Turkey is facing one of its worst financial crises, yet a majority of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan supporters still revere him.

Surveys by prominent Turkish pollster Metropoll Research shows approval rating for Erdogan’s management of the economy increased by 16 percentage points, from 20% in April to 36%. The number of those who believed that the economy was managed poorly also fell by 15 percentage points to 62%. Among those who said they voted for the ruling party in the last elections in 2018, meanwhile, some 68% believed that the economy was being managed well, up some 33 percentage points. Among supporters of the ruling Justice and Development Party’s de facto political ally, the Nationalist Movement Party, the poll shows the figure standing at some 78%.

Analysts and observers believe that Erdogan’s new economic gestures bestowed on various segments of the society, including affordable housing projects and wage hikes, have likely been the main driver behind the increasing support.

“The Justice and Development Party (AKP) is no longer battling inflation. Their focus is on limiting unemployment and keeping the salaries high,” Burak Bilgehan Ozpek, a political science professor at Ankara’s TOBB University, told Al-Monitor. That is why the minimum wage rose about 90% in the past nine months, he said, and another raise is expected in January. "This is not a sustainable policy but one that is essential to prevent dissolution of the AKP."