President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would have been defeated by each of four potential presidential candidates among his rivals if a presidential election were to be held in August, according to a survey conducted by the Eurasia Public Research Center (AKAM).
The poll results, announced on Tuesday by AKAM President Kemal Özkiraz from his YouTube channel, showed ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) leader Erdoğan being defeated by each of his potential rivals — İYİ (Good) Party leader Meral Akşener, main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, and İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş, both from the CHP — in a possible presidential election scenario in which one of them is running against the incumbent president.
According to the survey, in the event Erdoğan and İYİ leader Akşener qualify for the second round of a presidential election, Akşener would receive 53.2 percent of the vote and Erdoğan would get 46.8 percent.
When Erdoğan is pitted against CHP leader Kılıçdaroğlu, Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu would receive 46.1 percent and 53.9 percent, respectively.
In the scenario in which Istanbul Mayor İmamoğlu runs for president against Erdoğan, İmamoğlu would defeat Erdoğan by an 18-point margin, with Erdoğan and İmamoğlu garnering 41.1 percent and 58.9 percent of the vote, respectively.
Ankara Mayor Yavaş, too, defeats Erdoğan hands down as 42.6 percent of respondents said they would vote for Erdoğan, while 57.4 percent opted for Yavaş, resulting in a 15-point difference in favor of Yavaş.
According to the survey results, the Public Alliance, made up of Erdoğan’s AKP and its ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), is able to secure only 37.9 percent of the vote even if the Grand Unity Party’s (BBP) share is counted for it.
The rival Nation Alliance, consisting of the CHP, the nationalist İYİ and the Islamist Felicity Party (SP), can garner 44.2 percent of the vote with the addition of the Democrat Party’s (DP) share in the vote.
Other opposition parties such as the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA) and the Future Party (GP) collectively garnered 17.9 percent of the vote.
In this scenario, the Public Alliance would secure only 230-240 out of the 600 seats in parliament and the AKP’s parliamentary seats would fall below 200.
Meanwhile, the survey also demonstrated that the number of Turks who see refugees as a problem is continually increasing. Eighty-one percent of participants said refugees should be prevented from entering the country and that those who have already entered should be deported, up from 77 percent in a previous survey.
Participants who said they would vote for parties promising to send refugees back home have increased from 72 percent to 81.5 percent of the total.