Özer Sencar, the owner and president of the Ankara-based Metropoll polling company, has said new parties that will be established by two former Justice and Development Party (AKP) heavyweights will determine the result of a presidential election to be held in 2023, according to Turkish media reports.
Former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and former deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan, who recently parted ways with the AKP, have made public that they are planning to establish new parties that will be rivals to their former party, the AKP.
“Even if the new parties get only 5 percent of the nationwide vote, they will determine the result of the presidential election,” said Sencar.
Turkey, which switched to an executive style presidency from a parliamentary system in 2018, holds presidential elections every five years.
Current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was first elected president in 2014 under the parliamentary system, when the post of the president was more symbolic. He was elected for a second term with extensive powers in 2018 under the executive presidential system, which was approved in a public referendum in 2017.
According to Metropoll’s latest survey, the AKP-Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) alliance commands 42 percent of the vote, while the share of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), the İYİ (Good) Party and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) stands at 39 percent without taking undecided voters into consideration. When the undecided voters are included, the AKP-MHP vote is 51 percent, while the vote of the three other parties is 47 percent.