With Turkey facing a major economic crisis and presidential elections scheduled for June 2023, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan faces a host of challenges. Yet the Turkish leader is a master of crisis management, and even the Russian invasion of Ukraine could provide unique opportunities.
Turkey pundits are used to hearing conflicting statements from Erdogan’s supporters. For example, with Turkey facing its highest inflation in 20 years, Minister of Finance and Treasury Nureddin Nebati made two different promises about when inflation would peak and when it would go down within the span of weeks. According to his initial prediction, inflation would go down by the summer. Yet later on he moved the time frame to the end of 2022.