Pious voters drift away from AKP: ‘Interests, corruption, extravagance...’

* Photo: AA / File

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The Social Impact Research Center (TEAM) conducted a survey with pious voters in Turkey on November 1-15, 2021.

As part of the survey, the regions where pious voters mostly live were identified based on the votes received by the Welfare Party (RP) in the 1995 general elections and the votes received by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2002, when it came to power for the first time.

According to the distribution of pious voters across the country, the research company carried out face-to-face interviews with 2,424 people who live in the provinces of Konya, Kayseri, Yozgat, Sivas, Malatya, Elâzığ, Bingöl, Erzurum, Antep, Kocaeli and İstanbul.

Asking questions to the respondents under eight chapters, the TEAM company has recently shared the survey results with the public.

'They feel distant from the opposition'

The TEAM survey has been categorized based on the level of piety of Sunni-Turkish voters, how pious they consider themselves, the extent to which they organize their daily lives according to religious requirements and how frequently they perform their daily prayers.

According to the survey results, pious voters are generally not only pious, but they are also nationalist, patriarchal, in favor of freedoms for themselves, pragmatist, not willing to help the immigrants, complainant about nepotism and extravagance and they feel distant from the opposition parties, especially from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP).

14-percent loss of votes for ruling alliance

Survey results have shown that even though there has been a significant decrease in pious voters' votes for the People's Alliance of the ruling AKP and its ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), these voters still express support for the alliance to a considerable extent:

In these regions, 58.5 percent of the respondents said that they would vote for the People's Alliance. This rate was previously 68.1 percent, which has marked a 9.6 percentage point or 14 percent decrease.

'Deeply pious' voters still support it

According to the survey results, the more pious voters get, the more support they express for the ruling People's Alliance.

78 percent of those who define themselves as "deeply pious" support the ruling People's Alliance of the AKP and MHP. Among the ones who live in pious regions but do not define themselves as pious, 37.4 percent express their support for the People's Alliance.

When the participants of the survey were asked, "How does President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan perform his duty", 46 percent of the pious voters said that he was performing his duty well and almost two thirds of them (64 percent) stated that "it would be bad if Erdoğan left."

According to survey results, a significant part of the ones who are critical of Erdoğan also did not want him to leave office.

Support for Erdoğan continues, some drift away

Even though there is a continued support for Erdoğan at the highest level among the pious voters, some also seem to be drifting away.

In 2018, the rate of those who expressed support for Erdoğan was 74.4 percent; this rate has now dropped to 62.2 percent.

While 62.2 percent of pious Turks expressed support for Erdoğan in this year's survey, this rate was 46 percent among pious Kurds. The less pious respondents are, the more they drift away from Erdoğan.

The survey results have also demonstrated that pious voters now more widely criticize the AKP government with the economic problems and injustice on the top of their list of most marked complaints.

They think 'corruption is on the increase'

44 percent of the respondents indicated that "corruption increased in the last term of the AKP." Over 50 percent of the pious voters stated that officials "get high wages that they do not deserve."

While they said that in the period when the AKP ruled Turkey, it "developed the country", "made it more free" and "made it stronger in counterterrorism, defense industry and foreign policy", they noted that in the last period, "the AKP became corrupt", "the cadres were a part of the party not from the heart but for their interests" and "corruption and extravagance increased."

A significant part of the pious voters used to refer to "ties of affection" with the AKP. The survey results have shown that "lack of alternatives" has started to replace it. Another reason for the continued support for the AKP is cited as the distrust in the opposition's capacity of governance.

The respondents think that the opposition will drift away from the mindset of service and growth and will cause further deterioration. Moreover, pious voters seem to be concerned that the opposition will fare worse in terms of religious freedoms, social policies and the capacity to govern.

About the TEAM: Social Impact Research Center (TEAM) has been carrying out research on consumer and voter profiles since 2009. Dr. Ulaş Tol directs the research company. Dr. Tol is a part of research projects about civil society, ethnic identity, youth and neoconservatism and the publications released as part of these projects.

(RT/SD)