Erdoğan likely to win presidential election in first round with around 55 pct votes

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is likely to win the first round of elections with around 55 percent of votes, a recent poll by the A&G Research Company has revealed.

The head of the company Adil Gür told Akşam daily in an interview published yesterday that in that case, there would be no need for a second round of votes.

Touching on the other presidential candidates, he said that the Republican People's Party (CHP) candidate Muharrem İnce will receive more votes than his own party.

He added that the CHP made the right decision to elect İnce as its candidate. However, he may not reach the CHP's Nov. 1, 2015, general election votes at 25.3 percent.

Commenting on the Good Party (İP) candidate Meral Akşener, Gür expressed that her candidacy will increase the İP's votes in parliamentary elections. He added that if Akşener had not been a candidate, her party would have received fewer votes.

In addition, İnce's candidacy changed the balance because the center-right votes that would otherwise go to Akşener would now return to the CHP. On the Felicity Party (SP) candidate, Gür said that if the SP had kept to its Welfare Party (FP) tradition and stayed in the "Yes" bloc in the April 16 referendum it would receive more votes. SP Chairman and the presidential candidate Temel Karamollaoğlu can get some votes from the Justice and Development Party (AK Party). According to Gür, SP can take a half or 1 percent of votes in the elections.

The ruling conservative AK Party and the right-wing Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) decided to form a political alliance named the People's Alliance for the presidential elections on June 24, after MHP Chairman Devlet Bahçeli announced that his party will not name a candidate for the presidential elections and will support Erdoğan's re-election.

After the People's Alliance bloc was formed, the opposition bloc decided to form the Nation's Alliance after months-long meetings. The main opposition CHP, İP, SP and Democrat Party (DP) agreed on early May to form the alliance.

The alliance, however, will be confined to the parliamentary elections only, as each party previously announced that they will each enter the presidential elections with their own candidate.