Türkiye's economy during Erdogan's 22-year rule

According to the report of Tasnim News Agency International Group, the evaluation of the management of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the leader of the Justice and Development Party, on the economy of Turkey is the subject of economic analysis by many writers of this country. They believe that Erdogan, both as the prime minister and as the president, has always complicated prescriptions for the Turkish economy, which, with the exception of the first few years, did not have a professional flavor and caused damage.

They say that Erdogan was successful in attracting foreign capital and managing inflation in the first years of Akparty's coming to power, but he gradually adopted an authoritarian model and led Turkey to bankruptcy.

Now that a year has passed since the third term of Erdogan's presidency, Turkish economic analysts have gone to the issue of what the history of economic developments in recent years tells and how Erdogan's record and performance should be evaluated.

Türkiye's economy from where to where

As the most widely circulated newspaper in Ankara, Suzjo newspaper has printed two pictures of Erdogan and two columns about price changes in the headline and front page photo.

On the left side of the photo, we see Erdoğan in 2002 when he became Prime Minister after a short legal battle, and on the right side we see Erdoğan in 2024 who became president for the third time.

Based on the statistics mentioned in the report, the changes are as follows:

1 US dollar in 2002 was 1 lira and 67 khorosh and now it is close to 33 lira. Euro has also reached 35 lira from 1 lira and 66 kuroush. Each liter of gasoline in 2002 was only 1 lira and 62 khorosh, but now it is close to 44 lira and diesel has also reached 41 from 1 and 48.

In 2002, the year Erdogan became prime minister, each kilo of red meat in Turkey was only 9 liras, and now it has exceeded 600 liras! Leaving aside the taxes and bank interest, every 1 loaf of bread has increased from the meager rate of 18 ghourosh to 10 lira in these 22 years and has become more expensive by more than 52 times.

Every US dollar in 2002, when Erdogan came to power, was less than 2 lira, and now it exceeds 33 lira.

Mahvi Yilmaz, one of Turkey's famous economists, talks about the process of economic developments in the last 22 years, in addition to regression and “melting” and analysis of forces.

In one of his economic analysis, he wrote: “In 2000 AD and in the last year of the 20th century, Turkey ranked 17th in the world in terms of GDP ranking. But unfortunately, at the end of 2021, it fell to the 21st rank. The World Economic Outlook Database of the International Monetary Fund shows that during the ruling of the Justice and Development Party, Turkey has been on a downward path year after year and climbed to the 16th place several times, but with the adoption of Erdogan's totalitarian and authoritarian policy, then Since the change of the country's political system from parliamentary to presidential in 2018, we fell to the 20th place.

According to Turkish economic analysts, the AKP government achieved very good growth in the first 12 years of its rule, and the high growth that started after the crisis of 2001 seems to have contracted as a result of the global crisis in 2009. Has become.

Türkiye successfully overcame the effects of the global crisis in just one year. But after a few years, especially in 2019 and 2020, the voices of income analysts warned about the accumulation of foreign debt and the bankruptcy of the country's economy.

Before Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party came to power, the average unemployment rate in Turkey was between 7.5 and 8 percent, and it can be considered the normal unemployment rate for Turkey. But with the economic crisis of 2001 and just before the AKP came to power, the unemployment rate increased to 11%. Although Erdogan's government allocated a significant part of its foreign exchange resources to job creation, it was never able to reduce the unemployment figure to single digits.

Despite the average growth of more than 5% during the ruling of the Justice and Development Party, the unemployment rate, which was an average of 8%, reached 10.6% and did not decrease.

Was the previous government to blame?

The Ejvit-Yilmaz-Baghceli coalition government was practically a crisis-stricken and bankrupt government, and the Justice and Development Party won in difficult circumstances. But the important point here is that before Erdogan came to power, the support of the International Monetary Fund was included in Turkey's situation, and with international aid, Erdogan was able to raise inflation to 8% by 2008, which was an ideal and admirable figure. But after that golden era, the situation worsened year by year and Turkey even experienced 3-digit inflation above 100%.

According to Turkish economic experts, one of the biggest damages to Turkey's economy in the past few years was the consequences of the 2018 referendum, during which Erdogan practically removed the parliament from the important decisions of the country and with a lot of authority and without any kind of institutional supervision. took the helm of the presidency of the presidential system.

Of course, Erdoğan did another thing in parallel with that, which was turning to patriarchy and employing his son-in-law, friends and relatives in very sensitive administrative positions of the country. In such a way that at least 11 close friends and comrades of Erdogan became members of the board of directors of the most important banks in Turkey, without having any special management and economic experience.

During this period, the Central Bank of Turkey lost its independence and the bank interest rate was rapidly reduced in order to satisfy the conservatives in favor of the ruling party.

Other important economic events in this period were:

1. An unprecedented increase in the amount of Türkiye's foreign debts.

2. Inaugurating tens of expensive mega projects without economic justification in order to get votes for the ruling party.

3. Luxury in the pillars of the government, building palaces and using airplanes and luxury cars in the presidential institution and ministries.

4. Unprecedented increase in Turkey's military expenses due to its military and show of power in Syria, Iraq, Mediterranean and Africa.

5. The emergence of the most unprecedented amount of budget deficit and foreign trade deficit.

Where did the privatization income go?

In a few years, Erdogan sold a significant part of the companies, state-owned factories, lands and state funds under the pretext of privatization, and an amount between 70 and 75 billion dollars was earned by the government. But according to Turkish economist Mahvi Eyilmaz, this money was mostly spent on the construction of luxury buildings and significant expenses such as the construction of unnecessary airports and the construction of unused bridges.

Many academic figures in Turkey believe that the economic problems and Erdoğan's wrong policies have caused the class gap in this country to reach an alarming state.

Professor Dr. Ozgur Demirtaş, a famous economist, believes that the government should think about justice more than anything else and take the country out of the current unfair situation. He believes that the independence of the country's economic institutions and valuing justice is the element that Erdogan has neglected in the last 10 years.

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