A top executive for Turkey’s largest discount retailer was forced to step down after criticizing the government’s charges that supermarket chains were responsible for soaring inflation, becoming the latest casualty of the government vs. chain stores blame game. 

Galip Aykac, chief operating officer of BIM discount stores and head of the retailers’ association, said last week that supermarkets were no more responsible for the rising food inflation than exchange offices were responsible for the freefall of the Turkish lira’s value against the greenback. According to official figures released today, Turkey’s annual food inflation rate is 102.6%.

Speaking at a retailer’s conference in Istanbul on Nov. 30, Aykac claimed that the chain markets had become the scapegoats for systematic problems of the economy amid soaring inflation. He also lashed out at accusations that the chain markets were “economic terrorists” or had links with Fethullah Gulen, the US-based cleric whom Ankara accuses of masterminding the unsuccessful 2016 putsch in Turkey. Devlet Bahceli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), said two weeks ago that the links of discount stores with Gulen should be investigated.  

BIM, the pioneer of discount retail in Turkey, has been considered a pro-AKP business since its founders, such as Latif Topbas, Cuneyt Zapsu and Fatih Sarac, were among the friends and consultants of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Left-wing media often claimed that Erdogan’s son Bilal Erdogan was among the principal shareholders of the chain, which has 11,000 stores in Turkey and several in Morocco and Egypt. BIM sources have consistently denied the claim.