Battered Turkish economy puts a powerful Erdogan to the test - The New York Times

By Carlotta Gall

Hobbled by restrictions on his tobacco shop, Ozgur Akbas helped organize a demonstration in Istanbul last month to protest what he called unfair rules imposed on merchants during the pandemic.

“There are many friends who have shut down,” he said in an interview. “And some are on the verge of suicide.”

Turks had been grappling with a falling currency and double-digit inflation for two years when the pandemic hit in March, sharply worsening the country’s deep recession. Nine months in, as a second wave of the virus sweeps through Turkey, there are signs that a significant portion of the population is overwhelmed by debt and increasingly going hungry.

MetroPoll Research, a respected polling organization, found in a recent survey that 25 percent of respondents said they could not meet their basic needs. Mr. Akbas said he sees it daily among his customers.

“People are at the point of explosion,” he said.

For President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who this year had drawn attention at home and abroad with an aggressive foreign policy and military interventions, things suddenly came to a head in November.

The government admitted that it had been understating the extent of Turkey’s coronavirus outbreak by not recording asymptomatic cases, and new data revealed record infection levels in the country.

Mr. Erdogan was notably slow in congratulating President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. on his victory. Analysts expect a Biden administration to be tougher on Mr. Erdogan’s sliding record on human rights and democratic standards.

To deal with Turkey’s spiraling economy, Mr. Erdogan has recently moved with a ruthlessness that is usually carefully hidden from view. He appointed a new head of the Central Bank, and when Mr. Erdogan’s finance minister, who is also his son-in-law and heir apparent, resigned in objection, the president surprised many by accepting the resignation and replacing him.

Then the president promised economic and judicial reforms, and even floated the possibility of releasing political prisoners — which some in his own party advocate to improve relations with Europe and the United States.

In mid-December, Mr. Erdogan announced a new aid package to tide over small businesses and tradesmen for three months. Last weekend he dropped into a bakery to make some purchases in a show of support for merchants.

But critics have described Mr. Erdogan’s various maneuvers as too little, too late.

The former finance minister, Berat Albayrak, may have been a convenient scapegoat — little is known of what really went down inside the Presidential Palace — but his dramatic fall from grace and complete disappearance from public life indicate a more serious course correction. It seems the economic crunch and the consequences for Mr. Erdogan’s own fate have become paramount concerns.

Mehmet Ali Kulat, who conducts opinion polls for political parties, including for Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, said the president watches opinion polls assiduously.