Turkish main opposition to ‘bring back rule of law and give Central Bank independence’

The Turkish economy is facing a slow death, but this can be prevented by a new economic model, says main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) Deputy Chair Sayek Böke. ‘We have the right recipe. We will start with bringing back the rule of law and giving the Central Bank its independence,' Böke says The ruling party’s economic model has come to its end and there is a need for a new program to stop the “slow death” that Turkey is now facing, according to the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) Deputy Chair Sayek Böke.

“We need reforms in five major areas, but first and foremost we must bring back the rule of law,” said Böke, who was recently appointed as the CHP’s deputy chairperson responsible for the economy.

How do you evaluate the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) performance, successes and failures?

The AKP’s ruling period has not been a monolithic period. The first part of their rule was dominated by success stories. Their first and foremost success was that they inherited a reform package, and they continued to execute it. For the first time for quite some years, the authorities implemented a policy set. Within that reform package, there were successful items, like fiscal imbalances being corrected and the Central Bank becoming independent. These were not written by the authorities themselves but inherited. The failure points are actually a mirror image of this; the minute they had to come up with their own policies, they decided not to do so. Since 2007, there has been no clear checklist where we can say that this is what is being promised and this is what has been done. This brings with it a transparency and accountability problem.

Some analysts...