Turkey’s embattled currency hit its lowest-ever rate of 9.19 against the US dollar Thursday morning following a midnight presidential decree firing three high-level central bank bureaucrats ahead of a key monetary policy meeting next week.

The dismissals were interpreted as a means to clear the opposition before the bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) scheduled for Oct. 21 where further rate cuts, as stubbornly demanded by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, are likely to come on the agenda. Erdogan declared in August that interest rates would go down in the fall, insisting that lowering interest rates would combat inflation.

With the annual rate of inflation jumping over policy rate at nearly 20% and public outrage at the high cost of food and accommodation, Erdogan holds on to the view that lower interest rates would stimulate the economy as well as boost credit and exports. For many pundits, the cuts are not worth the fragilities they cause, primarily by weakening the lira. Nonetheless, on Sept. 23, the central bank and its newish governor, Sahap Kavcioglu, a former party man and fourth central bank governor in two years, bowed to the president by trimming the bank’s policy rate by 100 basis points to 18%.

“Following the 100 basis-point rate cut on Sept. 23 meeting, we can now except a further one or two hundred basis-point cut in the upcoming one,” said Ugur Gurses, an economist who began his career at the central bank. “What has happened displays that the central bank has become an extremely politicized area. Kavcioglu, who came to this post with the mission of lowering interest rates, clearly faced opposition from his colleagues and wanted to clear the path and appealed to the president for a reshuffle.”