What Factor Will Determine Election Results in Turkey? Expert Analysis

Istanbul, April 1 – The outcome of the presidential elections in Turkey will be determined by the votes of those who have not yet decided on their candidate, as well as the possible distribution among the main contenders for the position of supporters of the “third force”, announce Ozer Sinjar, director of the MetroPOLL Public Opinion Research Center, after the results of the study.

The survey was conducted in March on 2,046 participants in 28 counties, and the error was about 2%.

According to the results, 44.6% of the respondents will vote for opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu, and the current Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will receive 42% of the vote. At the same time, more than 5% answered that they had not decided on their choices, 2.4% did not give an answer, and 5.9% said that they were attracted to the “protest vote”.

And last January, the company’s poll supported Erdoğan by about 46% to 43%.

Presidential and parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place in Türkiye on May 14. The final list of candidates included 69-year-old incumbent head of state Erdogan as one candidate from the “Republican Alliance” and one candidate from the opposition “People’s Alliance” 74-year-old Kemal Kilicdaroglu, as well as the leader of the Memleket party, 58-year-old Muharrem Ince and a candidate 55-year-old Ata Sinan Ogan alliance.

The results of pre-election research have not yet revealed the preferred candidate in the upcoming elections between Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu, but experts indicate that the current electoral process will be the most difficult for the ruling party due to the devastating earthquakes that have claimed lives. For more than 50 thousand people, as well as the difficult economic situation.

Many opposition activists are calling for Ince to withdraw his candidacy from the elections, believing that he will prevent Kilicdaroglu from winning the first round and taking some of the opposition votes for himself. Ince, after his meeting with Kilicdaroglu, announced that he would not withdraw his candidacy from the presidential elections.

Ince ran in the 2018 elections as a candidate of the opposition Republican People’s Party and got more than 30% of the vote, but later broke away from the CHP and established his own party, Memleket.