Obviously the earthquake is an enormous human tragedy and we all need to do our best to provide support and aid to the country, and to Syria which has been as badly impacted.
Hi Ihsan, appreciate your views, and this is clearly a risk. Hard to quantify. Guys around RTE says he won’t contest the elections and there are some suggesting the opposition have given guarantees that AKP guys won’t go to jail….but only time will tell. But you are right to highlight it as a key risk. Cheers, Tim
Thank you for the response. It is indeed hard to quantify and predict. From my research and what I hear, I agree with the latter part that some guarantees have been given for the sake of national cohesion; but the prior just seems categorically against type for Erdogan. He notoriously does not take losses well, and there isn’t just anybody in his inner circle who can nudge him towards conceding (I fear the opposite is more likely as his echo chamber is full of “Yes, Prime Minister” types).
I am a British / Turkish investment associate and a long-time follower of yours from Twitter + substack, mainly for your coverage of Turkey, Brexit, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine (all three either proven or proving to be colossal disasters!).
I agree with 90% of your points on Turkey, including this very post, however, I believe there is an elephant in the room that should always be accounted for when talking about Turkish politics. That being; we have all evidence to suggest Erdogan is NOT the type to go gently into the good night (or as the great Turkish saying “ceketini alıp gitmek”). He effectively and successfully (from his perspective) has been dancing / tiptoeing around the experiment that is Turkish democracy, particularly since 2013, Turkey’s peak economically (also Gezi). He’s been moulding literally everything with the explicit and sole motivation of not only consolidating his power, but also to essentially stay in power indefinitely. All his major steps - including but not limited to the Putin-Medvedev style PM-President swap, the 2015 elections and chaos in between, the 2017 referendum, his alliance with MHP etc. - can and should be read with this fundamental observation. And now, it appears that he’s pretty much exhausted all democratic avenues, with ever-increasing stakes and control. Trying to map out 2023 election scenarios and what can go down on election night, one must not make the mistake of underweighting the risk of political/civil unrest.
I believe anything and everything is on table;
- Trump/Bolsonaro style election denying and Jan 6 style calling his supporters to the streets;
- outright stopping the electoral process and vote counting (he toyed with this in 2014 and 2019 municipal elections);
- declaring early victory to and inviting his supporters to celebrate with a “balkon” speech.
Combining these with 1) the probability that the opposition (rightly so) can also call for a public rally if Erdogan outright denies the result or stops the process, and 2) the fact that gun ownership has dramatically increased over the last 5 or so years, driven by MHP controlled/influenced paramilitary groups — can lead to a cocktail of absolutely horrific scenarios for Turkey.
To clarify, I am not predicting a civil war, but just saying that I do not see a peaceful possibility, perhaps apart from an outright accepted AKP victory (where the opposition clearly accepts defeat like 2018).
My question to you is; how can asset managers even prepare for such worst-case scenarios? Just worried that election risks are underweighted.
PS - apologies for keeping it long, could not stop myself from typing.
Hi Ihsan, appreciate your views, and this is clearly a risk. Hard to quantify. Guys around RTE says he won’t contest the elections and there are some suggesting the opposition have given guarantees that AKP guys won’t go to jail….but only time will tell. But you are right to highlight it as a key risk. Cheers, Tim
Thank you for the response. It is indeed hard to quantify and predict. From my research and what I hear, I agree with the latter part that some guarantees have been given for the sake of national cohesion; but the prior just seems categorically against type for Erdogan. He notoriously does not take losses well, and there isn’t just anybody in his inner circle who can nudge him towards conceding (I fear the opposite is more likely as his echo chamber is full of “Yes, Prime Minister” types).
Dear Mr. Ash,
I am a British / Turkish investment associate and a long-time follower of yours from Twitter + substack, mainly for your coverage of Turkey, Brexit, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine (all three either proven or proving to be colossal disasters!).
I agree with 90% of your points on Turkey, including this very post, however, I believe there is an elephant in the room that should always be accounted for when talking about Turkish politics. That being; we have all evidence to suggest Erdogan is NOT the type to go gently into the good night (or as the great Turkish saying “ceketini alıp gitmek”). He effectively and successfully (from his perspective) has been dancing / tiptoeing around the experiment that is Turkish democracy, particularly since 2013, Turkey’s peak economically (also Gezi). He’s been moulding literally everything with the explicit and sole motivation of not only consolidating his power, but also to essentially stay in power indefinitely. All his major steps - including but not limited to the Putin-Medvedev style PM-President swap, the 2015 elections and chaos in between, the 2017 referendum, his alliance with MHP etc. - can and should be read with this fundamental observation. And now, it appears that he’s pretty much exhausted all democratic avenues, with ever-increasing stakes and control. Trying to map out 2023 election scenarios and what can go down on election night, one must not make the mistake of underweighting the risk of political/civil unrest.
I believe anything and everything is on table;
- Trump/Bolsonaro style election denying and Jan 6 style calling his supporters to the streets;
- outright stopping the electoral process and vote counting (he toyed with this in 2014 and 2019 municipal elections);
- declaring early victory to and inviting his supporters to celebrate with a “balkon” speech.
Combining these with 1) the probability that the opposition (rightly so) can also call for a public rally if Erdogan outright denies the result or stops the process, and 2) the fact that gun ownership has dramatically increased over the last 5 or so years, driven by MHP controlled/influenced paramilitary groups — can lead to a cocktail of absolutely horrific scenarios for Turkey.
To clarify, I am not predicting a civil war, but just saying that I do not see a peaceful possibility, perhaps apart from an outright accepted AKP victory (where the opposition clearly accepts defeat like 2018).
My question to you is; how can asset managers even prepare for such worst-case scenarios? Just worried that election risks are underweighted.
PS - apologies for keeping it long, could not stop myself from typing.
All the best,
Ihsan John Mashari