Presidential elections in Turkey, scheduled for mid-June 2023, could be postponed to autumn 2022, the Welt am Sonntag newspaper reported on Sunday, August 21, citing European External Action Service (EEAS) sources and among diplomats. of the EU.

According to the publication, there are some signs that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will hold elections ahead of schedule, and his organization “could happen very quickly”.

Among the signs showing Erdogan’s preparations for the upcoming elections, diplomats cite an increase in the Turkish president’s activities in international politics – his active mediation between Western countries and Russia during the Russian war against Ukraine, activation in the Syrian direction and the resumption of the Turkish gas production program in the Mediterranean Sea. On August 9, the ship “Abdulhamid Khan” departed the port of Mersin, which will explore deposits in the eastern Mediterranean. Furthermore, in mid-August, Erdogan personally visited Ukraine, where he met with President Volodymyr Zelensky and UN Secretary General António Guterres.

All these actions are aimed at demonstrating the Turkish leader’s strength before the start of the election campaign, the publication’s sources say, and Erdogan may consider a possible rise in public sentiment in Turkey after a short-lived recovery in the Turkish economy after the crisis. they will see it as a reason to hold elections, being in a favorable situation for themselves.

Turkey has been in crisis for several years

Annual inflation in Turkey in July 2022 rose to 79.6%, the highest since 1998, while prices rose 2.37% in just one month. These are the results of yet another round of the currency and economic crisis, which the country has been in for several years.

Analysts cite Erdogan’s policy of lowering interest rates to boost economic growth, which began in 2018, as one of his reasons. This was done against the advice of the president of the Central Bank, which caused the lira to fall to a record level and increased spending in a country dependent on imported materials and energy.

In autumn 2021, inflation in the country started to grow even stronger – the lira dropped sharply after the country’s Central Bank lowered the rate to 14%. And in 2022, the economic fallout from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the continuing fall of the lira further fueled price increases. The currency weakened by 44% against the dollar in 2021 and is down another 27% this year.

Erdogan dreams of space

Since 2018, the president has sacked three central bank executives, but despite the continued increase in inflation and the economic consequences of the pandemic, in 2021 he announced his intention to organize a complete space program in the country: create its own spaceport, send its citizen into space and launch new satellites for civil and military purposes.

The initiative generated controversy among citizens. While some were enthusiastic about the idea, others questioned the appropriateness of an expensive mission to the Moon at a time of economic crisis. At the same time, the mission was announced even before the fall of the lira in the autumn, but even after these events, Erdogan did not abandon the space program.