Erdogan's Polling Holds Firm As Opposition Struggles To Select Candidate

Support for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is holding largely steady in the wake of the devastating earthquakes that struck the south of the country in Feburary, with the continued inability of the opposition alliance to select a presidential candidate hampering their efforts to counter the incumbent.

• The six-party 'Nation Alliance' is meeting for talks today, with the announcement of a presidential candidate set to come on Monday 6 March. Leader of the largest party in the alliance, the centre-left Republican People's Party (CHP), - Kemal Kilicdaroglu - is seen as the strong favourite to win the nomination.
• Reuters reports: "Two polls this week showed the opposition had not picked up fresh support,[...] partly due to its lack of tangible plan to rebuild areas devastated by the quake."The earthquake has not caused the government to weaken as much as the opposition would have expected," Ozer Sencar, chairman of the polling company Metropoll, told Reuters."
• The opposition alliance should be in a strong position to challenge Erdogan given the high rate of inflation and concerns among sections of society about creeping authoritarianism from the governing AKP. However, the opposition alliance is formed by parties from across the political spectrum, ranging from the Islamist Felicity Party, to the nationalist Good Party, and the secular centre-left CHP. The alliance is also likely to require the backing of the Kurdish-interest People's Democratic Party (HDP) if it is to oust Erdogan, an inclusion that in turn could break the alliance apart.