The economic slide sends support to Erdogan to an all-time low

Hediye Bas blames dams, roads and the network of tunnels running through the wooded Ikizdere Valley in northeastern Turkey for suffocating the water supply and curbing its crops. Work on a planned quarry is now proving a breaking point and eroding its support for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Bas and other villagers in the former Erdogan province, Rize, are trying to stop the excavation of 20 million tonnes of stone for a new port 40 km off the Black Sea coast.

The dynamite has already uprooted pieces of the mountain to obtain an access road, briefly turning the stream where the Bas family fishes an unnatural turquoise. For the quarry to work, up to 1 m of trees will be cut down and the explosives will make nearby plants toxic, while the biodiversity of an adjacent protected area will be endangered, a local conservation group has warned.

Erdogan “probably thought we would support any project he undertakes here because he wins almost all of our votes. But I will not vote for him anymore “, said Bas. “No one in the village finds work on these projects, they just deprive us of the valley we rely on to earn income.”

People are concentrating around one of their own in Rize, but we see that this bond is falling apart as people’s economic problems grow.

The rare protest in one of the president’s strongholds is emblematic of wider discontent with his economic administration that polls suggest he is supporting the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) across the country. Inflation has remained in double digits for most of the last four years and unemployment is 14%.

The $ 200 million port is part of $ 325 billion investment in infrastructure planned in Turkey over the next decade. Erdogan has set his economic hopes on the great expansion of construction, including a $ 15 billion sea canal that will turn half of Istanbul into an island. At last month’s groundbreaking ceremony, Erdogan said these projects laid the groundwork for “building a great and powerful Turkey”.

Bas cares less about such grandiose ambitions and is more anxious about the cost of groceries and about keeping his job at a spare parts factory after being killed during the coronavirus pandemic. She said she was fired as a union representative after joining the protest. “It’s very expensive here. When you go to the grocery store, there’s absolutely nothing you can buy with little money, ”he said.

The relentless drive to build has provoked dissent, and critics have accused a handful of companies of taking advantage of the projects and facing the financial and environmental costs of the rest of the country. In Rize, they point to two seaports that are already operating below capacity less than 70 km from the new project.

“It’s hard for the government to justify the cost of megaprojects for the public when household finances suffer and people are worried about their livelihoods and cooking expenses,” said Can Selcuki, director of the voting agency Turkey Report.

A number of opinion polls show AKP support at historic lows. A survey conducted in June by Turkiye Raporu found that it had fallen to 26%. Turkey’s next elections are scheduled for 2023, but nearly 60% of respondents wanted quick polls. The agency’s May poll showed that Erdogan, Turkey’s most popular politician for a long time, was lagging behind three opposition figures discussed as presidential candidates. Selcuki claimed that the “fundamental consensus” behind the fall was widespread discontent with the economy.

Erdogan has dominated Turkish politics for two decades, overseeing a triple of GDP that lifted millions out of poverty. But his dramatic consolidation of power in recent years has coincided with political volatility, including a 2016 coup attempt, an aggressive foreign policy that pitted him against Western trading partners, and unorthodox economic policies this deterred foreign investors and affected the country’s finances.

At Rize, he maintained hero status. Welcome to Erdogan’s country, a billboard is read on the road to the provincial capital, also called Rize and home to Recep Tayyip Erdogan University. Huge images of the president adorn 150,000 city buildings, where he garnered 79% of the vote in the 2018 presidential election.

But even here voices of dissent have appeared. Mehmet Ali Sancaktutan, who left the AKP two years ago, said neighbors warned him to leave his home in nearby Guneysu, where Erdogan spent part of his childhood, after police arrested her for complain about the management of the president of the economy on a YouTube. interview in June.

“I thought our president, a son of Rize, would save us, but he has lost touch with our problems,” Sancaktutan said. “People are miserable, they’re worried about putting food on the table, but we only hear about construction projects.”

Saltuk Deniz, the provincial chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, said his party had tripled its share of the vote in the last local elections.

“People are concentrating around one of their own in Rize, but we see that bond falling apart as people’s economic problems grow,” he said.

In Ikizdere, about 50 people have sued to stop the quarry and have entered the third month of a vigil in an abandoned factory with Turkish flags. Many others gave up the protest after Transport Minister Adil Karaismailoglu said the port would bring jobs to the community and accused “marginal and foreign groups” of inciting dissent.

Meanwhile, the tea bushes planted by Bas a few years ago have not been able to grow and worries that nearby dams will exacerbate local climate change. Production of the area’s beautiful “crazy honey” – from bees that feed on rhododendrons that contain a mind-boggling substance – has plummeted, while rapid development in the Black Sea provinces has been widespread. accused of landslides and deadly floods.

“We didn’t say anything when they built the dams and the highway, but now we regret it,” Bas said. “Nature always demands its revenge.”