal official channels.byrepublican people’s partyThe opposition led byemphasize, Erdogan claimed that he was withdrawing from the line of fire, which was just his tactic to attract votes before the election. Turkey’s local elections this time have been likened to a national referendum on Erdogan’s re-election as president about a year later.
On March 31, 2024, Turkey held a new local election. The picture shows a vote for…
washingtoninstitute for near east policySoner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Studies Program, before the electionanalyzeif Erdogan leads the 2023 presidential and congressional elections againjustice and development partyIf he wins the local elections, then the Turkish opposition will no longer have any politicians posing a political threat to him.However, if the Justice and Development Party loses in this Turkish local election – especially the Republican People’s PartyImamoglu(Ekrem İmamoğlu) was re-elected as the mayor of Istanbul – this means that the Justice and Development Party lacks new political stars with the potential to take over Erdogan, and Erdogan will face the risk of total loss in the 2028 presidential election.
To be fair, there is nothing new in similar views. A large number of comments have long emphasized that the Istanbul mayoral election is the top priority of Turkey’s regional elections; before 2019, the Justice and Development Party had monopolized the Istanbul mayoral seat for 25 years – Erdogan was elected in 1994 He won the mayoral election of Istanbul in 2011 and then rose to his current high position. Erdogan also shouted to his supporters in 2017: “If we lose Istanbul, we will lose Turkey.” After the 2019 local elections, Turkey’s three largest cities, Istanbul,Ankaraand yiZmirThe mayoral positions all fell to the opposition, but Erdogan did not lose power as quickly and comprehensively as some predicted.
However, the biggest difference between this Turkish local election and 2019 is that for the first time since 2002, the Justice and Development Party’s total number of votes nationwide was lower than that of the opposition.“Financial Times”Citing news from the state-run news organization “Anadolu Agency” in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, the Justice and Development Party’s total vote share in this local election was only about 36%, which was lower than the Republican People’s Party’s about 38%; for comparison, in 2019 local elections In the election, the Justice and Development Party received about 44% of the vote, while the Republican People’s Party only received about 30%.
In addition, before Turkey held local elections in 2024, Erdogan threatened to regain power in Turkey’s three major cities. However, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey’s five major cities: Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir,BursaandAdanaAll were defeated in the election.
This Turkish local election has been likened to a national referendum on Erdogan’s re-election as president about a year later. The picture shows the soil…
▌Inflation continues to build up public complaints about poor disaster relief, adding fuel to the fire
Most interpretations of the latest Turkish local election results also link Erdogan’s election defeat to Turkey’s severe currency depreciation and price inflation in the past year. In fact, as early as after Turkey’s first round of presidential elections in 2023, analysts have pointed out that Erdogan’s re-election will inevitably worsen Turkey’s economic situation.
First, the market may express concerns about Turkey’s economic prospects if Erdogan continues to be in power, thus accelerating the speed of divestment. Secondly, Turkey may have missed the best opportunity to suppress inflation-Turkey has been experiencing currency depreciation and debt crisis since 2018. According to the basic logic of market economics, interest rate increases by the central bank will increase the cost of borrowing from banks for individuals and companies, and the money flowing in the market will decrease due to reduced borrowing demand, thus achieving the effect of suppressing inflation. However, Erdogan condemned that most of the people lobbying Turkey to raise interest rates have bad intentions and may contain Western conspiracy to undermine Turkey’s economic development. Erdogan even fired all Turkish central bank officials who disagreed with him before 2023.
Between March 2021 and February 2023, the Turkish Central Bank lowered interest rates from 19% to 8.5%. Erdogan insists that lowering interest rates will help stimulate investment in Türkiye, while raising interest rates will cause the tragedy of economic deflation. As Erdogan insisted on cutting interest rates despite Turkey’s economic crisis, the Turkish lira unsurprisingly depreciated rapidly. In the context of global inflation, Turkey’s inflation rate has further intensified – in October 2022, Turkey’s single-month inflation rate soared to 85.51%. Since then, Turkey’s inflation rate has eased slightly, but until March 2023, Turkey’s monthly inflation rate still exceeded 50%.
Before the 2023 Turkish presidential election, Erdogan ordered the purchase of Turkish lira using the foreign exchange reserves of the Turkish Central Bank in an attempt to stabilize the depreciation of the Turkish lira. However, this approach is costly and will only drain the foreign exchange reserves of the Turkish treasury and is unsustainable.Although Erdogan stopped the relevant bizarre policies after being elected in 2023, and adopted variousMehmet.Himsek(Mehmet Simsek) serves as Minister of Treasury and Finance of Turkey andAlcon(Hafize Gaye Erkan) serves as the governor of the Turkish Central Bank; Turkey has also changed its past stubborn low interest rate policy, but the depreciation trend of the Turkish lira continues.That is to sayTurkey’s interest rate hikes still cannot catch up with the extent of inflation, so it cannot effectively suppress the inflation rate.
▌Extended reading: “Interest policy roller coaster: Why did the Turkish government give up “low interest rates to save the economy”? 〉
As early as after Turkey’s first round of presidential elections in 2023, analysts have pointed out that Erdogan’s re-election will inevitably affect Turkey’s economic situation…
The Turkish lira is likely to have fallen into depreciationvicious circle, that is: after the Turkish lira depreciates, the public becomes less and less interested in holding the lira. They are eager to convert the Turkish lira into other currencies to maintain its value. Then the market demand for the Turkish lira further declines, causing the Turkish lira to continue to depreciate. Furthermore, Turkey is currently a super-region country whose total import value is higher than its total export value, which is very detrimental to stabilizing the value of the Turkish lira. What’s more, Turkey is a huge energy importer. In the past two years, global oil prices have soared due to war, and the depreciation of the Turkish lira has greatly worsened.
Ironically, in November 2023, Erdogan forcibly raised the minimum wage of Turkish civil servants by 49%, against the opinions of Turkish Finance Minister Simsek and Turkish Central Bank Governor Irkan. Chen Wanyu, another author of “Corner International”, published an article in January 2024 and pointed out that the “beneficiary” people did not feel happy at all. The reason was that the depreciation of the Turkish lira and the extent of inflation caused their actual salaries to fall instead of rising.
What’s more, Erdogan’s government hastily raised the minimum wage with visible hands, which will only further worsen Turkey’s inflation problem. It is also worth mentioning that Alkon resigned as governor of the Central Bank of Turkey in February 2024. There are different speculations about her resignation, but what is certain is that she could not save Turkey’s economy despite her best efforts during her tenure; her departure will inevitably lead to more speculation that Turkey’s economic situation is terminally ill.
Although the major earthquake in February 2023 failed to be the last straw that brought down Erdogan, its huge economic damage to Turkey is almost known to everyone.On the eve of the first anniversary of the earthquake, Ufuk Gunes Bebek, assistant professor at the University of Birmingham, UK, published an article in “The Conversation”emphasize, the areas affected by the earthquake originally accounted for 13.3% of Turkey’s total employment rate, but the earthquake made about 220,000 workplaces unusable, causing Turkey’s working hours to drop by 16%. The article also mentioned that more than 230,000 people affected by the major earthquake tried to apply for unemployment benefits in 2023, but less than 40% met the application qualifications set by the Erdogan government.
In addition, the Erdogan government has been criticized for its poor disaster relief efforts in the past year. Although Erdogan continues to criticize the opposition for political smears, the slow pace of reconstruction in Turkey’s disaster-stricken areas has indeed worsened the situation for Turkey’s national economy.Furthermore, another article in “The Conversation” claimed that Türkiye’s post-disaster reconstruction work also hasSuspicion of rashnesswhich may pave the way for another large-scale man-made disaster in Türkiye in the future.
Although the major earthquake in February 2023 failed to be the last straw that brought down Erdogan, it did great damage to Turkey’s huge economy…
▌President Erdogan’s remaining term is long and the opposition cannot rest in peace
However, Türkiye’s opposition still faces many worries after winning the latest local elections. In the 2019 Istanbul mayoral election, after Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party lost for the first time, he successfully overturned the election results through judicial appeals. Later, Imamoglu won again in the re-election. However, Erdogan did not soften his approach to dealing with the opposition. Imamoglu was originally one of the most popular presidential candidates among the opposition, but Erdogan deprived him of him through judicial means in December 2022. right to run for president.
When analyzing the results of the Turkish presidential election in 2023, the author pointed out that Erdogan had used political, administrative and judicial means to modify the rules of the presidential election to his advantage before the election. In addition, he had monopolized the domestic mainstream media for a long time, so even if this time The Turkish opposition once again won regional elections, but still has to face various unfair election rules, administrative procedures and judicial systems set by Erdogan.
It is worth emphasizing that Çaptay published this article in Foreign Affairs as early as 2022.articleIt is pointed out that even if Erdogan loses the presidential election, he can still resort to judicial and political violence to intimidate the opposition and not recognize the result of the election defeat. Since Erdogan was eventually re-elected as president, the speculation cannot be confirmed. However, it is no secret that Erdogan is ruthless in dealing with political opponents. Now that he has suffered a defeat in local elections that may endanger his future safety, he has the opportunity to preemptively eliminate opposition political opponents in the remaining four years of his presidential term.
Before the election, Captay alsoexpected, if Erdogan loses in the local elections, he will redouble his populist policies domestically and internationally in order to prevent the opposition from continuing to rise. As a result, Türkiye’s prospects will face greater uncertainty.
2023 marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Turkey. Observers have long pointed out that the successive leaders of the Republic of Turkey did not end well. What will be Erdogan’s final fate?
Ekrem İmamoğlu of the Republican People’s Party won re-election in this local election… Yang Tinghui
Former researcher at the Hong Kong Institute of International Studies.
In-Depth Column Türkiye
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2024-04-03 05:55:07
