Edirne: The sea of Bulgarian buses parked outside a market in Turkey’s historic city of Edirne betrays the scale of the currency crisis impeding president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s path to a third decade of rule.

       The mosque-filled city on Turkey’s western edge was an early capital of the Ottoman Empire when it was expanding across the Middle East and Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries.

       It is now the place where shoppers from Bulgaria and the Balkans – themselves some of Europe’s poorest countries – go to stock up on everything from underwear to walnuts at a fraction of their cost back home.

       “For us, the crisis is good, but it is very bad for the Turkish people,” said tour guide Daniela Mircheva before boarding a bus back to her Bulgarian hometown of Yambol.

       “We were in a similar situation maybe 10, 11, 12 years ago,” the 49-year-old said, in reference to the 2008 global financial crisis. “It is very difficult.”

       Turkey’s beleaguered lira has crashed under the weight of an unusual economic experiment Erdogan is conducting in a bid to boost support before elections due by mid-2023.

       Erdogan has pushed the central bank to slash interest rates in fervently-held belief that this will finally cure Turkey’s chronic inflation problem. It has – as economists had universally predicted – done the exact opposite.

       Consumer prices are climbing at an annual rate of more than 20%. Some economists think this pace could accelerate in the coming months.

       The lira has shed a third of its value since the start of November alone. It was beginning to lose 5% a day until Erdogan announced new currency support measures that managed to suspend the slide.

       Erdogan is betting that a cheap lira will create exports-driven growth that puts Turkey on a path followed by China during an economic transformation that pulled millions out of poverty and created a new middle class.

       Erdogan surprised many by opening Turkey up to foreign investment and marshalling nearly a decade of vigorous growth.

       Economists and diplomats – as well as some Bulgarians – struggle to understand why Erdogan has decided to reverse course so dramatically in the past few years.

       One senior Western official said the drop in Erdogan’s approval ratings in most polls to as low as 30% had put the veteran Turkish leader “in political survival mode”.

       “He is down to the very bottom of his base of support.” — AFP