Erdoğan wins over İhsanoğlu, survey shows

Ahead of Turkey's first presidential election where the president will be elected by popular vote, SONAR research institution, which is known as pro-Republican People's Party (CHP), released the latest poll regarding the Aug. 10 presidential race. According to the SONAR poll, if Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is announced as the AK Party candidate, he would defeat the opposition CHP and Nationalist Movement Party's (MHP) joint candidate Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu and take the presidential seat in the first round of the election, which requires the majority of votes.

Among 2,800 surveyed people who live in 26 different cities, 46 percent say that they will vote for Erdoğan if he competes against İhsanoğlu. The numbers of those who said that they will vote for the opposition's joint candidate İhsanoğlu is around 35.3 percent. 6.2 percent of the surveyed people stated that they will vote for the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP). The survey says that the votes of those who remain undecided will split among the candidates, which will increase Erdoğan's votes to 52.6 percent while İhsanoğlu will receive 40.3 percent.

The second analysis of the research institution says that 49.5 percent of the people surveyed said that they will vote for Erdoğan while 43.9 percent stated that they will vote for İhsanoğlu. 6.7 percent, on the other hand, stated that they will vote for HDP's candidate. The second analysis noted that SONAR considered the 2011 national elections and those who remained undecided voted for the opposition parties, that's why, the institution gave 5.5 percent of the votes to CHP and MHP's joint candidate İhsanoğlu, and distributed the rest of the vote percentages between other candidates on the survey proportionally in this poll.

Speaking to Turkish daily Aydınlık, head of SONAR, Hakan Bayrakçı stated that Erdoğan may win the presidential election in the first round and added that even though he will not garner the majority of the votes in the first round, it is definite that he will win in the second round of the presidential election which may be held if none of the candidates garner the majority of the votes in the first round.

On Monday, Ankara-based Objective Research Center (ORC) released another public survey regarding the presidential election. The results indicate that 54 percent of the people surveyed will vote for Erdoğan and 39.4 percent of them will vote for İhsanoğlu while 6.6 percent say that they will vote for HDP's candidate.