The Turkish Parliament has ratified a bill that eliminates an age requirement and offers early retirement to millions of citizens, a move that has been one of the key election pledges of the ruling party.

Approved by Parliament in a vote late on Tuesday, the new arrangement put forward by the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) will allow more than 2 million workers to retire in the first stage.

The measure will benefit people who started working before September 1999, when the law regulating retirement requirements changed, and those who have completed 20-25 years of social security-registered work.

Previously, the retirement age was set at 58 years for women and 60 for men.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan earlier said 2.25 million people would be eligible to retire immediately, regardless of age, if they fulfilled necessary work conditions.

There are currently about 13.9 million pensioners in Türkiye.

Labor and Social Security Minister Vedat Bilgin has said the new system could cost around TL 150 billion ($7.9 billion) this year.

But he stressed the exact figure is currently hard to estimate "because we don’t know how many people will immediately decide to get retired under the new system."

Bilgin on Wednesday said the first pensions under the system would be paid as of April.

The cost of the arrangement is likely to increase in the coming years as the number of employees benefiting from the plan is expected to rise and could reach some 5 million, a senior official earlier told Bloomberg News.

The move is seen as giving a boost to Erdoğan before the critical upcoming elections, whose timing has been uncertain since last month’s devastating earthquakes that caused widespread destruction in the south of Türkiye and killed more than 45,000 people.

But Erdoğan on Wednesday indicated that presidential and parliamentary elections would be held on May 14, sticking to his previous plans.

The government tripled the minimum wage in the past year, raised state salaries and hiked pensions for millions to ease the pressure on households stemming mostly from soaring inflation.

The annual consumer price index (CPI) fell sharply in December and eased to 57.7% in January, down from the peak of 85.5% – a 24-year high – registered last October.

Data on Friday is forecast to highlight inflation dropped to 55.5% in February, according to surveys published on Monday.

The minimum wage has been increased by 55% for 2023 and Erdoğan said it might be hiked again throughout the year if necessary.

The government last year introduced several relief measures to help cushion the fallout from inflation, including a cap on rent increases, reduced taxes on utility bills and the unveiling of a major housing project for low-income families.