Growing support for İstanbul Convention, declining votes for Erdoğan

* Photo: ETHA

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The Operational Social Research Center has shared the findings of its March 2021 public opinion survey with the public.

The results of the survey conducted with 3,140 people from 27 cities show that in March, people of Turkey mostly talked about the difficulties in making ends meet, high cost of living, unemployment, economic crisis, stagnation, the COVID-19 outbreak and related developments, vaccination and education system/problems with distance education/reopening of schools.

When the participants were asked about Turkey's problems that need to be urgently addressed, the top five answers were economic crisis/ lack of production, unemployment, COVID-19 outbreak, inflation/ high cost of living, injustice/ unlawful rulings handed down by courts.

46.1 percent found withdrawal wrong

The participants were first asked, "Turkey has recently announced that it has withdrawn from the İstanbul Convention by a Presidential decision. Which of the following options describes your opinion best?"

While 46.1 percent of the participants said that they found the decision of withdrawal wrong, 27.2 percent approved the decision. 25.9 percent did not answer the question on the grounds of lack of knowledge about the issue and 0.8 percent did not answer the question.

'Whom would you vote for?'

The participants were also asked, "If Turkey had Parliamentary elections this Sunday, whom would you vote for?"

While 28.1 percent of the participants opted for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP, 16.9 percent chose the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), 7.8 percent the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), 6.3 percent the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and 9.2 percent of the participants said that they would vote for the İYİ Party.

When they were asked "whether they would vote for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan if he reran in the next Presidential election", 47 percent of the participants said that "they would never vote for him" while 38 percent indicated that "they would absolutely vote for Erdoğan" in such a case.

Another question in the survey was "If Turkey had Parliamentary elections next Sunday, would you vote for the People's Alliance of the AKP and MHP or for the Nation's Alliance of the CHP and İYİ Party?"

39.6 percent of the participants said that they would vote for the ruling People's Alliance while 32 percent opted for the opposition Nation's Alliance. 8 percent said that they were undecided.

Government's coronavirus response

As part of the survey, the participants were also asked their opinion about the government's management of the coronavirus vaccination process. While 53.7 percent of the participants found it "successful" in February, this rate dropped to 43.8 percent in March 2021.

"How do you think Turkey's economic situation has changed in a year? For the better or worse," the respondents were also asked. 74.5 percent said that it was changing for the worse. 8.6 percent said that it got better and 16.3 percent said that it remained the same.

Lastly, when they were asked whether the country's situation would change for the better or worse in a year, 50.2 percent of the participants said that it would get worse. 25.4 percent said that it would get better while 14 percent indicated that it would not change. (RT/SD)