Turks Give Erdogan High Marks Before Election, Pew Survey Shows
Turks are increasingly positive about the direction of their country and give Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan high marks on foreign affairs and the economy, a survey by the Pew Research Center released yesterday shows.
Forty-nine percent of Turks said they were satisfied with the way things are going, an increase since 2009 when about three-quarters felt the country was on the wrong track, according to the survey by Washington-based Pew.
The findings were “strongly associated with religiosity,” the survey said. Respondents who said they prayed five times a day had a satisfaction rate of 64 percent, double that of Turks who report hardly ever praying, the survey showed.
Erdogan’s party has roots in Islamist movements and has challenged some of the restrictions on religion imposed by Turkey’s secular constitution.
Confidence in Turkey’s economic condition has risen from 14 percent in the months before Erdogan’s party was elected in 2002 to 49 percent today. On foreign affairs, 62 percent said they had confidence in the prime minister to do the right thing.
Erdogan is also popular in the Middle East, with strong majorities of Egyptians, Jordanians and Lebanese expressing a lot or some confidence in him. He is less popular in the Palestinian territories, with 52 percent saying they have confidence in him and 47 percent saying they don’t. In Israel, 95 percent of the Jewish population expressed little or no confidence in him, Pew said.
Europe Negative
Erdogan also gets poor marks from Europe, with clear majorities in Spain, Germany and France giving him a “negative assessment,” the report said.
Turks still favor joining the European Union, with 52 percent supporting accession and 42 percent opposing, Pew said. Younger Turks are more likely to favor joining the bloc, the survey showed.
The Turkish survey was conducted in face-to-face interviews with 1,000 Turks across the country between March 21 and April 12. The margin of error is 4 percentage points. Pew conducted similar polls in other countries.
Erdogan is bidding for a third term in elections on June 12.
To contact the reporter on this story: Benjamin Harvey in Ankara at bharvey11@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net.
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