But now the foreign exchange reserves have been used up. According to the Financial Times, these were 1.4 billion a year ago, but the central bank is now in the red by 13 billion US dollars. The gold reserves are still around 15 billion US dollars. Many analysts are therefore assuming that the lira will soon slip again. At the moment you can get almost 20 Turkish lira for one US dollar. Rates of 1 to 24 or even 1 to 30 are considered realistic.
Also read: Why the West misunderstands Türkiye
Erdogan narrowly missed an absolute majority in last Sunday’s election. He got 49.5 percent of the votes. His challenger, CHP chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, to 43 percent. Only a few believe the opposition still has a good chance of winning on May 28th. Many observers assume that the ultra-nationalist candidate Sinan Ogan’s votes will go to Erdogan. Ogan was the underdog of the election and surprisingly got 5.2 percent. The first doubts about the election results quickly arose. Some constituencies had reported abnormalities and forgeries. However, it is highly unlikely that the election will be officially contested.