Imagine a country where the current president faces elections with 44% inflation, which is half of the previous year’s peak, and whose currency has depreciated by nearly 80% since the president was last elected. Instead of reform, he offers more of the same, namely a cut in interest rates in the belief that this will somehow reduce inflation. And in full-blown populist mode, he hikes the salaries of civil servants and lets people draw down pensions early. The incumbent is Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who after two decades in power, is almost certain to win another five-year term in Sunday’s election against a candidate from the six-party opposition bloc Kemal Kilikdaroglu.
The weekend of May 13–14 saw three major elections that either took place or had results announced at that time: in Turkey, Thailand, and Karnataka, India. In Turkey, turnout reached 90%, while in Thailand and Karnataka nearly three-quarters of those eligible voted. The disappointing result was that, with tall tales circulating on social media and government controls on traditional media, most of the incumbent narratives were held. Erdoğan’s 49% of the vote, nearly enough to prevent a runoff, put him nearly 5 points ahead of his nearest rival. In Karnataka, despite a dismal record, the Bharatiya Janata Party secured almost the same vote share as it did last time. As far as power goes, at least Thailand’s military-backed regime, the beneficiaries of an army coup in 2014, did badly. Young people were particularly enthused by the progressive Move Forward party, but a military nominee-dominated upper house could still find a way to thwart the popular desire for change.
Erdogan’s extraordinary ability to turn what might otherwise have been a potential win into defeat is a remarkable victory for the conservative strong-arm brand of autocratic democracy that has taken root in much of the world by holding the US Republican Party hostage. Even the earthquake in Turkey has benefited Erdogan; Many voters probably saw the ruling party as a better bet for Reconstruction.
But Erdogan has an unmatched record of economic unconventionality that doesn’t work. India’s shocking demonetisation in 2016 seems comparatively quiet. Turkey’s monetary-policy response to inflation, led by his views, has been to double down on interest-rate cuts to ‘control’ rising prices. He even appointed his 40-year-old son-in-law as finance minister in 2018, who resigned a few years later as the Turkish lira continued to decline.
To protect parts of the population from rising prices, Erdoğan committed this year to raising salaries of civil servants and footing Turkey’s pension bill. To shore up the lira, the central bank used its reserves and received aid from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Russia, which delayed repayments for its large natural gas exports to Turkey. Voters in Ankara and Istanbul have elected mayors who are opponents of Erdoğan, seeking to oust him from power, but rural voters and large numbers of expatriates in Germany, the Netherlands and Austria (who cast postal ballots) support Erdoğan. And behind his strong populism.
The most heartening story of change came from Thailand on May 14, an election that paradoxically received the fewest headlines. The Move Forward party, led by a 42-year-old man with degrees from Harvard and MIT, got the most seats. Marking the first time Thaksin Shinawatra’s Pheu Thai had not won an election in almost two decades. Move Forward’s agenda ranges from reforming Thailand’s extreme lese-majeste laws to breaking down monopolies and oligarchy, and ending military conscription as well as allowing same-sex marriage. In a bid to prevent the eight-party coalition Move Forward Leeds from falling apart, it announced on Monday it would not weaken laws that police allegedly offensive comments about the Thai monarchy. This may not be enough to allay fears within Thailand’s conservative establishment. Already, a member of the current military coalition has moved the anti-corruption commission to complain that Move Forward’s charismatic leader Pita Limjaroenrat has not declared he owns shares in a media company in Thailand. His holdings are all valued at $6,000. Should the courts, widely seen as pro-army, rule in favor of the complainant and seek the father’s disqualification, Bangkok is likely to see large protests. The most optimistic election result of this season could thus end with very little change.
Which brings us to Karnataka, whose new Congress administration wasted no time in telling the state’s police officers that they must treat all religious communities fairly. However, the new state government is digging holes with the competitive fiscal populism needed to deal with religious polarization. And it has inherited a city whose streets look as if they have been hit by an earthquake. On Sunday, a 23-year-old woman working for Infosys drowned in the car she had hired to visit her family when an underpass in central Bengaluru was flooded. It is the capital of Digital India and our exploitative gig economy, and also the shaky foundation of the distracting narrative that we can replace the need for brick-and-mortar factories and well-built infrastructure with e-commerce and services. Can This is as fanciful as Erdogan’s belief that inflation can be controlled by cutting interest rates.
Rahul is Jacob Peppermint columnist and a former financial Times foreign correspondent,
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