A recent survey has found that public support for an alliance of opposition parties is four points ahead of support for an alliance led by Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Turkish media outlets reported.
The Nation Alliance, consisting of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Good (İYİ) Party, would secure 40.6 percent of the vote against 36.8 percent for the Public Alliance of the AKP and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), according to a poll conducted by the ORC polling company.
In the ORC survey, conducted March 6-13, respondents were asked, “Which party would you vote for if a general election were to be held this Sunday?”
According to the results, of the top contenders the AKP received 28.1 percent of the vote while the CHP garnered 23.8 percent and the İYİ Party received 16.8 percent of the nationwide vote.
The AKP’s partner, the MHP, won 8.7 percent of the vote, while the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party’s (HDP) vote stood at 8.9 percent.
Of the smaller parties, the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA) secured 3 percent of the vote, while the Future Party (GP) got 3.5 percent and the Felicity Party (SP) received 1.6 percent of the nationwide vote.
When undecided voters are distributed among the parties, the result shows the Nation Alliance four points ahead of the Public Alliance.
In the last general election, held in June 2018, the AKP garnered a nationwide vote of 42.6 percent. However, public surveys have increasingly been showing the party’s public support to be slipping.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose ruling AKP has been in power as a single party government since 2002, was elected president in 2014 and re-elected in 2018. His election in 2018 was under a presidential system as Turkey switched from a parliamentary to a presidential system of governance after a referendum in 2017. Under the presidential system, Erdoğan is accused of establishing one-man rule, destroying the separation of powers and silencing dissent.
On Monday the AKP and the MHP submitted a bill to parliament that would reduce the country’s 10 percent election threshold to 7 percent. The move has been interpreted by opposition parties as an attempt to facilitate the MHP’s entrance to parliament as more and more surveys show the party remaining below the 10 percent threshold.
