Turkey: Opposition party calls for early polls in 2021

By Emin Avundukluoglu

ANKARA (AA) – A Turkish opposition party on Monday urged moving Turkey towards early elections next year.

"Let’s make a medium-term budget. A medium-term plan and then let us prepare an exit plan for Turkey. Then, let us go to the national will, let us go to elections," Ismail Tatlioglu, head of the Good (IYI) Party's parliamentary group, told lawmakers during the 2021 budget debate in parliament.

Tatlioglu said Turkey needs a new political atmosphere that leads the country to exit its current economic situation.

"As we’ve seen, without a new political atmosphere, Turkey hasn’t been able to find a way out [from its current economic situation]," Tatlioglu said.

He added: "We can only get out of this poverty trap by changing the political will."

The IYI Party's deputy chair, for his part, said that Turkey is growing poor, while its trade deficit gets larger.

"We are in the second rank in inflation worldwide. We can’t produce any technology. In employment, we’re breaking records in the republic’s history," Erhan Usta said.

Turkey's unemployment rate in August was 13.2%, down 0.8 percentage points year-on-year, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute.

In July, the country's unemployment rate was 13.4%.