The leader of Turkey’s main opposition party said today that electricity had been cut off at his home after he refused to pay the bill for two months in protest of the sharp rise in subsidized energy prices.
An exchange rate crisis last year sparked inflation and led the government to raise prices everywhere, from gas and electricity to tolls, alcohol, bus tickets and petrol in January.
“Energy is a basic human right. I wanted to be the voice of those who can not pay,” Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu said in a video he posted on Twitter.
Annual inflation rose further to 61% in March. Many analysts have blamed the economic turmoil on a series of unorthodox interest rate cuts decided by President Tayyip Erdogan last year.
Kilicdaroglu said in February that he would stop paying the electricity bill and called for a halt to price increases.
He said today that his wife had informed him that electricity had been cut off at their home in Ankara, and that electricity prices – which had risen by 50% to 125% in early 2022 – had risen by more than 400% in three years.
Electricity has been cut to almost 3.5 million Turkish subscribers, Kilicdaroglu added, without giving a source for this information.
Rising inflation has hit Erdogan’s popularity in the run-up to the June 2023 presidential election, in which Kilicdaroglu is considered a possible candidate.
Years of double-digit inflation in addition to a recent increase have eroded household savings and incomes. Shopkeepers, city councils and a religious group have spoken openly about the ever-increasing energy bills.
The pound lost 44% of its value against the dollar last year mainly due to the monetary easing that began in September despite rising inflation. The devaluation of the Turkish currency caused inflation through the strong flow of Turkish imports.
The easing cycle was part of Erdogan’s new economic program aimed at boosting exports, credit and investment, and which the government says will eventually de-escalate inflation.
Source: AMPE
Source: Capital
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