Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its election ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), would have received a nationwide vote of below 50 percent if a general election were to have been held in December, opinion poll results indicate.
According to a survey conducted by Konda, whose polls have shown a gradual decline in votes for the AKP-MHP alliance over the last four months, votes for the AKP in a December 2020 general election would have been 39.8 percent, while the MHP would have received only 9.8 percent, 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.
In the last general election, held in June 2018, the AKP garnered a nationwide vote of 42.6 percent while the MHP received 11.1 percent.
While the AKP-MHP vote would have stood at 49.6 percent in total in a December election, the opposition parties would have received a total of 50.3 percent, with the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) getting 22.2 percent of the vote, the poll also revealed.
The Konda survey results further indicate that 10.7 percent of the electorate would vote for the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and 10.7 percent for the nationalist opposition Good Party (İYİ), while two new parties, the Gelecek Party (GP) and the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA), established by former AKP politicians Ahmet Davutoğlu and Ali Babacan, respectively, would receive 6.9 percent in total.
The December poll also showed an increase in voter turnout compared to the last several months.