CNN Fareed's Global Briefing May 30, 2023 : Turkey Looks Ahead, Trump vs.DeSantis, the Wrath of Imran Khan

 

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Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good   Seeing this newsletter as a forward? Sign up here.   May 30, 2023

Turkey Looks Ahead How did he do it? For reasons examined by Fareed and explored in past Global Briefings, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was able to push an advantage in this month’s elections, securing another five-year term in office on Sunday by defeating challenger Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in the runoff round of voting. Now, Turkey looks ahead.   First among its challenges is an ongoing hyperinflation crisis, as Erdoğan’s central bank has kept interest rates low in the face of it, counter to mainstream economic theory. “The lira has fallen by 2% since the first round of the presidential elections (earlier this month), dipping to a record low of 20 to the dollar,” The Economist writes. “Unless Mr Erdogan reverses course and decides to raise interest rates, the currency will plunge as soon as the central bank runs out of ways to defend it.”   At Al-Monitor, Fehim Tastekin predicts the continuation of a foreign agenda that seeks “to sustain and nurture the notion of a ‘strong Turkey’ … Having gained in spades from his double game between Russia and the West, Erdogan is unlikely to part with that policy.”

Has the Election Changed It? Some commentators had predicted this election could mark a turning point for Turkey, cementing Erdoğan’s autocratic leanings if he won. A Le Monde editorial foresees a victorious Erdoğan leaving his mark on the country. “The centenary of the Republic founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, on October 29, 2023, should be an opportunity for him to sketch out the Turkey he imagines,” the paper writes: “more religious, more nationalist than ever, but also more economically opaque.”   Others say the case isn’t closed. “Erdogan might be in power for another five years, and those five years will almost certainly further hollow out institutions and entrench authoritarian political habits in the country’s psyche,” Asli Aydintasbas argues in a Washington Post op-ed. “But the election was closely fought, even if it was not free and fair. While Erdogan may well see the results as an approval for his domestic policies and his nonaligned geopolitical course, he should not get overconfident. The country is deeply polarized and though a slim majority was swayed by his populist message, an economic reckoning looms.”

Was the Debt-Limit Deal Worth the Drama? After President Joe Biden and congressional Republicans reached a deal-in-principle to raise the federal borrowing limit and avoid a national debt default or other bad outcomes, a Wall Street Journal editorial urges House Republicans to approve it.   “Assuming the deal passes Congress, it will defy the Democratic narrative that Republicans can’t govern,” the paper’s editorial board writes. “(Republican House Speaker Kevin) McCarthy’s troops are proving they can, and conservatives would be foolish to abandon the victories in this deal.” (As the deal is considered by Congress, see CNN’s reporting on latest developments here.)   “The proposed legislation might not be great, but it’s probably fine,” writes Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell. “On the other hand: What was the point of all this drama, exactly? … China and Russia have benefited from our obvious fiscal dysfunction, portraying the United States as an unstable democracy and unreliable economic partner. Discussions at the Group of Seven meetings were hijacked by concerns over the global fallout of a possible U.S. default. Biden had to cut short his diplomatic trip to Asia …The U.S. government also might have already incurred higher borrowing costs … And to what end? To get minimal changes to fiscal policies that probably would have happened anyway?”

Watch Fareed’s Take As the debt-limit drama drags on, Fareed noted on Sunday’s GPS that the political circus in Washington has contrasted with real US economic strengths, among them leadership on AI, a stable working-age population thanks to immigration, and the dollar’s supremacy among global currencies.   “Could it be that it is precisely because of this backdrop of strength that Washington’s politicians—and the Republican Party in particular—can indulge in this crazy political theater?” Fareed asked. “For most countries, the price of playing games with one’s creditworthiness would be sharp and severe, and that would act as a disciplining mechanism. But in Washington, this country’s basic strength has become a license for irresponsibility.”

Trump vs. DeSantis: A Repeat of Nixon vs. Reagan? Will former President Donald Trump return as the GOP’s White House nominee in 2024? Will Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, promising similar policies without the churlishness and unpredictability, unseat him as the party’s leader?   Looking for answers to those questions, a New York Times guest opinion essay by Ross Barkan finds them in history, drawing a parallel to the former Republican vice president and defeated 1960 presidential candidate Richard Nixon, who fended off a challenge from up-and-coming conservative California Gov. Ronald Reagan in the 1968 GOP presidential primary.   “Just as Mr. DeSantis, with his wars on critical race theory, ‘woke’ Disney and Covid restrictions, is trying to outmaneuver Mr. Trump on the cultural terrain that’s always been so vital in Republican primaries, Reagan outshone Nixon with his open disdain for (then-President Lyndon) Johnson’s landmark civil rights agenda, the burgeoning antiwar movement and the emerging hippie counterculture,” Barkan writes. But Nixon won out, defeating Reagan and fellow challengers Michigan Gov. George Romney and former VP Nelson Rockefeller in 1968’s primary, and Reagan had to wait. “If 1968 is any guide, Mr. Trump will be tough to beat.”

‘The Wrath of Imran Khan’ On a recent GPS, Fareed spoke with embattled former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, whose arrest sparked protests and has pitted his supporters against the country’s military establishment in protests that turned violent. As Pakistan’s interior minister tells Dawn that Khan will be tried in a military court for those protests, the most recent episode of the Beyond the Indus podcast, released last week, offers context on the high-stakes political saga.   Pakistan’s “army right now is absolutely determined to marginalize Imran Khan or the phenomenon of Imran Khan,” Avinash Paliwal of SOAS University of London tells hosts Joe Wallen and Tushar Shetty. “Ideally they would want to undercut his support base, but ... in fact his popularity has grown, and I think we have reached a sort of a threshold where bothering with countering his popular appeal is just not going to work. So they are really going for the jugular right now. They're going for Imran. There's no two ways about that.”

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