Russia’s referendum, Poland’s election, Turkey & MSCI

Russia’s government has been pulling out the stops to increase turnout in the vote on constitutional amendments to allow President Putin to rule until 2036, but details on the government’s medium-term economic recovery plan are taking longer to finalise. Meanwhile, Poland’s presidential election on Sunday is lining up to be a close affair and, while a defeat for the incumbent would not have major implications for economic policy, it would make it more difficult for PiS to push through more of its policy agenda. Finally, the threat by the benchmark equity index provider, MSCI, to downgrade Turkey from “emerging” to “frontier” status is a damning indictment of Turkish economic policy.