Konda Poll Stoked Wednesday’s Turkish Rally

TURKEY - In Brief 27 Mar 2014 by Atilla Yesilada

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A few hours ago, one of Turkey’s premier polling agencies KONDA, released its local election survey conducted on 22-23 March—in contravention of High Election Council regs forbidding such activity. KONDA heralds a clear win for AKP with 46%. The cover letter presenting the poll is dated 26 March, leading me to suspect that yesterday’s extraordinary rally in BIST was stoked by insider information. TL denominated assets also took aspiration from the fact that ground-breaking revelations about sexual peccadilloes of Erdogan were not released. Yet the two recent recordings--if genuine-- are in the nature of nuclear bombs. The fact that neither the voters nor the markets react to the enormity of accusations levied in these two audio recordings strengthens my conviction that a calamity awaits Turkey after the local elections. According to KONDA poll, the four major parties rank as follows: AKP 46% (our forecast 43%) CHP 27% (our forecast 30%) MHP 15% (our forecast 15%) BDP-HDP 7% (our forecast 7%) The poll has a margin of error of 1.8%. In as much as KONDA is one of the most accurate forecasters in Turkey I’m not changing my call, because I believe the voter sentiment is too complex and fluid to be captured by a single poll. To add, compared to its February poll KONDA finds a 1.7% drop in AKP’s support and claims that since 2012 the party has declined by 8%--meaning that the downslide could cost Erdogan the presidential race. Yet I’d agree with KONDA’s observation that charges of corruption and graft unleashed on AKP in a daily torrent of audio recordings hadn't had notable impact on voter behavior. Voter sentiment is not the only thing that AKP needs to mind after the two r...