Recent opinion polls in Turkey point to a neck-and-neck race and even possible power change in the coming up elections. Turkish voters will cast their votes on 14 May to decide on their next president and the members of the parliament. The race is said to be the one of the most significant in recent history.
There are two alliances running in the elections: People's Alliance lead by current president Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the National Alliance formed of six opposition parties.
Recently, Yeniden Refah (New Welfare Party) has pulled out from the presidential race to officially join Erdogan's alliance, following controversial negotiations over a law on violence against women.
People's Alliance is currently formed of four parties: the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Great Unity Party (BBP) and New Welfare Party (YRP).
Their presidential candidate is Erdogan, the longest-serving leader in the country's history. Free Cause Party (HUDA-PAR) also announced its support for him without joining the alliance.
Among the survey companies, ORC Research, Metropoll Research, MAK, Optimar and Konda stood out as the companies that made the closest predictions to the 2018 election results. While ORC was the only company to predict that MHP could exceed the threshold; MAK was among the companies that most accurately predicted CHP's votes.
Late February predictions
Presidential elections
Currently, four names have reached 100,000 signatures
required for nomination as a presidential candidate, although there is no doubt
that the race is Erdogan vs Kilicdaroglu.
Based on the latest announcement by research company MetroPoll (27 March), Kilicdaroglu is ahead of Erdogan by 2.5 percentage points.
At the beginning of March, the gap between the rivals was around 5 to 10%. Four different surveys suggest seat change at the presidential palace with Kilicdaroglu leading the race with more than 50% of voters support whereas the current president’s support stands at 44% on average.
Election trends changed from
early March to April leaning towards RTE
with a narrow win at the first round.
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