Addendum to Hurriyet column: An economist supports the Economist!
The government opened fire on the Economist article that inspired my latest Hurriyet column soon after it began circulating in cyberspace.
First, it was Egemen Bagis, Turkey’s Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator, who boldy stated at his Twitter account that the article had been ordered from Turkey. Then, PM Erdogan called the magazine “French” to Turkey; an expression that means “alien”- he had used the same expression to a French MP a couple of months ago. I appreciate the pun, but that French MP had turned out to have Turkish roots, so I am wondering if a Turkish connection will come from the Economist as well:) But the gold medal went to FinMin Mehmet Simsek, who stated in a Tweet that, in the tradition of I’m done with Davos, he was done with the Economist- he makes me wonder if he will declare he is done with the Daily News after reading my column as well. Anyway, my beloved Daily News has a neat summary of all these government reactions.
These critiques are ignoring one important point: The same magazine had been a staunch supporter of their policies pretty much since they had been in power. As Radikal columnist Ugur Gurses tweeted recently, the very same Economist had endorsed the AKP before the 2007 elections. The AKP’s top brass would do themselves much favor if they thought about the real reasons (not red herrings like the West getting revenge on Davos) behind this shift in sentiment towards the AKP- sort of like the Turkish expression, “igneyi kendine cuvaldizi baskasina batir”, which means, “search for the blame in yourself first”. BTW, the Daily News editor-in-chief Murat Yetkin discusses the recent AKP criticisms in the foreign media in his column today.
In fact, the Economist is not the maverick here. There has been a huge shift of sentiment towards the AKP in the past few months, both in the political and economic arena. I mention some political mood-changers at the end of the column. As for Econ., with a growing current account deficit and the government not acting on it, a Central Bank losing credibility by the day, and an Econ. Minister proudly stating that they had blocked the latest IMF Staff Report (probably next week’s column), this is no surprise. Actually, according to my friends at GlobalSource, the investors they talk to are even less sanguine than your friendly neighborhood economist: They don’t believe the AKP will take the necessary economic measures even when the referendum pressure is out of the way!
Enough of AKP-bashing… If we come to more serious stuff, a question I often get from foreign journalists is how come the AKP is likely to end with less seats than in 2007 with more or less the same percentage of votes and much less than 2002 with more votes. There are mainly three reasons, all working against the AKP: 1. There were about 20 independents in 2007; there will be at least 30 now, almost all the extra ones coming at the expense of AKP (Kurdish BDP deputies running as independents). 2. Like in 2007, the MHP is likely to make the 10 percent threshold. 3. The new distribution of deputies decreased the number of seats from rural, less populated areas, where the party is traditionally very strong. BTW, I will run my little election model after KONDA, the polling company I used to write for, releases their poll results on Thursday.
Coming back to the Economist article, it is missing a crucial point: As noted by journalist Frederike Geerdink, if the Economist’s main goal in endorsing the CHP is to prevent the AKP from growing too strong, they should have endorsed the MHP rather than the CHP. If the MHP is below the threshold, the AKP is likely to end up with more than 330 deputies even if it performs worse thane expected. In fact, many anti-AKP Turks are approaching the elections with this logic, but I somehow cannot imagine the Economist endorsing the MHP, especially if they have seen the party’s brilliant economic agenda involving promises such as making the Turkish Army the 3rd strongest in the world and not moving the Central Bank to Istanbul, not to mention their anti-liberal political agenda. But then, as Frederike noted in a Tweet, they should have made the case for the MHP and then explained why they are preferring the CHP over the MHP.
That’s all for now. I will have a guest columnist on the parties’ economic policies, with a special emphasis on the CHP later during the day. After all, I promised that in the last sentence of the column, so I have to keep my promise…
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