Erdoğan has removed the governor of the country’s central bank from his post after the lira currency hit record lows, having lost 30% of its value since the start of the year.
The decision to replace Murat Uysal as governor was made by presidential decree and announced in the country’s official gazette early on Saturday. It was not immediately clear why Uysal was removed.
The lira closed at 8.544 against the US dollar on Friday after a touching record low of 8.58, despite dollar weakness as votes were still being counted in the US election.
Erdoğan had appointed then-deputy governor Uysal to head the central bank in July 2019 when he sacked his predecessor, Murat Cetinkaya, amid the president’s frustration that the bank had not cut interest rates to boost the economy.
Erdoğan, a self-described enemy of high interest rates, has repeatedly called for lower borrowing costs. Last weekend, he said Turkey was fighting an economic war against those squeezing it in “the devil’s triangle of interest and exchange rates and inflation”.
However, Turkey was at risk of a full-blown currency crisis such as the one it suffered in 2018 unless the central bank adopted tighter monetary policy, Capital Economics warned this week.
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