ISTANBUL - Four political parties in Turkey are expected to overcome the 10-percent national threshold to enter parliament in early elections on July 22, but none will garner enough votes to govern on its own, according to an opinion poll published Tuesday.
The survey by the ESTIMA institution published in the Vatan daily found that 29.6 percent of the respondents would vote for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), a conservative movement with roots in political Islam, if elections were held straightaway.
The staunchly secularist main opposition Republican People`s Party (CHP) was second with 19.2 percent of the vote.
A new party formed by the merger of the centre-right Motherland and True Path parties would take 15.3 percent of the vote while the far-right Nationalist Action Party would garner 10.3 percent, the poll said.
Vatan said the results showed that the AKP would lose its majority in the 550-seat parliament despite coming first, and predicted that the elections would produce a two- or three-party coalition government.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan`s AKP rode to power on its own with an overwhelming majority of the votes in the 2002 elections, ending more than a decade of weak or squabbling coalition governments and providing crucial political stability for economic recovery.
The survey, conducted among 1,589 people between May 5-10, comes after a deep political crisis triggered by the prospect of a former Islamist becoming the strictly secular republic`s next president.
The AKP twice failed to get its presidential candidate, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, elected in parliament after an opposition boycott robbed them of the chance to establish the required quorum for a vote.
The crisis was marked by mass secular protests against an AKP president and a stiff army warning that it was ready to take action to protect the secular system if need be.
The turmoil forced Erdogan to bring legislative elections forward to July 22 from November.
Last week, the AKP rushed through parliament a package of major constitutional amendments, including a two-round popular vote to elect the president.
The package needs to be approved by outgoing President Ahmet Necdet Sezer in order to come into force.
05/15/2007 10:03 GMT