Erdoğan’s party losing support in major Turkish cities, strongholds - poll

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is shedding voters in the country’s major cities.

Compared with elections in 2018, the AKP’s vote share has dropped by more than 10 percentage points in Istanbul, the capital Ankara, the western city of Bursa, the industrial heartland of Kocaeli and the Black Sea cities of Trabzon and Rize, according to an opinion poll published on Monday.

Erdoğan’s government is attempting to buttress its public support after a slump in the value of the lira and lax monetary policy led to a surge in living costs for Turkish voters. Annual inflation hit 79.6 percent last month, the highest in more than two decades. The country is due to hold presidential and parliamentary elections by June next year.

The AKP’s share of the vote in Istanbul, the country’s largest city, has declined by 12.5 percentage points to 30.2 percent compared with four years ago, according to the August opinion poll conducted by ORC Araştırma and published on Twitter. No margin of error or sample size was provided.

In Kocaeli, a centre of industrial production, the AKP’s support fell by 13.2 percentage points to 35.1 percent and in Ankara by 10.3 percent to 30.1 percent.

In Trabzon and Rize, considered political strongholds of the AKP, losses exceeded 15 percentage points, ORC said. Erdoğan’s family comes from Rize.

Erdoğan’s AKP lost control of Istanbul and Ankara in local elections in 2019.

Opinion polls in Turkey can sometimes be compromised by methodological shortcomings or lack of political objectivity.