The Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has been ruling Turkey as a single-party government since 2002, would have received a nationwide vote of around 25 percent if a general election were to have been held last month, according to a survey conducted by the Eurasia Public Research Center (AKAM).
The poll results, announced on Wednesday by AKAM President Kemal Özkiraz from his YouTube channel, also showed that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would have been defeated by each of four potential presidential candidates among his rivals if a presidential election were to have been held in June.
“Erdoğan has no chance [of winning the election], he is losing in every scenario,” local media reports quoted Özkiraz as saying while commenting on the results of the June poll his company conducted.
According to the survey results, the Public Alliance, which is made up of Erdoğan’s AKP and its ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and which garnered 53.6 percent of the vote in the last general election in 2018, showed a downward trend with votes at 25 percent and 6 percent, respectively.
While the parties comprising the rival Nation Alliance — the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), the nationalist İYİ (Good) Party and the Islamist Felicity Party (SP) — received 22.9, 12.8 and 1.2 percent of the vote in the June poll, respectively, other opposition parties such as the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA) and the Future Party (GP) garnered 9.4, 3.8 and 1.7 percent, respectively.
The ruling AKP’s vote increases to 29.4 percent and support for the CHP and İYİ reaches 26.9 and 15 percent, respectively, when undecided voters, who represented 14.9 percent in the survey, are distributed among the parties, according to the poll.
Özkiraz said İYİ has shown an upward trend in recent AKAM surveys, increasing its nationwide support from 13.5 to 15 percent within the past four months.
The survey further showed Erdoğan being defeated by each of his potential rivals — İYİ leader Meral Akşener, CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş — in a possible presidential election scenario in which one of them is running against the incumbent president.
According to the survey, Akşener, Kılıçdaroğlu, İmamoğlu and Yavaş each receive 42.3, 44, 50.2 and 49.4 percent of the vote, respectively, while Erdoğan only garners 39.8, 39.1, 37.8 and 37 percent, respectively, against each of them.
Erdoğan has been accused by his critics of creating a one-man rule and destroying the separation of powers under the presidential system, which went into force following a referendum in 2017, replacing the country’s parliamentary system and granting him vast powers while weakening parliament.
