Al-Monitor writes this week that Turkey’s skyrocketing welfare spending can be boiled down to an effort by the ruling party to buy votes through government handouts.
Despite fears that the spending might preclude using government funds for job creating investments, the trend towards creating an ever widening social safety net has become a vicious cycle. With public perception that the government assistance represents the benevolence of President Erdogan’s ruling party, the opposition has little choice but to promise even more.