By Ali Kucukgocmen

ISTANBUL, (Reuters) – More Turks believe that an opposition alliance will be better than President Tayyip Erdoan and his ruling AK Party to bring about the end to the country’s economic crisis. This is according to a series of polls released this month.

Erdogan has been pressuring the central bank to reduce interest rates. Despite high inflation, 500 basis points have been slashed since September. This triggered a currency crisis which saw the Turkish lira fall to 18.4 per dollar. It was its weakest point ever.

Inflation rose to a high of 36% over the past 19 years. This is seriously affecting earnings of Turks from the lower and middle classes who are the electoral base for the Islamist-rooted AKP.

While the government took fiscal measures to lower currency volatility over the past year, Erdogan has refused to alter his course, despite mounting public discontent.

Metropoll Research surveys show that Erdogan’s approval rating is 38.6%, despite him being Turkey’s leader for 19 years. He faces election by 2023. These surveys show his popularity trailed that of the potential presidential candidates.

Sosyo Politik Field Research Centre polled 27% of respondents to support the AKP, compared with 37% who indicated they voted in 2018’s parliamentary elections. The MHP was 6.3% of the AKP’s nationalist ally, which is down from 7.3% who said that they voted in 2018 for the party.

Republican People’s Party, the main opposition party (CHP), had 22.9% support. Its IYI Party ally had 10,3%. The pro-Kurdish Democratic Peoples’ Party had 9.4%. Mehr than 11% remained undecided.

ECONOMIC WOES

A poll by ORC Research last week found that 38.7% of AKP support was for MHP, while 39.5% went to CHP-IYI. Informally, support for HDP stood at 8.4%. The HDP backed the opposition coalition, although it was not officially a party in the 2019 municipal elections in Turkey, where the AKP lost Istanbul and Ankara to the AKP.

Sosyo Politik was told by around two-thirds of the respondents that Turkey’s greatest problem is its economy. Over half of respondents said that the recent government measures will not help the economy.

A Metropoll second survey found that 36.7% of respondents believed the opposition coalition was better able to manage the economy than 35.4% who voted for AKP/MHP.

A little over 38% of the respondents said that Erdogan was a hero to them – he received more than 52% for the 2018 election. Meanwhile, Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavas, and Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu were both CHP members and scored 60% and 51%.

Meral Aksener of the IYI Party led 38.5%.