An overwhelming majority of Turks believe that the country’s statistical authority, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), is releasing lower figures than the country’s actual inflation numbers, a recent survey has revealed.
A total of 61.7 percent of respondents of the survey conducted by MetroPoll think TurkStat is understating inflation, while only 11.1 percent believe the institution is giving the real statistics and 11.2 percent say TurkStat’s figures are higher than the actual inflation.
The results are from MetroPoll’s monthly “Turkey’s Pulse” survey conducted in May with the participation of 1,700 people across the country.
TurkStat announces the inflation figures for the previous month at the beginning of the new month. It has been attracting more controversy about the accuracy of its inflation figures particularly after an independent group of economists, ENAG, began to release its own inflation data, disputing the TurkStat figures.
ENAG’s inflation figures are sometimes twice the level announced by TurkStat.
For instance, TurkStat released inflation statistics for May on Monday and said annual inflation for the month was 75.4 percent. However, ENAG’s calculations suggested that it was 120.7 percent in May on a year-on-year basis.
Opposition parties and government skeptics have been criticizing TurkStat for not releasing accurate figures for important statistics such as inflation and unemployment, instead presenting statistics that fail to reflect market realities. The institute is accused of manipulating the numbers in order to mask the scale of the country’s economic deterioration under the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government.
MetroPoll’s survey showed that even AKP supporters do not trust TurkStat’s inflation statistics, with 41.3 percent of them thinking that the institution is understating the inflation figures. Only 19.2 percent of AKP supporters believe TurkStat is announcing the inflation data accurately.
The distrust for TurkStat’s inflation data is highest among the nationalist İYİ (Good) Party supporters, with 82.3 percent of them expressing disbelief in the accuracy of its data. They are followed by the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) with 80.4 percent, and then by the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) supporters with 78 percent.
Turkey has been battling soaring consumer prices and a cost-of-living crisis that prompted President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to drop his opposition to interest-rate hikes to combat inflation.
The central bank began to raise its key rate in June 2023, gradually taking it from 8.5 percent to 50 percent.
Last month central bank governor Fatih Karahan raised the year-end inflation forecast to 38 percent, up from a previous estimate of 36 percent.
The cost-of-living crisis is cited as one of the reasons for the defeat of the AKP in the local elections on March 31, coming in second for the first time since its establishment in 2002.