Turkey grows politically polarized

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkey has grown politically polarized as party preferences have begun to determine the fate of relationships among people with different political backgrounds and opinions, Hurriyet Daily News reports.

A recent study on social polarization in the country revealed that more than three-fourths of Turks do not wish to have neighbors whose political stance widely diverges from theirs.

Some 83 per cent of Turks do not want their children to marry those whose parents have different a political stance or whose party is distant in views from theirs, revealed the research conducted by the Infacto Research Workshop with the support of the German Marshall Fund (GMF).

The state of polarization in Turkey has had bearing on social relationships between Turks from different political backgrounds and opinions.

Some 73 per cent of the research participants do not wish to engage in any business with people whose political stance is greatly different than theirs.

Some 65 per cent of ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) voters said the party furthest from their worldview was the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), while 61 per cent of main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) voters selected the AKP on the same question. For HDP supporters, the most distant was the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), while supporters of the latter correspondingly identified the HDP as the party furthest from its line at 65 per cent.

Some 44 per cent of voters of the AKP feel content about the current situation of the country while 21 per cent of CHP voters are pleased with the current state of affairs. Some 7 per cent of HDP voters said they were happy about Turkey’s present.

Some 73 per cent of AKP voters said the country achieved economic progress, while 57 per cent said the economic well-being of their families had improved, the research revealed.

In contrast, just 6 percent of CHP voters said their life improved.

The research revealed that 44 per cent of participants see the HDP as “the most distant” party from their political stance. The HDP is followed by the ruling AKP at 22 per cent and the MHP at 7 per cent. The political party seen by the participants as the least distant was revealed to be the CHP.

The research revealed that people who feel the most isolated in society are Kurdish-origin citizens of Turkey.

Daily Hurriyet stood out as the most read newspaper in Turkey, according to the research and only two dailies, Hurriyet and Posta, were stated as newspapers that most voters of all political parties read in common.

The research was conducted as part of a project of the Corporate Social Responsibility Association of Turkey between Dec 3 and 10, 2015, with face-to-face interviews with 1,024 participants.