'Polling companies under pressure, media outlets don't inform society'

According to the general manager of the İstanbul-based Gezici Research Company, polling companies are under pressure to manipulate the results of their surveys to favor the government -- and the media is failing to inform the masses about serious corruption allegations.

In an interview with Sunday's Zaman, founder and general manager of Gezici Research Company Murat Gezici said that he had recently been asked to publish inflated approval ratings for the ruling party in return for priority in public tenders. “A general manager asked me how much of money I make and said that public contracts await me if I make the numbers of the [Justice and Development] AK Party higher,” Gezici said, adding that he turned down the offer although it meant he would lose business. According to Gezici, not even private companies patronize polling firms that don't play with the numbers.

Gezici said that though more and more polls are suggesting that people believe there is a massive amount of corruption in Turkey, this belief is spreading slowly because of a general reluctance in the media to report on graft allegations. Sixty-five percent of the Turkish media is pro-government, Gezici said, adding that the majority of AK Party voters do not read newspapers or watch news on TV.

Between 2009 and 2011, the AK Party redrew the electoral map to include rural areas in urban voting districts, Gezici said. The new hybrid election system, he continued, will be unfair because different cities will be subject to different rules. In 51 provinces, people in rural areas will not be able to vote in central municipal elections, while they will in 30 other metropolitan municipalities. According to Gezici, this system will work in favor of the government because rural voters as well as those who are less affluent and less educated tend to vote for the AK Party. This is because, Gezici, said, these demographics tends to see themselves in the leader and are easily influenced by politicians' appearance and style of public speaking. This makes Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan more appealing to the religious masses, Gezici said.

Gezici added, however, that the most recent polls suggest that Erdoğan's credibility is in decline. In a February poll, Gezici's company asked people if they think the prime minister is corrupt. Fifty-seven percent said yes. In another and more recent poll, Gezici found out that 68.5 per cent of the people said that the government is corrupt.

Lack of information on the corruption scandal is especially pronounced in the region to the east of the Euphrates, Gezici said, adding that the more education one has the more closely one follows the news. As a consequence, he continued, news of the allegations is spreading slowly.

AK Party will get less than 40 percent in the elections

One Gezici poll on the elections on March 30 said that the AK Party will definitely garner less than 40 percent of the national vote. Respondents said they would not vote for the AK Party because of ambiguities in the Kurdish questions (21.7 percent), changes in the education system (18.6 percent), Syria policy (17.5 percent), negotiations with terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan (14.6 percent), corruption (12.1 percent) and economic problems (8 percent). Gezici believes the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) will be the main beneficiary of the votes the AK Party loses.

In İstanbul, an important indicator for all the local elections, Gezici believes that main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) mayoral candidate Mustafa Sarıgül will face tough competition. “With the electoral [districts] change, 900,000 new voters have been added to the system in İstanbul. Sarıgül has to attract their votes in rural areas,” Gezici said. In Ankara, however, he believes that AK Party's chances of losing are higher than they are in İstanbul.

In Ankara, only 450,000 people receive aid from the municipality, Gezici said, adding that the government has the advantage of being in power, as people are afraid of losing the benefits they receive from the state, such as the “green cards” that grant poor free health services, if they do not support the ruling party. According to Gezici, many AK Party voters who frequent mosque gardens and local coffee house still tend to believe that the spoils of corruption are actually intended for charity.

Gezici said that the AK Party is aware of the power polls have to sway elections and wants to create the impression that its support is around 47 to 50 percent. “The researchers know that it [the AK Party] is below 40 percent now, but they do not say this,” Gezici said. He added that a fellow polling company owner recently said to him, “Am I fool enough to show that AK Party's votes are in decline?” suggesting that he'd lose business if he did. Many polling companies only care about profits, Gezici said, adding that unlike in the old days, Turkish society now tends to side with whoever is more powerful as people care more about the money in their pocket than other values.

“The prime minister conducts more polls than I do, using a company he relies on,” Gezici said. That company is called Denge, he said, and it dates back to the years that Erdoğan ran for office in the Beyoğlu district of Istanbul. According to Gezici, Denge's polls are conducted for an audience of one: Erdoğan himself. “Many candidates were determined based on the results of polls by Denge,” Gezici said. Because Erdoğan has realized that he will not be able get elected as the next president, Gezici continued, he is getting ready to abolish the AK Party's three-term limit for prime ministers. Indeed, Erdoğan gave hints in that direction on Wednesday, the same day Sunday's Zaman conducted this interview.

When asked which leader respondents trust most, 32.2 percent said Abdullah Gül, 30.3 percent said Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and 22.2 percent said Erdoğan, Gezici said, citing results from another of his company's polls. He claimed that Erdoğan had also received a poll putting his party's support below 40 percent, which is why his new benchmark for success is the support his party garnered in Turkey's last local elections, in 2009, instead of the 50 percent the party won in the general elections in 2011.

People do not believe accusations about the Hizmet movement

Gezici said that people do not believe the extremely grave accusations Erdoğan has made about the Hizmet movement and Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen. “Eighty-five percent of the people do not believe that Gülen is the leader of a terrorist organization,” Gezici said. The remaining 15 percent? According to Gezici, the majority of them are illiterate AK Party voters.

In one Gezici poll, 9 percent of respondents said that they consider themselves close to the Hizmet movement, while 35 percent said they had received some service from the movement.

“We know that the Hizmet movement will not form a political party, but if it does, 16 percent of the people say that they would vote for it,” Gezici pointed out. He went on to say that that these numbers reflect the support for the Hizmet movement, which does not engage in political campaigning.

“If Hizmet openly said that it does not support the AK Party, the government would lose 35 percent of its support,” Gezici added.

A poll Gezici conducted in December showed that a majority of respondents -- 58.5 percent -- are against the government's decision to close the Turkey's prep schools, or dershanes. Respondents become more likely to oppose the move as their level of education increases. Even 63 percent of AK Party voters are against closing the prep schools, because people value the education children receive at these institutions.

Published on Sunday's Zaman, 09 March 2014, Sunday