Prices doubled due to the ‘total fight against inflation’

Batuhan SERM

Ali Selim Yamanli

The economic crisis in Turkey has turned almost all segments of society from 7 to 70 into ‘economists’. Because a significant part of the population is trying to make a living by calculating the penny.

While the citizens are in this situation, the government assures that they will overcome the cost of living with slogans and temporary solutions. From time to time, ‘external forces’ are shown to be responsible for today’s image.

“We do not and will not oppress citizens with inflation”, “We are going to break inflation’s back”, “We will remove the bubble, the swelling and the mucilage in prices”, “Inflation will go down…” They are the most repeated statements by the AKP government, especially in the last period.

AKP spokesmen, who have been in front of the public with similar rhetoric for years, recently launched a campaign with the slogan “Total fight against inflation”, and as part of the campaign, outlets were set up in the most crowded squares. of the big cities. made through some television channels and newspapers.

On the same dates, raids were carried out on some potato and onion warehouses across Turkey, with some warehouse owners and traders facing charges of being “terrorists”. One such arrangement outlet was established in Mecidiyeköy 4 years ago, and one day in February, the SÖZCÜ reporter saw the queue and the labels.

As long queues formed in front of outlets selling similar arrangements, the government said it was not a queue of “absence” but of “presence”.

Despite continuing to fight inflation with similar methods and rhetoric for months and years, prices rise exponentially.

In those days, onions sold for 2 TL per kilo, potatoes for 2 TL, eggplants for 4.5 TL, and peppers for 6 TL. As of the first week of February, the weight of the eggplant is 35 TL, the potato 9 TL, the onion 15 TL, and the pepper 32 TL. In fact, the shallots cost 39 TL per kilo.

The current prices in the Gülbağ market closest to the same square are as follows; The eggplant costs 25 TL per kilo, the potato 15 TL per kilo, the onion 15 TL per kilo, and the pepper 36 TL per kilo.

In this process, while prices doubled, the rise in inflation could not be stopped. According to TURKSTAT, consumer prices increased 1.06 percent in January 2019 compared to the previous month and 17.16 percent year-on-year.

After 4 years of “total fight against inflation”, in January 2023 consumer prices increased 6.65 percent per month and 57.68 percent annually, according to TUIK. ENAG, for its part, announced monthly inflation of 9.26 percent and annual inflation of 121.62 percent.

So is the government succeeding in its all-out fight against inflation, which it has been talking about for years? This question in the same square; We asked the public in Mecidiyeköy, where the outlet was established in 2019. Here are the responses we got:

“THE FUND OF FAILURE”

Cahit Sayın: “Is it not clear in practice whether it is successful or not? Go to the market, it is clear where the potatoes and onions come from, it is already clear where everything comes from. What success? There is no success, this is the bottom of failure. We are not in a position to say ‘God bless you’. As a citizen, I wonder how we could be brought to a situation worse than this, I can’t find an answer. Call it incompetence or incompetence. I wish the prices of that day had been maintained, the salaries of civil servants and retirees had not been increased. What would happen if the salary was not raised, nor the products we use?

“FROM WEIGHT TO GRAIN”

Beytullah Yıldız: “They are not successful. A hundred percent increase? Time walk, time walk for everything… No way. Let our country grow and develop, let other countries know our strength, but the poor should not be crushed here. It’s being crushed right now, when I go I buy 1-2 orange mandarins in front of the markets and eat them like this. Instead of saying ‘5 kilos of that’, ‘5 kilos of that’, people say ‘2 of that’, ‘3 of that’. He went from pound to grain.”

“IF IT WERE SUCCESSFUL, INFLATION WOULD NOT RISE”

Batuhan Aydın: “I don’t see any success. No matter how much they talk or how much they ignore it, there is no success. If it had been successful, inflation wouldn’t have gone as high anyway. If you are talking, you will act, but in ours there are only words. The voting rate of young people will be high in the elections, I hope it will improve.”

“THE PRODUCT HAS NO MONEY”

Gürbüz Ünal: “No, they are not successful, at first glance. If inflation were low, prices wouldn’t be as high anyway. I am retired, my pension is only enough for electricity, water, telephone and fees. There will be no inflation beyond that. We can’t go to the market anyway, before we used to buy 2 kilos of potatoes, now we buy 1 kilo of potatoes. The economy in Turkey hit rock bottom. We have experienced that absence before, I wish it had existed… We stood in line, but we had money in our pockets. We could get whatever we wanted. Now there is product, there is no money”.

“THAT HAPPENS TO THE WORLD”

Yalçın Uğur: “They are not successful. It happens to the poor, to the farmer, to those who earn the minimum wage.”

Seyit Bey: “Mustafa Kemel Pasha left a beautiful homeland, but some came and used our religion, some came and used our homeland. They can make everything more expensive, but our homeland is not cheap. They want to spend the Turkish nation, but this nation cannot be spent.”

“THEY ARE NOT SUCCESSFUL, THIS IS A TOPIC OF DISCUSSION”

Ms. Elif: “They are definitely not successful, this is a topic that is far from being discussed. It doesn’t matter if you are pro-government or contrary, or even apolitical, they are not successful. If they had succeeded, this would not have been the result. I believe that the regulatory sale is a fiction, in short, these things are always done before the election. I don’t know why we don’t see anything in normal time. We have been run by the same people for 20 years. Whether we haven’t gotten from one point to another in 20 years, or whether the point we’ve gotten to is a much worse point, this is moot. My parents are civil servants, I really grew up in luxury, now I understand it.

“YOU CANNOT SAY THEY ARE SUCCESSFUL”

Mustafa Ar: “I listen to them every night since the pandemic, they talk until the morning, but it cannot be said that they are successful. It stays put. They are simply giving the minimum wage a spectacular increase. As soon as we hear the news of the increase in the minimum wage, the products begin to rise while there are 45 days left before the salary arrives. The rise is melting away before we see the rise. I can’t say they’ve been very successful. If you ask them, they say ‘This is how the world is in general’, but to what extent is that true? This is not something that cannot be prevented.”