KONDA has a mostly deserved reputation of being the most accurate Turkish pollster. It does jealously guard its monthly surveys from the press, only announcing a poll a couple of days before elections. Haberturk columnist Nagehan Alçı shared the results of two surveys conducted by KONDA Research in April and the findings from the report. PATurkey can’t vouch for the authenticity of these polls, though Ms. Alci is a credible columnist.
This is how her article goes:
15 days left until the elections. In the elections where four presidential candidates will compete, the picture that will be formed in the Parliament is also important. Experts think that if the presidential election goes to the second round, the power distribution in the Parliament will significantly change, meaning the leader of the first round could garner an advantage in the run-off.
Two KONDA polls
According to Alçı, KONDA conducted two field studies, one on April 1-2 and the other on April 15-16.
She did not share information such as on whose behalf these studies were carried out, who/which party/candidate financed these, sample size, sampling method, margin of error, and how the undecideds were distributed, which is the standard and minimum disclosure for a reported poll to be officially classified as such.
Stating that KONDA prepared a 202-page report in line with these polls, Alci added that AKP and the Republic Alliance increased their votes in the survey period, as the votes of Kemal Kilicdaroglu, increased, too.
According to report, the votes of the Republic Alliance have been fluctuating in the band of 45 percent for the last three months. Nation alliance, on the other hand, moves in the 36-38% band.
Party results
According to the data of April 15-16, when the undecideds are distributed, the results are as follows:
AKP 36.2 percent
CHP 24 percent
IYI Party 13.7 percent
HDP/Green Left 10.3 percent
MHP 7.4 percent
Other parties 8.5 percent
Alçı did not share the votes of TİP (Turkish Workers’ Party, ally of Green Left), when the undecided voters were allocated to parties, the Green Left-led left-wing alliance reached 12 percent. Accordingly, the vote of TİP can be calculated as 1.7 percent. The votes of the New Welfare (AKP ally) and Homeland parties (the party of protest candidate Muharrem Ince) were not disclosed.
Alliance votes
According to the article, when the undecideds are distributed according to raw votes of each party, the Republic Alliance is at 43.6 percent, with the Nation scoring 37.7 percent.
Alci also conveyed the vote rate of the alliances before the undecideds were dispersed:
Republic Alliance 38 percent
Nation Alliance 32 percent
Green Left and left wing parties at 10 percent
Accordingly, a slice of 20 percent remains undecided.
In her article published in Haberturk, Alçı also shared the possible distribution of seats in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, referring to the TEAM agency research:
“According to TEAM Research, if the Republic Alliance had merged its candidate lists, it would have captured the majority in the parliament even with 41 percent of the national vote. With 45 percent, the alliance would gain a clear majority of 335-340 (simple majority is 301 seats). Now, when they enter separately, they have the possibility of winning 303-304 deputies, even with 45 percent. They can also stay under 300 seats”.
Presidential polls
Alci also shared the results of KONDA’s poll for the first round in the presidential elections. Here are the results, without the undecideds being distributed:
Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu 39 percent
Tayyip Erdogan 39 percent
Muharrem Ince 7 percent
Sinan Ogan 2 percent
Undecided 10 percent
3 percent will not vote
Alci commented that when the undecideds were distributed to candidates in the first round, Erdoğan was at the level of 43 percent and Kılıçdaroğlu at 42 percent. According to these results, the election goes to the second round.
Second round of presidential elections
Alci noted that the answers given in both the 1-2 April and 15-16 April surveys to the question “Who will you vote for if Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu qualify for the second round” point to the similar results:
Kılıçdaroğlu 51 percent
Erdogan 49 percent
KONDA director: Erdogan is likely to lose
In an interview with Diken at the beginning of April, KONDA Research General Manager Aydın Erdem said, “(President Tayyip) Erdoğan has a high probability of losing. However, for the opposition, victory is not a piece of cake”.
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