Turkish government asks what changed for Moody's

Moody's lowered Turkey's credit rating to "junk" level late on Sept. 23, despite its earlier decision after the bloody coup attempt of July 15 that it would wait and monitor developments for three months before making a final decision.

A day before the Moody's cut, President Tayyip Erdogan had told Bloomberg that he "did not care at all" about the decisions of rating agencies as they were based on politics rather than economic criteria.

Yet Ankara reacted strongly to the Moody's downgrade. Following a cabinet meeting on Sept. 26, government spokesman Numan Kurtulmuş slammed it as a "political" decision. "There is one point that we have difficulty understanding. "How did the evaluation of Moody's analysts on Sept. 21 evolve in the exact opposite direction in two days?" Kurtulmuş said, adding that the figures have not changed much since the coup attempt.

He has a point here. On Sept. 21, Moody's told Reuters that "the shock to Turkey's economy from the failed coup in July has largely dissipated," adding that it expected to conclude its rating review within the next month.

However, two days later Moody's Investor Service elaborated on its downgrading of Turkey's sovereign credit rating to non-investment grade, citing "worries about the rule of law" and "weakening in previously supportive credit fundamentals, particularly growth and institutional strength."

What could have affected the evaluations of Moody's analysts in two days?

Could it be a statement by Erdoğan in the meantime about the confiscated properties of suspected Gülenist companies and institutions? In an address to Turkish associations in New York, Erdoğan said the government of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Parti) had "given lands and...