Newly formed political parties and Ak Party’s concerns about losing power

Turkey has particularly seen interesting political developments, in recent months. Unbiased and reliable opinion leaders comment the number of people dissatisfied with the performance of AK Party has been growing. In the meantime two new parties have been established by Ali BABACAN (former Treasury Minister and Foreign Minister) and Ahmet Davutoğlu (former Foreign Minister and PM), top important former members resigning from the ruling party and taken their place in the political arena.

While some say these newcomers will not be able to steal many votes from AK Party which they have in a way originated from, some others voice different opinions. Mr. Bekir AGIRDIR who is known to be one of the most reputable opinions leaders in the area says that AK Party’s s vote rate has dropped from 45 per cent to 30 per cent adding “the AK Party is unravelling. This is an indication but these votes have not been able to find a place to go to”.

Mr. AGIRDIR, who is the Managing Director of KONDA research company, has revealed the data from their public opinion survey last February. Speaking in an interview he participated in via YouTube, he shared the following observations:

Referring to new parties established earlier, he said “new parties have the potential to capture the audience. The best example is the formation and launching of the Good Party. The ruling bloc (AK Parti and MHP) failed to block the Good Party. There is a sociological base for this newcomer (more than a year ago).

Actually, it is not a matter of AK Party losing votes or not. The supporter base of the ruling party is unraveling, but they cannot find a place to go to. It is down from 45 percent to the 30s. It’s an indication, but they couldn’t find a place to go. In our February measurement, AK Party was below 30 percent.

I don’t think the parties of Davutoglu (Gelecek / Future Party) and Babacan (Deva / Remedy Party) are stillborn like claimed by some politicians (The President had used this expression). The AK Party is faltering in the face of the language both parties use to invite Tayyip Erdogan (the President) to the mat – more than he expects. They will receive one of the two votes from the AK Party electorate.

According to the survey we conducted before Corona, 29 out of 100 people feed themselves either borrow money or with benefits (mainly provided by ruling party). As of January, 47 out of every 100 people are in working life. 30 out of every 38 people who work are unable to survive if they lose their jobs. 55 percent have future anxiety. People don’t have the money to provide a month’s supply”

Obviously, the last paragraph voiced by the opinion leader implies that economy (besides some other major factors as well) will be very much determining how people will use their votes.

As mentioned in the introduction paragraph Turkey has witnessed very interesting development recently and may be destined to experience even more interesting situations not too far from today.