More than half of the population of the Republic of Turkey believes that incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan can win the upcoming May 14 presidential election. According to a survey conducted by the public opinion research company Optimar, 53.4% of the participants are convinced of such an outcome of the elections. Hürriyet published the results on Tuesday.
According to the survey, 42.1 percent of those polled believe that Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a single opposition candidate, will win the elections. 8.3 percent believe it will be the leader of the "Homeland Party" Muharrem Ince and 1.7 percent - the representative of the "ATA" alliance Sinan Ohan.
The poll was conducted April 1-7 among 4,745 respondents by direct interview. 45.9% of respondents said they would vote for Erdogan and 43.9% for Kilicdaroglu. The survey revealed two trends: young people and the undecideds, whose percentage is around 15.5, will play an important role in Turkey's presidential election fate. According to Optimar, 13.6% of young people aged 18-24 are ready to vote for Erdogan, 15.2% for Kilicdaroglu, 19.5% for Ince and 15.3% for Ohan. Of those who have not yet made a final decision, 41.5% may vote for Erdogan and 31.3% for Kilicdaroglu.
Leading Turkish political analyst Necati Ozkan made a similar conclusion to Optimar's sociologists earlier to TASS. According to Ozkan, members of the so-called Generation Z, who make up more than 20% of the 64 million strong electorate, do not trust the old generation, so politicians who manage to win their sympathies will increase their chances of winning the elections. This is equally true for the representatives of the electorate who are undecided, Ozkan said.
Analysts do not exclude the possibility that the Turkish presidential elections could be held in two rounds because most of the opinion polls published in Turkey do not yet provide a clear picture of the vote distribution. In that case, it will be held on May 28. In the 2018 elections, Erdogan received 52.6 percent of the vote.
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Based on materials from TASS