Page 12 - TURKRptJun19

May 7. May 6 also saw speculation emerge that public lenders had sold $400mn in support of the lira. Renewed lira depreciation will trigger higher inflation (currently just under 20%) and unemployment (officially given as around 15% although along with rafts of other Turkish official data that come out as better than expected, the statistics keep raising eyebrows). Dollarisation, of course, can only keep growing with Turks alarmed by how the lira is back on the run.
Turkish journalist who criticised Erdogan on talk show beaten by “people with baseball bats”. A Turkish journalist who criticised President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was beaten by a group of “people with baseball bats,” his newspaper reported on May 11. It published pictures of heavily bandaged Yavuz Selim Demirag in his hospital bed. Demirag was attacked shortly after appearing on a TV talk show on May 10, Yenicag daily wrote. His assailants fled in a vehicle and have not been apprehended. Tensions are on the rise over the official order to rerun the Istanbul mayoral election which strongman Erdogan’s ruling AKP party lost to the opposition at the end of March. The revote was decreed because of alleged electoral irregularities. It is widely regarded as a grievous blow by Turkey watchers who regard the country’s democracy as dying or dead. Turkey’s Journalists Association said that the attack highlighted the country’s ever-shrinking press freedom, Deutsche Welle reported. “Politicians who have difficulty espousing the idea of freedom of media and of expression and turn newspapers and journalists into targets, play an important role in these types of attacks,” the organisation said in a statement. Demirag was visited in the hospital by Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the main opposition party CHP, who accused the assailants of having an “intent to kill.” “How can a journalist be beaten with intent to kill just because he participated in a programme, voiced his views or criticised someone?” he told reporters. “Where is Turkey going to?” Yenicag reported that Demirag was in a stable condition and was set to be released on May 12. Turkey is the world’s biggest jailer of journalists. It is widely accepted that more than 90% of its media is pro-Erdogan, making it hard for opposition politicians to have their voice heard during election campaigns.
Baseball bat attack on journalist. Conditions of ‘controlled chaos’ continue to be in evidence in the country with a weekend attack by a group of people wielding baseball bats on a dissident journalist who opposed Erdogan on a TV talk show. There are also anxieties that terrorist attacks, which would be exploited by nationalist voices, might occur in the run-up to the Istanbul revote, the outcome of which will be seen by some observers as litmus test of whether Turkey is now plainly under the sway of a dictatorship. Complaints about rotten onions imported from Egypt, under the sway of Erdogan’s arch-enemy Sisi, are heard only with difficulty under the rumble of the campaigns gathering steam ahead of the rerun, now around six weeks away.
Date for second election causes Istanbullers to cancel holidays. Media reports in Turkey suggest a certain number of people are cancelling or postponing their vacations because of the Istanbul mayoral election rerun, meaning bad news for hoteliers, tour operators and airlines.
The Democratic Left Party (DSP) candidate, Muammer Aydin, who was set to take part in the Istanbul mayoral election rerun on May 12 announced he was withdrawing, with the move likely to benefit Imamoglu. Aydin won more than 30,000 votes from the 10mn eligible voters when the election was first held. The prospect of DSP voters transferring their support to Imamoglu in the second election is not a sure thing, but both the DSP and CHP have secular voter bases, whereas the AKP is Islamist- rooted.
There are reports that Erdogan officials may be working on plans that would deliver concessions to the Kurdish minority and Kurds in Syria in an effort to swing an important block of votes in the election rerun. The Kurds are generally thought to have voted for Imamoglu in the first contest as the main pro-Kurdish party did not put up a candidate.
12 TURKEY Country Report June 2019 www.intellinews.com