— This is the script of CNBC's People of the Week for China's CCTV on November 6, 2022.
We begin this week's People of the Week with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol.
South Korea's Itaewon stampede has attracted a great deal of attention. A total of more than 300 people have been killed and injured as a result of the stampede. The accident is the most serious public safety incident in Korea since the sinking of the passenger ship "Seok-etsu" in 2014. The tragedy may pose a major challenge to President Yoon Seok-yeon's administration.
According to a Gallup poll conducted in South Korea prior to the disaster, President Yoon Seok-yeol received a 30-percent approval rating, much lower than the 51 percent he received upon taking office in May. In light of the recent tragedy, his popularity is likely to suffer further. In the opinion of some political analysts, Yoon Seok-yeol's party will expect him to take swift and appropriate measures to address the incident; any minor mistake is likely to be exaggerated, portraying the current administration as incompetent. As a result of the tragedy, Yoon Seok-yeol acknowledged that South Korea lacks research on controlling the management of crowds. In addition, he directed officials to develop effective crowd control methods that involve the use of high-tech technologies, such as drones.
In this week's Brazilian elections, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the candidate of the Brazilian Labor Party, won the election. As of January 1, 2023, the 77-year-old veteran of Brazilian politics will officially begin his third term as president.
However, this time Lula has won by a narrow margin by only 0.9%. The incumbent Brazilian President, Jair Bolsonaro, in his first public remarks after the defeat, has not admitted defeat, but has merely pledged to respect the Constitution, which is the transfer of power on January 1, 2019.
Having left office in 2008, Lula is returning to a country whose economy has not fully recovered from the pandemic, as well as a country where poverty is prevalent. In his campaign, Lula promised measures such as raising the minimum wage and exempting income taxes, which some analysts estimate will cost at least 140 billion Brazilian reais. However, during Bolsonaro's administration, the Brazilian government's debt reached 90% of its GDP. Additionally, Bolsonaro has implemented policies that have seriously damaged the ecology of the world's largest tropical rainforest, the Amazon rainforest. As a result, Lula's idea of "saving the Amazon rainforest and making Brazil a leader in global climate negotiations" has attracted considerable attention.
Next, focus on Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Statistical data released by the Turkish Statistical Institute on Nov. 3 indicate that the country's inflation rate in October soared to 85.5 percent, a 24-year high due to persistently rising food and energy prices. It is logical that with high inflation, the central bank should tighten monetary policy, that is, raise interest rates. However, Turkey's central bank, at the behest of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is doing the opposite.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan believes that high borrowing costs will cause inflation to climb, while lower borrowing costs will help reduce inflation. During the past three months, the Turkish central bank has cut interest rates by as much as 150 basis points, with the most recent cut occurring on the 20th of last month. In addition, the central bank indicated in a published statement that it may continue to lower interest rates in November.