​Final Words: Polls and undertows

TURKEY - In Brief 20 Jun 2018 by Atilla Yesilada

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It is time to express my personal thoughts on 24 June election results, and the landscape in their aftermath. Gods willing, I shall start posting comments on this website starting 10-11 pm on Sunday night, to be followed by a brief early Monday.There will be no Weekly Report this week. While these are my final thoughts, I‘m afraid these will not be the final elections to end the uncertainty and campaigning in Turkey. I predict a run-off in presidential elections on 8 July. Perhaps repeat elections in our base case scenario of cohabitation, then of course March 2019 local elections, and probably another set of presidential and parliamentary elections later that year. Polls are better than believed The first thing you hear about election forecasting inside Turkey is that polls are unreliable, a view shared by some pundits abroad. This is not true, with the exception of November 2015 general elections, polls have been a fairly accurate guide to predicting results. The eruption of AKP votes in the said election is attributed to phenomenon called “undertow” by social scientists, describing subtle changes in perceptions not detected by polls, which culminate in surprises at the polling day. This time around, there are ripples, which may hurt Erdogan and AKP-MHP. Going back to our poll-of-polls analysis, despite the ban by High Election Commission, four polls were leaked to the press. These were reportedly conducted byKonsensus, Konda, Metropoll and SONAR. Since it is reputed to be (not true)the most accurate forecaster in the field, it is important to note that KONDA heralds a first round victory for Erdogan and a landslide for AKP-MHP in the parliamentary election.Konsensus...