Two polls show Turkey's main opposition party surpasses Erdoğan's AKP

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Two separate polls have shown that the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leads President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the parliamentary elections.

According to the Piar company's poll, 29.6 percent of the respondents said they would vote for the CHP if there were elections this Sunday, whereas the AKP's support was at 27.8 percent.

The two leading parties were followed by the Kurdish issue-focused Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) with 11.2 percent, the İYİ (Good) Party, the allies of the CHP, with 11 percent, and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the allies of the AKP, with 7.3 percent, just over the updated election threshold of 7 percent.

The poll was conducted online among over 11,000 people on July 1 and 2, according to the company's statement.

According to the other poll conducted by the Yöneylem company, CHP gets 27.7 percent of the votes, AKP gets 27.1 percent, İYİ Party gets 16 percent, HDP gets 10.4 percent and MHP gets 8.2 percent.

The poll was carried out among 2,704 people between June 24-28, said the company.

The two polls mark a shift in the balance of power between parties as they indicate that the AKP, for the first time in nearly two decades, is no more the party with the highest popular support.

While it has been steadily losing support for over a year, the AKP has been still the first party with a fair margin to the CHP.

In June, seven of the eight pollsters found the AKP was the party with the highest popular support. Its voting rate varied between 27.2 percent and 32.8 percent.

The highest support for the CHP in a poll last month was 30.8 percent and the lowest one was 23.1 percent.

Turkey's next presidential and parliamentary elections are scheduled for June 2023. (RT/VK)