Turkish Finance Minister Resigns amid Expectations of Further Regime Cracks
Major cracks and rifts continue in the pillars of the Turkish regime as a result of the reckless economic and internal policies of its President Recep Tayyip Erdogan whose controversial economic program is widely-rejected by the Turkish people. The latest of these cracks was the resignation of Minister of Finance and Treasury Lotfi Alwan on Wednesday, December the 1st 2021. The Turkish Minister’s resignation was associated with the collapse of the Turkish Lira, which recorded a new historical decline, with its loss of more than 4 percent of its value in one day against the basket of major currencies, where the Dollar was traded at 13.44 Lira and the Euro at 15.15 Lira.
Repercussions of these cracks at a high rate confirm that the ruling Justice and Development Party AKP led by Erdogan is losing day after day its most prominent founding leaders, and the list is still expected to go higher. Turkish newspaper, Zaman, reported the readiness of prominent economist Mehmet Simcak, the well-known figure in global markets, who previously served as Minister of Economy in the Justice and Development governments for many years, to secede from the AKP party and join another political party. Zaman indicated that Şimcak will move to the ranks of the Democratic and Progress Party headed by Ali Babacan, who also resigned from the ranks of the Justice and Development Party.
In turn, the International Monetary Fund stressed the seriousness of the deterioration in Turkey’s financial conditions due to the accumulation of errors in the management of the economic file. Financial and economic experts also point out that the IMF’s warnings seem to have not moved Erdogan so far, and although the Lira has lost about 20 percent of its value since the beginning of the year, he continues to adhere to his wrong belief in his corrupt policies. In this context, the Turkish Central Bank made a statement on Wednesday that it took measures due to unhealthy price formations in the Lira, which witnessed a record decline in its value since Erdogan renewed his efforts to reduce interest rates.
It is noteworthy that the Justice and Development Party has witnessed the separation of prominent figures from its ranks due to the diminishing credibility in the judicial and the economic sectors of the successive AKP governments over the past ten years through which Turkey has been witnessing a series of crisis embodied at the social level by Erdogan regime practices of intimidation and suppression of freedoms with the continuation of the arrest campaigns launched to get rid of opponents of his policies. At the economic level, Erdogan policies have been embodied in investors turning away from Turkish markets in addition to increasing severity of the financial crisis Turkey has been witnessing in Erdogan’s era.
Nihad Roumieh