Thursday, July 28, 2022












Erdoğan’s approval rating drops to 41.5 pct as Turkey grapples with inflation




Jul 28 2022 


President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s approval rating took a hit in the month of July, with 41.5 percent in Turkey saying they approve of the leader’s performance as president, according to leading pollster MetroPoll’s monthly “The Pulse of Turkey” survey.

The figure is down 2.7 percentage points from June, according to the survey, which found Erdoğan’s disapproval rating for the same month measured at 53.7 percent, up from 51 percent compared to the previous month.


The survey arrives as Turkey is reeling from the effects of runaway inflation, which accelerated to 78.6 percent in, marking a 24-year high and the fastest rate in major emerging markets and developed economies globally.

As part of his unorthodox economic policy, President Erdoğan has refused to hike interest rates in a timely manner to cool inflation and ordered the central bank to cut borrowing costs late last year, prompting the lira to plummet. That has translated into considerably less spending power for the average citizen.

Over 7 percent of voters who back Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and 31 percent of the AKP’s junior coalition partner, the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) voters, said they disapproved of Erdoğan’s performance, the MetroPoll survey found.

This figure measured at 88.2 percent among main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) voters and 84.5 percent among opposition pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), supporters.

Soaring consumer prices have hit Turkey’s 84 million population hard, with little hope for improvement in the near future as citizens are faced with high energy and food prices and a sharply depreciated lira, which has lost 44 percent of its value in 2021 and around 24 percent this year.

Erdoğan’s disapproval rating dropped from 53.6 percent in April to 47.3 percent in May, as Turkey stood against Sweden and Finland joining NATO, according to MetroPoll’s “The Pulse of Turkey’’ survey.


No comments: