Polls show that Erdogan is the leading election candidate

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
15 Apr 2023 18:20

50.8% of the sampled voters in the polls were in favor of another term for Erdogan.

People wait before Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the pro-secular, center-left Republican People's Party, or CHP, is nominated by a six-party alliance as its common candidate to challenge President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Ankara, Turkey, March 6, 2023 (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)

According to a pre-election poll conducted by the Areda Survey Center, the main opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu lags behind Erdogan by a 7.7-point margin, Turkish media reported.

The survey, which involved 10,136 participants and was conducted from April 12 to April 14, showed that 50.8% were in favor of another term for Erdogan and 43.1% were in favor of Kilicdaroglu as president.

4.5% were in favor of Homeland Party leader Muharrem Ince, and 1.6% were in favor of the ATA Alliance candidate Sinan Ogan.

Presidential elections are scheduled to take place in Turkey on 14 May 2023. Voters will elect a new president for a term of five years.

Yesterday, Wall Street's major banks virtually uniformly predicted that interest rates will rise to levels higher than those seen following the 2018 currency decline after the Turkish elections.

Citigroup Inc. analysts now predict Turkey's key rate to conclude the following quarter at 40%. Bank of America Corp. expects the benchmark to peak at 50% before falling slightly in the final three months of the year.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is facing the biggest challenge to his 20-year rule due to economic issues and the high cost of living, not to mention that victims of the earthquake are reconsidering where their loyalties lie after the disaster struck.