‘How much poorer could one get in Turkey?’

* Photo: Binnur Ege Gürün Koçak - Ankara / AA

Click to read the article in Turkish

İYİ Party Chair Meral Akşener spoke at the weekly group meeting of her party at the Parliament in Ankara today (April 6).

Focusing mostly on the economic crisis in Turkey, Akşener addressed Minister of Treasury and Finance Nureddin Nebati, saying that "the time has come for him to excuse himself from his post as was the case in the previous economic programs that went bankrupt in the past".

Akşener also talked about the state of freedom of press and expression in Turkey, recalling that "Turkey ranks 153rd out of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Press Freedom Index in 2021".

She noted that "only in 2021, 47 journalists were sentenced to 133 years in prison in total while working journalists have been working on the edge, threatened with a possible dismissal by the palace and its affiliates".

'Inflation has hit a 20-year high'

Addressing the İYİ Party group at the Parliament, İYİ Party Chair Akşener recalled that the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) has announced the March 2022 annual consumer inflation rate as 61.1 percent, "which marks the highest inflation rate in the past 20 years".

"To make matters worse, everything is going worse and worse," she said, underlining that "the prices at markets and bazaars cannot be stopped".

Referring to the price increases over the past week, Akşener said that natural gas prices have soared by 35 percent for households, by 44.3 percent in power generation and by 50 percent for the industrial sector: "So, natural gas prices have increased by 101 percent for households, by 701 percent for the industry and by 688 in natural gas plants since December 2020".

The İYİ Party Chair further underlined that "while people are thinking about how they will pay their natural gas bills, which have doubled, they are also faced with the natural gas price increases in the industry and trade in the prices that they see at bazaars and markets".

According to the February data cited by Meral Akşener, energy prices have increased by 97.2 percent in Turkey. In the European Union (EU) countries, this rate has been 28.7 percent: "It is not only about this. Last week, the price of sugar was increased by 31 percent".

Impressions from İstanbul's Bağcılar

Further in her statement, Meral Akşener also talked about her visit to İstanbul's Bağcılar last week, sharing the following impressions:

"A mother of two said, 'I cooked lentil soup for supper, there is no side dish. We sometimes cook pasta for the kids. One cannot go to the butcher's shop, everything is so expensive. My only dream now is to buy diapers and baby formula for my little one. Diapers cost 65 lira even at the supposedly cheapest market. Our only income is the municipality's market card.

"Another fellow citizen said, 'We cannot buy red meat. Only on Sacrifice Feast... We follow the discounts on market apps. I always voted for the [ruling Justice and Development Party] AKP after the 5th year. When they said, "Say yes to the Presidential system", who would have said yes if they had told us, "We will scam you"? People are sick and tired of ideological conflicts. They should talk about rents and markets.'

"A fellow citizen whose spouse earns minimum wage says, 'The kindergarten is full-time, they ask for 2,500 lira. If I say, 'Let the child go to the kindergarten and I work,' we cannot do it, either. I have a child at the age of 3.5. S/he had always eaten baby formula until the age of 3; my mother bought it, my sister bought it... Electricity costs 200 lira and natural gas costs 600 lira. My mother and mother-in-law help us out. I cannot furnish a room for my child. S/he sleeps on the couch in the living room. We used to go to the bazaar, we cannot even go there anymore. How much poorer could one get'?" (AS/SD)