Polls show Turkey’s AKP short of votes needed to form government alone

ISTANBUL

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Three polls recently 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.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.In the same poll, backing 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 problem-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, wrote in the survey report.Metropoll said the survey was carried out between Aug. 14-16 and involved 2,520 people.The president of another pollster, ANAR, confirmed there has not been a major shift in voters’ decisions since the June elections, despite important developments such as terror attacks and worsening economy.“I say that the voter trend seen in the June 7 election continues. And there is no reason for change,” İbrahim Uslu said in an interview with Al Jazeera. Uslu claimed that the AKP increased its votes only 1-2 percent, which is in the margin of error. “There is no other party than the HDP that gains from this terror atmosphere,” he added.Uslu, who is seen as a figure close to the AKP government, did not reveal the details of his company’s survey that he based his analysis on.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 appointed on Aug. 25 to form a temporary power-sharing cabinet after coalition talks collapsed.Davutoğlu has begun work on forming an interim power-sharing cabinet ahead of the election, but two opposition parties have refused to join and the HDP has said it doubted Davutoğlu was serious about his call to join the government.