乐鱼 体育

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

There are two important points that we need to focus on when we look at Turkey today and the protests. One is Erdogan is doing this not because of the legal reasons or actual judicial reasons, but to stay in power by eliminating his most popular rival in the political sphere, who is Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul, who was on track to beat Erdogan in the polls in the upcoming elections, whether they were early elections or whether on time in 2028. 

The second thing that we need to understand is that Turkish people, despite a lot of personal police brutality, a lot of arrests, detainment and so forth, tens of thousands of people are showing up on the streets, mostly younger people, obviously, because they are the most impacted by the economic crisis in Turkey as well as the Democratic backsliding. But it's not just the younger people, it's people from all walks of life are on the streets or in their homes protesting or, you know, they're protesting online. And it has turned into a mass movement in Turkey that we have not seen since 2013, the Gezi movement, that took place across Turkey for similar reasons. 

In the first three days of the protests, Turkish Central Bank spent about $26 billion from its reserves to stabilize the Turkish lira, which was losing value against the dollar rapidly. Plus, Turkish banks have lost 20% of their value in the first three days of the protest in addition to Turkish stock market taking a major hit. Obviously, the Turkish Finance Ministry, as well as the central bank is taking steps to address that. But the main issue at the center  is affecting Turkish economy is not necessarily the lack of initiatives that the ministries and the government is taking, but the fact that the rule of law and trust has been diminished in Turkish government. 

Essentially younger people in Turkey have lost faith, have lost faith in the future under Erdogan. And essentially, they don't see a future under Erdogan's presidency. That's not me saying it. That's the data saying it. If you look at study after study, it shows that up to 70, 80% of people of younger Turkish people don't want to live in Turkey anymore. They want to move abroad, move to Europe, move to Canada, move to the US. So this is a make or break point for younger people, especially.