Polls: Turkey’s AKP to fall short of votes to form single-party govt.

PanARMENIAN.Net - Recent polls conducted in Turkey show the Justice and Development Party (AKP) will fall short of the votes needed to form a single-party government in a snap election on Nov 1.

Hurriyet Daily News reports that according to pollster Metropoll’s latest survey, the AKP stands at 41.7 percent of the votes, up from 40.9 percent in the June 7 election.

The same poll showed that support for the social democratic Republican People’s Party (CHP) was at 25.5 percent, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) at 15.7 percent and the Kurdish-focused Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) at 14.7 percent - a rise in its support from 13.1 percent in June.

“It seems like the snap elections will not generate a different political situation from the election on June 7,” Özer Sencar, the chairman of Metropoll, said in the survey report.

Metropoll said the survey was carried out between Aug 14-16 and involved 2,520 people. The survey announced on Aug. 25 by another pollster, Gezici, presented a similar view. According to the results, the AKP is at 39.2, trailed by the CHP, the MHP and the HDP with respective popular support of 26.4, 16.2 and 14.1 percent.

Gezici is seen as a pollster close to the opposition and it did not reveal the details about its methodology when presented its findings on private broadcaster Samanyolu TV.

In the June 7 election, the AKP received 40.6 percent of votes, while the CHP was at 25.1, the MHP at 16.4 percent and the HDP at 12.9 percent.

With this result, the AKP lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since coming to power in 2002 and its leader, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, was tasked to form a temporary power-sharing cabinet after coalition talks collapsed.