Turkey: New poll a “slap” for Recep Tayyip Erdogan

The latest Metropoll poll showed that if elections were held yesterday, Sunday, in turkeythen o Recep Tayyip Erdogan would win the runoff but only by a 1% margin over the GOP leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

The poll, according to an ERT correspondent in Istanbul, showed that Recep Tayyip Erdogan would get 44.9% and the opposition electoral alliance candidate would get 43.9%.

The number of repeaters was 2.8% of the respondents. Protester votes counted at 6.2% and the “I don’t know/don’t answer” question at 2.2%.

By all indications, Kemal Kilicdaroglu is expected to be announced within a few days as a candidate for the opposition. The pro-Kurdish DHP party is also expected to vote for him.

Erdogan’s social policy with money from…helicopters

According to “TA NEA” Recep Tayyip Erdogan has begun distributing the money generously ahead of the country’s general elections scheduled for next June.

The Turkish president is expected to subsidize the energy cost of households and businesses by $32 billion by 2023. Meanwhile, he has a large social housing program in the works that includes the construction of at least 500,000 homes – and is expected, by local and foreign estimates, at a cost of 50 billion another dollar.

These are just some of the moves the strongman is making in Turkey at a time when inflation is over 80%, the lira is at very low levels against the dollar, and the war in Ukraine is hitting families hard.

It is estimated that the opening of the pig state bank will cost dearly. Figures from the Financial Times show that although Turkey’s budget balances in the first nine months of 2022, at the end of the year it is expected to post a deficit of $25 billion, or about 3% of GDP. This points to the massive spending that has begun now, as Turkey’s president is expected to face perhaps the toughest election of his two decades in office.