Thousands of people took to the streets of cities across Turkey in recent days to protest against electricity prices that shot up by as much as 125 per cent at the start of the year.
From the Mediterranean resorts of Fethiye and Marmaris to Agri on the mountainous eastern border, people rebelled against crippling bills that were raised in January.
Under the nationwide changes, electricity companies boosted prices by 50 per cent for low-level users, rising to 125 per cent for large-scale business consumers.
In the southern city of Mardin, police used tear gas and arrested several protesters on Sunday after the crowd called for the resignation of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and chanted against the region’s electricity supplier.
“These electricity price increases are the latest blow for us after inflation that has left us unable to feed ourselves properly,” said Rifat Gencay, a jobless 39-year-old from Istanbul’s Atasehir neighbourhood.
Housewife Esra Yuksel, 45, said her family had lowered the heating and wore extra clothing at home to keep bills down. “I still don’t know if we will be able to pay the bills next month,” she said.
Turkey’s economic crisis led to the official rate of inflation hitting nearly 49 per cent in January, up from 36 per cent the previous month.
Independent economists, however, put the annual rate at more than 115 per cent, a figure many shoppers facing daily price rises believe to be more accurate.
Shopkeepers in Istanbul have taken to posting their monthly electricity bills in their windows as a display of their desperate situation.
He was referring to Mr Erdogan’s announcement last week that the upper limit of the 50 per cent increase would be raised from 150 kilowatts to 210 kilowatts of monthly use.
Mr Erdogan said the new tariffs were introduced to “ensure sustainability in energy markets”. Meanwhile, his spokesman Ibrahim Kalin on Sunday promised changes to ease customers’ burdens.
