ISTANBUL: The leader of Turkey’s main opposition party said on Thursday that power had been cut at his home, after he refused to pay his bills for two months in protest at steep hikes in subsidised energy prices.

A currency crisis late last year sent inflation soaring and prompted the government to raise prices of everything from gas and electricity to road tolls, alcohol, bus fares and petrol in January.

“Energy is a basic human right. I wanted to be the voice of those who cannot pay,” Republican People’s Party (CHP) Chairman Kemal Kilicdaroglu said in a video posted on Twitter.Annual inflation rose further to 61pc in March. Many analysts blame the economic turmoil on a series of unorthodox interest rate cuts engineered by President Tayyip Erdogan last year. Kilicdaroglu said in February he would stop paying his electricity bills and called for the price hikes to be rolled back.

Published in Dawn, April 22nd, 2022