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June 26, 2018

Turkey - the Presidential elections: Erdogan wins following a rigged election and can now rule Turkey with very little opposition


No automatic alt text available.Neutvoom says that a lot of investors "don't agree with his position on the central bank." Erdogan said last month from London that he wants greater control of monetary policy and suggested he wanted to control interest rates. This worries investors as it could mean a loss of independence at the central bank.Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won sweeping new executive powers after his so called "victory" in landmark elections on Sunday.

But Erdogan was not the only person to claim a victory. His Islamist-rooted AK Party and its nationalist allies also secured a parliamentary majority
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But what do the election results mean for Turkey and the rest of the world?

Turkey's currency has fallen some 20% this year against the dollar. Erdogan has repeatedly called on Turks to convert their euro and dollar savings into lira to help bolster the ailing currency.

While Erdogan's victory is likely to be positive for the lira in the short term, Nora Neutrvoom, an economist at ABN Amro told Euronews that the "Turkish economy will face a severe slowdown."

Turkey has long been vying for full EU membership. Last month, Erdogan said getting a fully fledged membership was a "strategic goal" for Turkey. But that looks unlikely after widespread criticism following the mass arrests and crack down on civil rights since the aborted coup of July 2016.

Note EU-Digest: Unfortunately no one in his right mind believes that these election results represent an accurate reflection of the facts . 

It is nearly impossible, as was reported by the government controlled media, that 59 million votes were counted by hand in only a little over three hours. 

Another first for Turkey was that Erdogan announced he had won, before the official Turkish election board did.

Erdogan called this election, which in reality was a total scam, a "celebration of Democracy", regardless of the fact that he had shut-down all the opposition's access to the media.

In this context, one should also not forget that Turkey presently has more journalists in prison than any other country in the world. 

Bottom line: Erdogan can now rule Turkey without opposition  as Turkey's economy slowly disintegrates.

EU-Digest