ANKARA
\nAnxious Turks struggled to keep up with a bewildering collapse in their currency and the main opposition party leader said the country was experiencing its darkest \u201ccatastrophe\u201d as the lira slumped 15% on Tuesday against the dollar.
\nTuesday\u2019s meltdown follows weeks of steep falls in the lira which have already driven up prices, leaving ordinary Turks reconsidering everything from their holiday plans to weekly grocery shopping.
\n\u201cThere has not been such a catastrophe in the history of the Republic,\u201d said Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the opposition Republican People\u2019s Party, blaming the currency freefall on President Tayyip Erdogan who has led the country since 2003.
\n\u201cAt this point, you are a fundamental national security problem for the Republic of Turkey,\u201d Kilicdaroglu said.
\nErdogan has pressured the central bank to slash interest rates in a move he says will boost exports, investment and jobs, but which critics say will further fuel double-digit inflation and erode the lira, cutting deeply into Turks\u2019 earnings.
\nShoppers at a central Ankara mall said they could not take their eyes off the lira rate, which plunged as far as 13.45 to the dollar on Tuesday. A year ago it was 8 to the dollar, last month it reached 9 and last week it hit 10.
\n\u201cI\u2019ve become unable to work without following the dollar,\u201d said 28-year-old advertising agency worker Selin.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t think there is a single day where I don\u2019t have to watch my budget, and the calculation changes 100 times by the time I get next month\u2019s salary. There is nothing left, including toilet paper, that I buy without thinking carefully.\u201d
\nFormer prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu, a founding member of Erdogan\u2019s ruling, Islamist-rooted AK Party before breaking away to form his own party, described the president\u2019s economic measures as \u201ctreason and not ignorance\u201d.
\nKilicdaroglu, Davutoglu and some other opposition leaders have announced emergency meetings to discuss the currency after Tuesday\u2019s crash – the lira\u2019s second biggest fall ever.
\n\u2018WE ARE SINKING\u2019
\nTurks took to social media to express dismay. Top trending topics on Twitter were dominated by hashtags on the economy including \u201cWe are sinking\u201d, \u201cGovernment resign\u201d and \u201cWe cannot make ends meet\u201d.
\nIn the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, shop owners burned what appeared to be fake dollars on the street in a symbolic gesture of protest, saying: \u201cWe cannot sleep, we don\u2019t know about our future.\u201d
\nSeveral people who spoke to Reuters said that as soon as they received their salaries or pensions, they converted them into foreign currency.
\n\u201cI have asked for an advance on my monthly salary just to convert it into dollars so that I can maintain some sense of value in my earnings,\u201d said Emirhan Metin, 28, a lawyer in Istanbul. \u201cIt\u2019s nearly impossible to focus or talk about anything else at this point.\u201d
\nHaluk, a 36-year-old freelance film editor, said he was often paid with a lag of six to eight months. \u201cSo the contract I signed last month is worth 20% less today. Who knows how much it will be worth when I get paid six months from now?\u201d
\nDoruk Akpek, CEO at a menstrual hygiene brand startup, said he tried to keep his savings in dollars and crypto-currency, but added the situation was tougher for those who only had lira.
\n\u201cThere is also a psychological unhappiness, you see the country collapsing in front of your eyes. It impacts the morale and motivation of people,\u201d Akpek said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ANKARA Anxious Turks struggled to keep up with a bewildering collapse in their currency and the main opposition party leader said the country was experiencing its darkest \u201ccatastrophe\u201d as the lira slumped 15% on Tuesday against the dollar. Tuesday\u2019s meltdown follows weeks of steep falls in the lira which have already driven up prices, leaving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-229328","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n