“As a Muslim, I will continue to do all that religious decrees require,” answered the president to his detractors, while the Turkish book lost 45% of his value this year, particularly penalizing households more modest.
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The Turkish book is volatile, the prices of food burst and many Turks are forced to form long queues to buy price-subsidized bread in most major cities in the country. Their purchasing power melts every day a little more under the effect of the fantasy monetary policy led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Convinced that lower rates is the best cure for inflation, it focuses on a cheaper currency to promote growth and stimulate exports.
Current from the global trend, when most central banks fall under the rent of money to curb inflation, the Central Bank of Turkey has dropped its key rate four times in four months, under the pressure of Mr. Erdogan. Result, the Turkish book lost more than 45% of its value against the dollar this year, which caused the prices of imported products (energy, raw materials, fertilizers, chemicals, medicines, electronic components) indispensable to Turkish companies , farmers and households.
These are the great losers of the “new economic model” imposed by the president. Unlike entrepreneurs, who have seen their exports reach a record level in November – an increase of 33.4% from 2020 – the Turks accumulate the disappointments. Their economies evaporate, their purchasing power is stretching, while the cost of basic products continues to climb.
The most modest homes, which so far formed the base of the Islamic-Conservative electorate, can no longer boil the pot. In Istanbul, the queues for bread are visible both in the historical peninsula of Fatih and in the peripheral districts of the megacity of 16 million inhabitants.
A “PEOPE BREAD” two times cheaper
“The bread has become the basis of my diet, I can not buy anything else. The meat and vegetables are unaffordable”, murmurs a young student, hood on his head, who refuses to say his name while ‘She is queeling in the district of Sisli, on the European shore of Istanbul. It comes every day at the municipal kiosk to buy the “people’s bread”, sold twice cheaper than in bakeries.
Managed by the municipality of Istanbul, in the hands of the Kemalist opposition since 2019, 393 kiosks scattered throughout the city propose, for 1.25 Turkish pound (about 7 cents of euro), this bread runs 250 grams, compared to 2.50 pounds for a bread often lower in the baker. Marketed since the late 1970s, the “People’s Bread” has never been asked.
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