Inflation in Turkey: anger is rising in the population, one year before the elections

The Egyptian bazaar in Istanbul, in April 2022, in full inflationary pressure.

AP - Francisco Seco

Text by: RFI Follow

2 mins

73.5% is the inflation rate in May, over one year, in Turkey.

This is the official rate, delivered by the national statistics agency, but disputed by a group of independent economists who place it rather above 160%.

It is, in any case, an unprecedented level for more than twenty years and the coming to power of Erdogan's party.

It causes discontent in the population, one year before the elections.

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With our correspondent in Istanbul,

In recent months, soaring energy prices and the weakness of the pound, the national currency, have undermined the purchasing power of Turks.

The price of non-alcoholic foodstuffs, for example, jumped 92% over one year.

Salih, a cafe owner, no longer knows whether to laugh or cry.

I've seen cucumbers at 35 pounds a kilo.

Peppers at 40. If we buy them, it will no longer be to eat them, but to put them in jars and admire them as precious objects!

I'm not kidding, here we are.

The authorities seem all the more powerless to fight inflation since Recep Tayyip Erdogan has ordered the Central Bank, which is supposed to be independent, not to raise its rates, contrary to what most central banks are doing at the moment.

For economist Mustafa Sönmez, the Turkish president is making a political choice.

Erdogan is reluctant to take measures to fight inflation because of an electoral calculation.

He knows that by taking measures to cool the economy, he would certainly lower inflation.

But this would put companies in difficulty and push them to lay off.

He does not want a rise in unemployment, he favors growth.

This is what drives him to act like this.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, struggling in the polls, boasts daily of his country's growth rate: 7.3% in the first quarter.

As for inflation, he promises a slowdown from this month of June.

►Read again: Still out of control, inflation is now close to 70% in Turkey

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• Turkey

• Economic crisis

• Recep Tayyip Erdogan