How to read the Turlish political crisis, and understand the polls

Pondering over the recent opinion polls, DOĞU ERGİL, a prominent political scientist of the Political Science in Ankara writes in ZAMAN :  

" These figures show that the AKP has created a loyal clientele that does not look at elections as a matter of competition between projects and affiliations. Instead, they look at the electoral process as a matter of survival and holding onto the gains they have acquired with the ascendance of the AKP to power. These gains are not only economic but are also cultural. Once a culturally excluded, traditional and frowned-upon body of people, they are now a respectable majority whose values, lifestyle and religiosity are taken seriously.

A widely held assumptions is that supporters of the party in power abandon ship when an economic crisis threatens the government. When participants in the poll were asked whether they “expected an economic crisis,” 63.4 percent of AKP supporters answered negatively. Only 27.4 percent of AKP followers predicted an economic crisis in the near future. The supporters of all other mainstream parties have a high expectation of an impending economic crisis. Perhaps they think this is the only way the ruling party might lose its grip and popularity."

"So what we are witnessing are not scenes from a normal election competition but rather a quasi-war for survival."

 


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