Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on January 20 at the presidential palace in Ankara (AFP/Adem ALTAN)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday warned the media against spreading news “contrary to the values and morals of the country”, after he sacked the Minister of Justice and the head of inflation statistics at ten- eight months of the presidential election.
“It has become necessary to take measures in order to protect (families, children and young people) against harmful media content,” Erdogan said in a decree issued on Saturday, a gesture immediately interpreted as a new attempt to make silence the critics.
Mr. Erdogan calls on the authorities to take “legal action” to fight against “the destructive effects” of certain content in the media, without giving further details.
– “State of emergency against the media” –
President Erdogan has just declared “a state of emergency against the media”, in addition to the arrests of journalists, wrote on Twitter Faruk Bildirici, journalist and recognized ombudsman.
Turkey’s strongman also sacked the head of the National Statistical Office, Sait Erdal Dincer, according to a decree on Saturday, after annual figures of record inflation were released.
Mr Dincer had been criticized after releasing data in early January that put the annual inflation rate at 36.1%, its highest level in 19 years, due to the tumble of the Turkish lira.
“I have a responsibility vis-à-vis 84 million people”, had argued Sait Erdal Dincer, explaining to the economic daily Dunya that it was not possible for him to publish inflation figures different from those observed. by his services.
“I am now at the head of this service, tomorrow it could be someone else,” he said in this interview published in January, as if he knew he could be quickly dismissed.
The opposition, however, said the official figure was underestimated, saying the actual increase in the cost of living was at least twice as high.
– “Lack of confidence” –
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on January 18, 2022 at the presidential palace in Ankara (AFP/Adem ALTAN)
President Erdogan, who has sacked three central bank governors since 2019, did not explain his decision to appoint Erhan Cetinkaya, a former vice president of Turkey’s banking regulator, as head of state statistics. place of Mr. Dincer.
“This decision will only increase the lack of confidence in official data in a context where economic policy is already a source of concern,” said analyst Timothy Ash of Blue Bay Asset.
But President Erdogan, in an uncomfortable position eighteen months before the presidential election, continues to defend his choices.
The rise in consumer prices, more than seven times higher than the government’s initial target, at 13.58% in December alone, is explained by the fall of nearly 45% in one year of the pound Turkey against the dollar, despite emergency measures announced by the Head of State in mid-December.
Aware of the damage caused to his confidence rating, Mr. Erdogan had promised at the beginning of January to “bring inflation back to a single digit number as soon as possible”.
Because these data are the subject of a bitter political battle: the opposition and part of the population accuse the National Statistics Office (Tüik) of knowingly underestimating the rise in prices, fueled by the economic policy of the president which has prompted the Turkish central bank to systematically lower interest rates in recent months.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on January 20, 2022 at the presidential palace in Ankara (AFP/Adem ALTAN)
Erdogan has also appointed former Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag as the new justice minister to replace Abdulhamit Gul, a ruling party figure in the post since 2017.
“The Minister of Justice is replaced, the President of Tüik is sacked before the new inflation figures are published: we do not know why”, wrote on Twitter the former Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan, who left Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) to found the Democracy and Progress Party (Deva).
Inflation data for January is due out on February 3.
© 2022 AFP
Did you like this article ? Share it with your friends with the buttons below.
