New Turkish poll shows Erdoğan struggling, Hagia Sophia will not affect votes
A new poll by the Eurasia Public Opinion Research
Centre (AKAM) has shown support dipping for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
and found that his recent decision to re-convert the Hagia Sophia into a mosque
will likely have a negligible affect on voting intentions, Cumhuriyet reported
on Friday.
According to the survey, 48.6 percent said they
would not vote for Erdogan in a presidential election while 38.9 percent said
they would.
A survey for AKAM in late May had found that 46.9
percent of those surveyed said they would not vote for Erdoğan
if he ran for a second term, while 39.2 percent said they would.
According to the latest survey, 99.7 percent of
respondents said that Erdoğan's recent
decision to change the status of the Hagia Sophia to a mosque from a museum
will have no impact on how they intend to vote.
On the question over Erdoğan’s overall performance
as president, 40.2 percent said he was unsuccessful, 30.9 percent said he was
neither successful nor unsuccessful, and 28.9 percent said he was successful.
When asked about the general performance of Erdoğan’s Justice and
Development Party (AKP) government, 41.9 percent of people said it had been
unsuccessful, 30.3 percent said it had been successful, and 27.8 percent deemed
it neither successful nor unsuccessful.
Those surveyed said economic concerns and unemployment
were the biggest problems facing Turkey.
In answer to the question of which party they would
vote for if an election was held today, 35 percent of those surveyed said they
would vote for the AKP.
A total of 28.4 percent said they would vote for the
main opposition Republican People’s Party; 12.4 percent would vote for the
opposition centre-right İYİ
Party; 11.7 percent would vote for the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party; and
7.4 percent would vote for the far-right Nationalist Movement Party, which is
aligned with the AKP.
A total of 2.3 and 2.2 percent would vote
respectively for the Future Party and DEVA, which are opposition breakaway
parties from the AKP.