Turkey General election - November 1st 2015

[jaichind]

Talks between AKP and CHP collapsed.  Looks like we are headed for another election this year.     Both the Lira TRY and the Istanbul markets fell on this news on the perception that a new election will not meaningfully change the results.

[jaichind]

The AKP position is that MHP support from the outside a minority AKP government for some time before new elections.  The MHP position was that it would be a coalition with MHP inside the government.  Neither would budge so we are looking at new elections.

[jaichind]

Looks like Erdogan will push for a new presidency-based constitution as part of this snap election which will take place in Oct or Nov 2015.  He claims that since he is Turkey's first president to be chosen by popular vote this should also mean a shifting of ownership and responsibilities to reflect this popular mandate.   

[jaichind]

Explosion Heard Near Dolmabahce Palace,  now a museum, in Istanbul.  Hurriyet reports sounds of gunfire at palace’s entrance gate.

[jaichind]

Erdogan said today that "We are once again swiftly heading towards an election."

It seems the common assumption in the US media is that Erdogan will try to war on PKK to discredit and paint the HDP as a terrorist outfit so to push them below 10%.  I very much doubt this is what Erdogan is up to mainly because it will not work.  Whatever Kurdish votes the AKP got in June is now gone over to HDP so there is no way HDP gets pushed below 10%.  What Erdogan must be up to in my view is to accept that HDP will sweep the remaining AKP seats in Kurdish areas (there are not that many anyway) but AKP can use the crisis to push down HDP  vote in Western and Central Turkey urban areas well as capture CHP and MHP votes in places like Ankara, İstanbul and Izmir.  He will count on that fact that the CHP and MHP voter will be for unity of the Turkish state and seeing that there is no hope of a coalition of CHP nor MHP with AKP will vote AKP to preserve the unity of the Turkish nation-state, especially in a time of conflict with PKK.  He will also try to completely capture the vote of parties like Felicity Party which won 2% back in June.  I am not sure this will work but this is cleary what Erdogan must be up to.

[jaichind]

CHP is now saying unless Erdogan gives CHP a chance to form a government CHP will refuse to participate in the upcoming election.

[jaichind]

Turkey's election board proposes Nov. 1 as possible date for snap polls

[jaichind]

CHP is now saying unless Erdogan gives CHP a chance to form a government CHP will refuse to participate in the upcoming election.

Who would benefit the most if they did boycott it?

AKP of course.  AKP will pretty much win by default if CHP does not participate.

[jaichind]

Explosion Heard Near Dolmabahce Palace,  now a museum, in Istanbul.  Hurriyet reports sounds of gunfire at palace’s entrance gate.

Any updates on this?

They arrested 40+ radical leftists. Looks like this is the work of the extreme left.

[jaichind]

Snap election schedule for Nov 1.  It is interesting that both of the Greece-Turkey rivals will now have 2 elections each in 2015.

[jaichind]

Metropoll

AKP   41.7
CHP   25.5
MHP   15.7
HDP   14.7

There is talk that this time AKP will ally with Saadet Party or BBP or both.  Together they won 2.06% of the vote in the last election.

[jaichind]

So, things pretty much unchanged, Others a bit down, AKP slightly up, HDP up a little more. The AKP going on Kurds as terrorists may win them a few moderates, but may also trigger a solidarity vote in the Southeast. HDP could well end up raising their vote share and losing a few seats in Istanbul, while not gaining as much in the Southeast.

At this stage the AKP should really accept that all their seats in Kurdish SE area (around 9-10) are going to be all gone.  So they have to gain 30+ elsewhere from AKP and MHP with some gains from HDP in urban areas.  Not sure they can do it but there is a viable path for AKP.

[jaichind]

Gezici poll/seat projection

AKP   38.9%   240 seats
CHP   27.8%   142 seats
MHP   16.3%    85 seats
HDP   13.1%    83 seats

It seems that things are not going to Erdogan's plan.

[jaichind]

PM Davutoglu says internal AKP polling shows that AKP will win 45% of the vote.

[jaichind]

(Bloomberg) -- Support for Turkey’s governing AK Party drops in latest poll by Sonar Arastirma ahead of Nov. 1 repeat election, according to Gazeteport.
Results:
AKP 38.2% (vs 41% at June 7 election)
CHP 28%
MHP 18.2%
HDP 13.7%

[jaichind]

Gezici poll has

AKP         39.8%       246
CHP         28.2%      140
MHP        17.3%         87
HDP         12.3%        77

In the June 2015 election Gezici seems to under-poll AKP and over-poll CHP by about 2%.  If so then AKP will make a small gain from June 2015 but not enough for a majority.  Of course all this stuff with Russia violating Turkey airspace might rally the nationalist vote behind AKP.

[jaichind]

Andy-AR poll 

AKP        42.6%
CHP        27.1%
MHP       15.2%
HDP        12.1%

Seems consistent with a small swing toward AKP narrative.  Most likely not enough for majority.

[jaichind]

Metropoll's Ozer Sencar predicts AKP vote at 42.5% which means it will barely fall short of majority.

[jaichind]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-20/turkey-s-ak-party-weighs-chp-coalition-to-avoid-another-deadlock

Looks like AKP is warming to the idea of a post-election coalition with CHP.

[jaichind]

(Bloomberg) -- Support for Turkey’s ruling AK Party, or AKP, seen little changed since last election on June 7, according to BusinessHT, reporting results of a poll by Konda.
Main opposition CHP rises to 30.4%
Nationalist MHP at 14.3%
Pro-Kurdish HDP falls to 11.8%

[jaichind]

All the final polls does point to a surge for AKP.  The most dramatic is A&G poll which had AKP at 47.2%. A&G was pretty close to the mark back in June.  The momentum seems to be on the AKP side so it seems clear to me that AKP should gain seats from relative to June 2015 and there is significant chance of getting a majority.

[jaichind]

Probably a bunch of tactical voters from MHP switching to AKP

MHP and its voters strongly prefer CHP to AKP.

You think so?  With this anti-KPP polarization the AKP is counting on MHP marginal voters going over to AKP.   

[jaichind]

Well, not really. We've had polls ranging AKP from 38% to 44% throughout August, September and October, with no discernable trend. Same goes for CHP (25% to 28%, one outlier at 30%), for MHP (13% to 18%, mostly 14 or 15), and for HDP (11% to 14%, mostly 12-13), and again throughout most of August, September and October.

I think it is therefore safe to say that that one only poll showing AKP at 47% when they've never been higher than 44% since early August is a) an outlier, b) a manipulation. Oh, surprise ! A&G haven't polled the November race yet ! They're coming with a final prediction without a track record. From June, I can only find their seat-count prediction, not their voting intention one.

There are five final polls : ORC, Metropoll, Gezici, A&G and Konda. That's excluding a Kurd-Tek poll from Oct 21, which obviously overpolls HDP a bit at the expense of AKP. That's also excluding a mega AKAM poll from Oct 20 with a sample of 24,500 !!! So the arithmetic mean of these 5 final polls gives this :
AKP 43.7
CHP 26.5
MHP 14.3
HDP 12.8
Others 2.7

The Konda one seems a bit too favorable to the opposition, with AKP at 41.7, CHP at 27.9 and HDP at 13.8. The A&G one has the AKP at 47.2. If you exclude those two, then the three remaining ones tell a quite consistent story (with variation from June result in brackets) :
AKP 43.2 (+2.5)
CHP 26.5 (+1.4)
MHP 14.6 (-1.9)
HDP 12.6 (-0.4)
Others 3.2

I'd hardly call that a surge for AKP. Probably a bunch of tactical voters from MHP switching to AKP, plus a small boost in legitimist turnout for the party in power. The most recent seat prediction based on a poll resembling something like this is the Betimar poll from Oct 20, which had the AKP and HDP at one point higher than these numbers, and CHP and MHP one point below. This Betimar projection gave the AKP a 6-seat absolute majority, and the HDP (nearly tied with the MHP) 18 seats more than the MHP. So if we took our above 3-poll mean, we could be on a razor thin majority, or just below. Should be interesting.

Anyway, the dice are cast now, wait and see.

Well when I say surge I really did mean a 2-3% movement toward AKP.  When the polls did not move at all since June a shift of 2%-3% I do count as a surge.  Distribution will make a difference. AKP will lose votes in the Southeast but if they are polling 2%-3% better than June then they will cleanup in major population centers in the rest of Turkey and get a bunch of seats.  AKP will for sure gain seats and looks likely to win a majority.  When all the polls show a movement toward a party toward the end of an election I tend to pick the one with the largest move since the others might not have picked up the size of the momentum of the move.  If we were to do that AKP is in solid shape to win a majority, perhaps a solid one.

[jaichind]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-30/turkey-takeover-turns-opposition-papers-pro-government-overnight

[jaichind]

Voting ends.  There is a blackout by the election board on election results.  I guess we have to wait an hour or so for results.