Erdogan’s AKP party signals return to more orthodox economic policies in draft election manifesto, sources say

The draft election manifesto of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party marks a return to more orthodox, free market economic policies, four sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Turkey is due to hold presidential and parliamentary elections on May 14 and opinion polls show that Erdogan will face his biggest electoral challenge yet in his two decades in power.

Erdogan's popularity has suffered mainly due to an erosion of living standards caused by the depreciation in the Turkish lira at a time when Ankara began pursuing a controversial economic model that was based on low interest rates. In 2021 Turkey embarked on a rate-cutting cycle in the face of soaring inflation, defying traditional monetary policy and running against a global trend of rising borrowing costs. The Turkish central bank slashed its benchmark rate by 500 basis points in 2021 and then...