Back to real agenda

Deputies were out in their election districts. Businessmen, workers laid off from their jobs, merchants suffering from rampant decrease in their trade were all crying loud, but there were hardly any responsible ears available to hear them. Even though in the closing days of the campaign the government realized it could no longer ignore the crisis and downscale it to a "tangentially passing condition" unveiled some tax incentives to boost domestic demand (particularly for cars and household appliances) election results showed that the government’s action, or the fourth anti-crisis package as they called it, was not appreciated much by the electorate in the elections.

Whatever is said during the election campaign must be left in yesterday and Turkey must now concentrate on the real agenda of the country: Worsening economic situation. Even revised growth figures showed that Turkey’s fast growing economy came to a standstill in 2008 with a negligible 1.1 percent growth. That was a sad situation for economy that grew by an average of 7 percent over the past five years. But, the figures for the first quarter of 2009 showed that even the worst is on the horizon. The State Statistics Institute, or TÜİK, has announced that in the first quarter of 2009 the Turkish economy did not grow but on the contrary shrunk by 6.2 percent. That is, we have a minus 6.2 percent growth. If we consider that even the most pessimist economists were predicting a minus 5.8 percent growth for the first quarter of the year we may say that pessimistic estimates at the beginning of the year might eventually be proven as rather optimistic.

"This is not a crisis of Turkey. This is a global crisis and as Turkey is part of the global economy it has impacts on our economy as well. Yet, God willing, the crisis will past Turkey tangentially. We will be the least affected country," and such ignorant statements were wrong. Even if global actors hope there will be recovery in the second half of the year, they are as well stressing that impacts of the crisis will be continued affecting the global economy in 2011 as well. "Even Americans have said Turkey will come out of the crisis before the U.S. and other countries" and such statements show that the government is still unaware of reading the statistics that though revised clearly show not a standstill but worst a sharp minus growth in the Turkish economy.

The urgent musts

As Erdoğan conceded on the election night, a Cabinet reshuffle might be helpful in boosting confidence in the government. There is already talk in Ankara that half of the ministers might be replaced. If the crisis is partly psychological as the premier has been saying, a Cabinet reshuffle might be helpful in boosting confidence.

Irrespective whether the Cabinet is changed or not, it must be obvious to the premier as well that all past anti-crisis measures, partly because they came in bits and pieces, have failed in achieving the desired goal. There is need for a comprehensive new package which must aim at boosting domestic demand on the one hand but help stagnated exports revive. There is need to restructure bank credits. Somehow industry must be provided accessibility to fresh and easy credits. A new stand-by with the International Monetary Fund, or IMF, which was put off after election by the government for some obvious reasons headed by not endangering the massive election bribery scheme applied by the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, must now be urgently completed. There are signs that IMF have given up some of its conditions and Erdoğan has toned down its opposition to a new deal with IMF. Let’s hope this can be achieved in April.

Including a constitutional amendment, the reform drive has to be revived. Hopefully this time AKP will give up its oppressive majority obsession and seek consensus with the opposition parties. That is the only way to revive the reform drive without further fuelling the already high polarization in the country.Last but definitely not the least, election results showed the urgency of taking some real steps towards satisfying the demands of the southeastern population from the central administration. Rather than an antagonistic and fascist "love it or leave it" language, Erdoğan and the Ankara government must learn ways of embracing differences within democracy.