Survey affirms Erdogan's loss of popularity continues

CAIRO – 12 February 2020: A recent research showed an acute decline in the popularity of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, driven by a collapsing economy, aggressive foreign policies and involving Ankara into international crises.

In the survey conducted by AREA Research in Istanbul, Izmir, Antalya, Ankara, Samsun, Malatya and Gaziantep between January 20-27, the participants were asked "Which party would you vote for if there was a parliamentary election today?"

About 16.2 percent answered this question as "I am indecisive".

The survey came out as 30.3 percent of the participants stated they would vote for the AKP, 20.8 percent for CHP, 10.8 percent for HDP, 9.4 percent for MHP, and 9.3 percent for IYI Party.

After the 16.2 percent of the undecided votes were distributed, the vote of the AKP was determined as 36.2 percent, the vote of the CHP was 24.8 percent, the vote of the HDP was 12.9 percent, the vote of the MHP was 11.3 percent and the vote of the IYI Party was 11.1 percent.

The participants were also asked about the presidential system. "A referendum on Turkey's administrative system, what would you choose?" The rate of those who stated that the system should be parliamentary was 57.3 percent, while the rate of those who chose a presidential system was 35.2 percent. 7.5 percent chose not to participate or simply did not know what to choose.

As a result of the survey, the "Presidential Government System" was found unsuccessful with 56.7 percent. While the rate of those who found successful was merely 35.7 percent, the rate of those who did not express opinions was 7.7 percent.

However, the most significant one was a question about whether they would vote for Erdogan; The rate of those who stated that they would vote for Erdogan was 35.3 percent, while 52.4 percent utterly rejected the idea. Only 12.3 percent were not sure about it.

Turkish President Erdogan’s AK Party further faced more defections after losing 840,000 members in 2018.

“Erdogan’s popularity over the last seven years...is generally on a declining trend, artificially boosted by one-off events, to the point where it looks irreversible,” said Gareth Jenkins, of the Stockholm-based Institute for Security and Development Policy.