In Turkey’s municipal polls on Sunday, voters will not only decide who runs town halls, they will also show how willing they are to punish the ruling party for a bruising economic crisis that is fueling price rises and unemployment. The economic turbulence began shortly after the presidential and parliamentary elections in June 2018, keeping President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government busy in the second half of the year and causing it to stagger in the run-up to the local polls.
Sunday’s vote will remove the electoral pressure on Ankara, easing its hand in drawing a road map to tackle the crisis. The economic scenarios for April have thus become a top subject of discussion.