AK Party-led People’s Alliance ahead in elections: survey

THE PEOPLE’S Alliance led by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) would gain 53.3% of the votes, while some opposition parties would fail to pass the threshold if elections took place today, according to the results of a recent survey conducted by Areda Survey.

The ruling party would obtain 41.7%, while its partner MHP would get 11.6% of the votes, according to the survey.

The survey asked, “Which party would you vote for if elections were held this Sunday.”

Some 21.8% of participants said they would vote for the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), while 10.3% said they would vote for the Good Party (İP).

The Nation Alliance, consisting of the CHP, HDP and İP, would get 32.9% in total.

The survey results showed that the pro-PKK Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) would gain 9.3%, the Felicity Party (SP) would get 0.8%, the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA) 1.8% and the Future Party (GP) would get 0.4% of the votes, all under the country’s election threshold of 10%.

DEVA was formed by former Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan eight months after his resignation from the AK Party. One of the founding members of the AK Party, Babacan also served as the economy and then, foreign minister before becoming deputy prime minister, a post he held from 2009 to 2015. GP, on the other hand, was formed by another AK Party dissident, former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu in December 2019.

The survey was conducted on Feb. 2-4 with the participation of 2,486 people. Some 20.8% of the participants were above the age of 55, while 16.7% were between 45-54, 24% were between ages 3544, 23.2% were between 25-34 and 15.3% were between 18-24.

Turkish officials, including President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, have dismissed the opposition’s requests for snap elections and said the elections would be held on the scheduled date on 2023, the centenary of the Republic of Turkey.

The elected president’s term of office is five years, and a person may be elected as the president for two terms at most.

It has been two years since Turkey switched from a parliamentary system to the current presidential system after the majority of Turkish voters opted to create the new system.

Turkish voters narrowly endorsed an executive presidency in the April 16, 2017 referendum with 51.4% of the votes. The official transition to the new system took place when Erdoğan took his oath as president after the June 24, 2018, general elections, where he won 52.6% of the votes.