New Turkish poll shows Erdoğan struggling, Hagia Sophia will not affect votes

A new poll by the Eurasia Public Opinion Research Centre (AKAM) has shown support dipping for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and found that his recent decision to re-convert the Hagia Sophia into a mosque will likely have a negligible affect on voting intentions, Cumhuriyet reported on Friday.

According to the survey, 48.6 percent said they would not vote for Erdogan in a presidential election while 38.9 percent said they would.

A survey for AKAM in late May had found that 46.9 percent of those surveyed said they would not vote for Erdoğan if he ran for a second term, while 39.2 percent said they would.

According to the latest survey, 99.7 percent of respondents said that Erdoğan’s recent decision to change the status of the Hagia Sophia to a mosque from a museum will have no impact on how they intend to vote.

On the question over Erdoğan’s overall performance as president, 40.2 percent said he was unsuccessful, 30.9 percent said he was neither successful nor unsuccessful, and 28.9 percent said he was successful.

When asked about the general performance of Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, 41.9 percent of people said it had been unsuccessful, 30.3 percent said it had been successful, and 27.8 percent deemed it neither successful nor unsuccessful.

Those surveyed said economic concerns and unemployment were the biggest problems facing Turkey.

In answer to the question of which party they would vote for if an election was held today, 35 percent of those surveyed said they would vote for the AKP.

A total of 28.4 percent said they would vote for the main opposition Republican People’s Party; 12.4 percent would vote for the opposition centre-right İYİ Party; 11.7 percent would vote for the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party; and 7.4 percent would vote for the far-right Nationalist Movement Party, which is aligned with the AKP.

A total of 2.3 and 2.2 percent would vote respectively for the Future Party and DEVA, which are opposition breakaway parties from the AKP.