Support for the Nation Alliance, an opposition bloc established to challenge Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s 19-year rule, has increased by 4.6 points in the past month, while Erdoğan’s electoral alliance lost 1.6 points in the same period, according to a survey conducted by the Ankara-based MetroPoll.
The survey, titled “Turkey’s Pulse – May 2021,” said support for the Public Alliance, formed by Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its ally, the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), declined from 39.4 to 37.8 percent between April and May.
The Nation Alliance, composed of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), the nationalist İYİ (Good) Party and the Islamist Felicity Party (SP), however, gained 4.6 points in the same period, jumping from 38.6 percent support in April to 43.2 percent in May, the survey results also showed.
MetroPoll determined the percentages of the nationwide support for the two alliances based on the question “Which alliance do you feel closest to?” Some of the survey’s participants answered they didn’t feel close to either of the alliances; however, they “preferred” one over the other.
According to the survey, nationwide support for the opposition’s Nation Alliance rose to 48 percent in total, while support for Erdoğan’s Public Alliance only increased to 40.1 percent when respondents who “prefer” one group over the other are added to the percentages.
When undecided voters, who represented 11.9 percent in the MetroPoll survey, are distributed among the alliances, the Nation Alliance receives 9 percent more support than the AKP-MHP alliance, which garnered 53.6 percent of the vote in the latest general election held in 2018.
Another worrying trend for Erdoğan are the numbers seen in presidential election polls. According to a May poll conducted by the Eurasia Public Research Center (AKAM), only 29.7 percent said they would definitely vote for Erdoğan in a run for reelection, while 48.5 percent said they would definitely not. The results also show that the popular opposition mayors of İstanbul and Ankara, Ekrem İmamoğlu and Mansur Yavaş, respectively, are both polling ahead of Erdoğan in a potential presidential race against him.