Turkey's ruling party elites love to splurge while preaching frugality
Turkey's Justice and Development Party is preaching belt-tightening to a suffering public, but will party leaders' often profligate spending cancel out the economic — and political — message?
On June 30, the Turkish Official Gazette published a decree asking all government agencies to start a rigorous saving campaign. The detailed program even asked offices to curb their newspaper subscriptions. Two agencies were exempted from this spending control plan: the Directorate of Presidential Administrative Affairs and parliament’s General Presidency. The public saw this as the palace exemption.
The same day, first lady Emine Erdogan attended a campaign organized by the Agriculture and Forestry Ministry titled “Protect your food, own your kitchen,” focusing on global food scarcity. After providing chilling data about food waste, the first lady said there are things the public can do and provided a list of suggestions such as to make a list before going shopping to eliminate unnecessary purchases, and to serve smaller portions.
