Daily Times

Turkey’s central bank chief Hafize Gaye Erkan said Friday she was resigning after less than a year in office over a media scandal involving her family.

The respected former Wall Street executive’s decision threatens to unsettle Turkey’s nascent recovery from an economic crisis that saw the annual inflation rate reach 85 percent in 2022.

Erkan won major plaudits from Western investors for spearheading a rapid series of interest rate hikes that helped stabilise the slumping lira and tame Turkey’s dire cost of living crisis.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — a lifelong opponent of high interest rates — dropped his support for unconventional economics and repeatedly praised Erkan for her work. But the 44-year-old has come under withering attack on social media and in some opposition publications for allegedly allowing her father to make unauthorized personnel decisions at the bank.

Erkan has reportedly also angered Erdogan by telling one major newspaper that she had to move in with her parents because inflation had made renting in Istanbul unaffordable. The attacks on Turkey’s first woman central bank governor alarmed investors and created uncertainty about Erdogan’s long-term commitment to his team. “A major reputation assassination campaign has recently been organized against me,” Erkan said in a social media statement.