Integrity Score 365
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Optimists may point out that AKP’s parliamentary lead has fallen. Yet Erdoğan may be in a better position to control parliament after the second round of the election than he was before. The imperial presidency, which he introduced, has weakened parliament’s role, and the opposition will be even more divided there. CHP has fewer seats, because the opposition fragmented further, and its leader, Kılıçdaroğlu, gave some of CHP’s safe seats away to smaller partner parties to hold the opposition coalition together and unite it behind his candidacy.
Moreover, the Turkish economy is in dire straits. Aggregate productivity has stagnated for more than 15 years, and a general deterioration of economic institutions has meant that inflation is barely under control. Both non-financial corporations and banks have bad balance sheets, auguring a more serious meltdown in the near future. After running out of foreign reserves in 2021, the central bank has become dependent on support from friendly countries, and AKP’s election-related public spending has drained fiscal resources at a time when the government will need massive financing to rebuild earthquake-devastated regions.
It is difficult to see how the economy can be normalized without massive resource inflows. These are unlikely to come without a strong signal that the government will adopt more conventional policies.
But AKP and its allies in the bureaucracy do not have the expertise to shepherd the economy through these difficult times. Several economists and bureaucrats who were sympathetic to the party’s conservatism and were willing to work with it have been driven out of Erdoğan’s circle, in favor of yes-men.
(Continued in Support post…)