Poll Shows 41 Pct Support for Erdogan’s AK Party, 25 Pct for Opposition

Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) received support from 41 percent of the participants in a poll conducted by the research center Metropoll ahead of the upcoming local elections, while the figure was 25 percent for the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Turkish media reported on Wednesday.

As for the other parties in parliament, 12 percent favored the right-wing Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), 10 percent voted for the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and 9 percent preferred the nationalist Good Party (IYI) in the survey.

According to raw poll data before the shares of undecided participants were distributed, the support for AK Party was 34.1 percent, 21.3 percent for the CHP, 10.3 percent for the MHP, 8.3 percent for the HDP and 7.7 percent for IYI. A total of 21.1 percent of the participants were undecided.

The Turkish media pointed out that the poll was administered prior to MHP leader Devlet Bahceli‘s announcement that his party would not ally with the AK Party in the local elections set to take place in March.

Another outcome of the survey is that the support for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dropped by 2 percent, going down to 39.8 percent, while 46.2 percent did not approve Erdogan’s policies.

In the presidential election held in June, President Erdogan won more than 52 percent of the votes in the first round. With the election result, Turkey officially made a transition to an executive presidential system with little check on the powers of the presidential office.

Erdogan’s AK Party was originally planning to ally with the MHP in 2019’s local elections. However, the two parties later had disagreements, which led to a change in the alliance plans.

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