Politicians sacrificing the economy again

Turkey is again experiencing, in a much heavier manner, a disaster it has gone through before: Politicians are blatantly sacrificing the economy. 

At the beginning of the week Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, after meeting with Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli, said there was no coalition possibility with the MHP. Since talks with the Republican People’s Party (CHP) had failed and since the ruling party had declared beforehand it would not hold coalition talks with Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), with this statement of Davutoğlu, it was concretely and officially revealed a government would not be formed.   

Turkey will pay the price of its politician’s mistakes politically. It can be said the recent terror incidents stem to a great extent from the fact the government was not able to be formed. More precisely, the current provisional government had to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and it reheated hot clashes with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to gain votes and thus the country is paying the price with escalated terror. We are witnessing that those in power are now participating in martyr funerals and delivering speeches; whereas we knew they were extremely irritated at the media coverage of martyr funerals while the resolution process was ongoing. In short, despite the conciliation calls derived from the election results, Turkish politicians are forcing a new election and the Turkish people have started paying this bill in a very heavy manner. 

We saw politicians create such political turmoil to protect the narrow interests of individuals and groups before. In these kinds of cases, along with the political bill, the county also paid very heavy economic prices. 

Now, again, we have started noticing the concrete signs of a huge bill to be paid economically. Together with the recognition a coalition will not be formed, it has been impossible to curb the climb in foreign exchange rates. The dollar exchange rate is breaking new records every day, share prices are falling and interest rates are increasing.

Only the beginning 

We can say this is only the beginning. The people of Turkey may have to pay much heavier costs economically.

What we are talking about is a politician’s mistake that will have heavier consequences than previous ones because the global climate is against Turkey and similar countries more than at any other time. This was expected and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, even though they knew it, did not make any preparations for it. 

Not only that, but with the stance they have adopted since the last election they are almost pouring fuel on the fire. For this reason, we are saying what is being experienced in the economy right now is only a portion of what will come. 

Markets have accepted the dollar exchange rate to be 3 Turkish Liras; they have started discussing whether it would be 3.2 liras. While the talk is that international rating agencies would not dare to lower Turkey’s points, actually, it has started to be mentioned frequently. 

Worse is that it is known in advance that in a new election the picture of political parties not being able to agree will not change much. Despite this, because they are not able to form a coalition, they have caused the extension of uncertainty by at least four of five months, opening the door with their own hands to a disaster scheduled in this global process.

We will see whether or not the people, who will definitely pay the heavy economic cost, will send the political bill to the politicians.