Erdogan’s candidates defeated as inflation dominates Turkish elections

Soaring inflation and interest rates – and weary voters in Turkey's big cities – combined to hand Recep Tayyip Erdogan the biggest defeat of his career yesterday. Erdogan's candidates were beaten in mayoral elections in Istanbul and Ankara by 12 and 28 points respectively less than a year after he saw off a challenge from a six-party opposition coalition in the last presidential election. Secular liberals in Turkey's twin metropoles have long since tired of Erdogan's political corruption and low-intensity Islamism, but it was chronic economic mismanagement that did for his Justice and Development Party (AKP) last night. Turkey suffered a cost-of-living crisis as severe as anywhere when Russia's invasion of Ukraine drove up energy prices in March 2022. But Erdogan's perverse insistence that the way to tame inflation was with low rather than higher interest rates only made things worse. Turkish workers are reeling from cumulative inflation of more than 70 per cent since 2022. The last central bank rate rise was to a painful 50 per cent on 21 March. Yesterday's elections were local in principle but national in practice. It's probably a good time to remember the name of Ekrem Imamoglu, the new mayor of Istanbul, tipped (eventually) for the top.