Turkey’s opposition bloc leaves AKP-MHP alliance behind: MetroPoll

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Public Alliance, which includes his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its ally, the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), would have been left in the dust by the country’s opposition bloc if a general election were to have been held in January, according to a survey conducted by the Ankara-based MetroPoll.

The results of the survey, titled “Turkey’s Pulse – January 2022” and conducted between Jan. 8 and 12 on 1,508 people in 28 provinces, were shared Friday by the pollster on social media.

When asked “Which political party would you vote for if a general election were to be held this Sunday?” 34 percent of respondents said they would vote for the ruling AKP, while only 5.9 percent said they would support the MHP, which is below Turkey’s election threshold.

Turkey has a 10 percent election threshold, which means if a party fails to get 10 percent of the national vote in the general election, they lose the opportunity to be represented in parliament.

According to MetroPoll, the figures show the results after the proportional distribution of undecided, unresponsive or protesting votes, which corresponds to 22.6 percent of respondents.

While the AKP-MHP vote would have stood at 39.9 percent in total in a January election, the parties comprising the rival Nation Alliance — the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the nationalist İYİ (Good) Party — would have received 41.7 percent in total, with the CHP garnering 28.4 percent of the vote and İYİ 13.3 percent.

The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) stood at 11.6 percent, while the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA) received 2.6 percent of the vote.

The poll showed that Turkey’s opposition bloc would have left the AKP-MHP alliance behind in terms of electoral support in a January election, although the AKP’s votes increased by 2 percent compared to the previous Metropoll survey conducted in December.

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.

Erdoğan, whose ruling AKP has been in power as a single-party government since 2002, was elected president in 2014 and reelected in 2018. His election in 2018 was under a presidential system as Turkey switched from a parliamentary to a presidential system of governance with a public referendum in 2017. Under the presidential system, Erdoğan is accused of establishing one-man rule, destroying the separation of powers and silencing dissent.

The AKP government launched a massive crackdown on non-loyalist citizens following a failed coup in July 2016 as thousands of people were jailed on trumped-up terrorism or coup charges.