AKP-MHP alliance votes far from enough to make Erdoğan president again: survey

The results of a recent survey by İstanbul Economics Research have revealed that nationwide support for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Public Alliance is far from enough to bring him victory in a hypothetical presidential election in January, according to a report by the Cumhuriyet daily on Saturday.

According to the survey, the Public Alliance, which includes the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its ally, the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), would receive 40.5 percent of the vote if a general election were to have been held in January, when undecided voters are distributed among the parties.

The figure would be far from what Erdoğan needs for election to the position of president, which is 50 percent of the vote plus one additional vote, known locally as the “50+1” rule.

The “50+1” rule, a constitutional requirement, was part of the executive presidential system that replaced Turkey’s parliamentary system of governance in a referendum in 2017. Erdoğan received around 52 percent of the vote in the 2018 election, thanks to the support of the MHP.

While the AKP-MHP vote would have stood at 40.5 percent in total in a January election, with the latter garnering only 8.5 percent of the vote, the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), its ally the nationalist İYİ (Good) Party, and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) would have received 25, 15 and 9 percent, respectively, Cumhuriyet said.

Nationwide support for Erdoğan in a January presidential election would be between 37.5 and 40 percent, according to Cumhuriyet, with the votes of his potential rivals, including CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and the party’s Mansur Yavaş, the mayor of Ankara, varying in a wider range.

According to the survey, when asked about their feeling regarding Turkey’s current state of affairs, 49 percent of participants said they were “worried.”

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.