​3Cs of Armageddon

TURKEY - In Brief 31 Mar 2021 by Atilla Yesilada

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President Erdogan is battling three Cs of Armageddon, which like the proverbial Four Horsemen are riding hard to haunt him. He doesn’t have months to solve these three problems simultaneously. One month is the most this author allocates to him, during which he has to make very painful policy choices. On various platforms, I’ve already explained my base-case scenario, which is not necessarily the house view, that he will allow the new CBRT Governor Mr. Sahap Kavcioglu to hike rates and capitulate to Western demands. This update aims to explain how each day adds to Turkey’s problems and how the inevitable becomes inescapable. C With a Big Capital C:COVID-19 out of hand On Wednesday, cases exceeded 39K, with over 150 deaths, which the opposition claims, is an underestimate. Erdogan’s remedy for a soaring epidemic, which is now 75% British variant is to declare weekend curfews over the month of Ramadan (13 April – 13 May) and order all eating establishments closed. While these measures may have some positive impact on the speed of transmissions, they are certainly not sufficient to combat the outbreak. Erdogan also promised sufficient vaccines “to complete the campaign by end of May or June”. The indifferent way he throws these dates about shows to me that he himself is not clear about where the vaccines will come from. He doesn’t seem to understand the gargantuan difference between completing the vaccination campaign by end of May versus June. The latter almost certainly means huge tourism losses and thousands of small and medium size enterprises going belly up. My humble estimate is Turkey will not reach herd immunity before mid-autumn at the earliest. In the meantime, T...