As the Turkish lira collapses and the recession worsens, Erdogan focuses on Sunday's municipal elections

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan He has already promised to punish those who use his work and his pen to support terrorism. On the eve of the municipal elections, he focused his attention on the attacks committed with vegetables. "The prices of eggplant, tomato, potato and cucumber have increased," he said in an election last month, referring to wholesalers who would have monopolized products on the market. "They sow terror."

Despite the government's efforts to distract voters, the economy will weigh on the minds of most Turks when they elect mayors and councilors on March 31.. The largest economy in the Middle East is entering a period of more than four years without further scheduled elections, depriving the Erdogan government of excuses to justify any future political error after more than a decade of economic growth.

In this area, the ruling Erdogan Party, Justice and Development (AK), has achievements of which it can be proud. Since 2002, when it came to power, the economy has grown at an average annual rate of 5%.. Millions of Turks have emerged from poverty. However, the amount of debt accumulated by businesses and consumers over these years, often with total imprudence, began to discredit the viability of their economic project. In one year, the Turkish lira has dropped by about 30%, favoring the worst inflation since the arrival of AK in power. Rising interest rates slowed growth. The country is going through a recession.

Concerns over Turkey's future resurfaced last week, as reports that the country's central bank had destroyed $ 6 billion in reserves in just two weeks were behind the biggest daily drop in the read since the devaluation of August.

Erdogan reacted by threatening currency speculators. The country's banking authorities launched an investigation against JP Morgan after the bank advised its clients to sell the book. Reports indicate that local banks were forced to stop lending abroad to avoid further short selling. Although the lira recovered, the currency continued its decline against the dollar this week, rising to 5.6 per dollar at the time of publication.

Erdogan's growing obsession with voting this Sunday seems exaggerated. Your party, AK, will prevail regardless of the outcome of the elections. The main challenge is presented in Ankara, the capital, where the opposition candidate Mansur Yavas won in the polls the AK candidate, Mehmet Ozhaseki.

Yavas, who claims that voting for him is a vote against economic mismanagement and corruption, has also been a victim of Erdogan's attacks and threats.. Earlier this month, the pro-government press exhumed old allegations linking the mayor's candidate to a fake check. A few days later, the courts opened an investigation against him. Erdogan warned that Yavas would pay "the high price" for his crimes after the elections.

But the attacks of the Turkish president are not only directed against his political opponents, but against the worst inclinations of his own supporters.. In order to mobilize his religious base, Erdogan falsely accused the West of playing an active role in recent attacks on two mosques in New Zealand. A week before the elections, the president proposed to convert Hagia Sophia, the Byzantine cathedral turned into a mosque by the Ottomans and in a museum of former President Atatürk, again in a mosque.

After less than a year to consolidate his term in a controversial election, where Erdogan has managed to maintain his position after years of authoritarian reforms concentrating power within the executive, the elected president seems to be campaigning as if his future depended on municipal elections. The truth is that his government will not be the subject of a new vote before four years, in 2023. Until then, Erdogan has to deal with millions of Turks increasingly concerned about the resumption of the economy in their conspiracy theories.