Politics between advertisement and public opinion

Public opinion polls are one of the indispensable ways of measuring the pulse of the people in a democratic society. They are practices that make one feel that how institutions or political figures see themselves and how much they like their own achievements matter less than the perception with which these are received by the public. Many political parties or leaders have mistaken the favor they see when they go out into the streets, usually in pre-arranged settings, for something very real and put on airs, but have had to take the true measure of their stature in elections, the greatest public opinion poll.

That is why politics and corporate management in the new world also require strong perception tracking and management.

Before the last elections, when the CHP leader was asked "do you commission public opinion polls?", he had answered "we see no need at all, because it is both very expensive and we already get the impression we would get from opinion polls in our contacts with the people, and instead we find it more appropriate to advertise." Kılıçdaroğlu must have understood from the election results how wrong his choice between "buying advertising" and "conducting public opinion polls" was. Truly, advertising is intended to create a perception effect and this is among the things that no political institution can do without, but how this effect turns out is something that can be done by measuring the perception that has formed. In the final analysis the matter rests on empathy. Perception management proceeds together with a strong sense of empathy.

The results of the poll conducted by the Strategic Thought Institute every three months with Area Research, applied at the end of June, were published in recent days. Even the results of this poll alone would deserve to be examined with interest by the CHP leader. But there is good news for the CHP leader from the data of this poll. Because it appears that the politics Kılıçdaroğlu has recently pursued has prevented the decline in CHP votes and even stirred them considerably. In particular, his meeting with Prime Minister Erdoğan on the Kurdish issue and his initiative of meeting with other parties as well and putting his hand under the stone to resolve the problem have been evaluated positively by the public. This is an interesting result, because one of the most important worries that probably holds Kılıçdaroğlu back from acting more courageously and makes him timid is the thought that his base is not ready for such politics. Yet when the CHP leader displays more democratic, politically open attitudes, far from losing votes, the CHP leadership is even cemented.

In the poll, if there were an election today, the parties have a distribution close to that of the June 12, 2011 elections, within +-1 differences. But these results present an interesting situation compared with three months ago, when the AK Parti was a few points ahead and the CHP and MHP a few points behind.

Among the poll results, it also stands out that the public does not want war on Syria policy, or is against an international military intervention. Despite strong perceptions of Assad's evil, it appears that what is happening in Syria, let alone the policy Turkey is following, is not sufficiently well perceived. The Syrian process represents an interesting example of how war or the possibility of war blocks the truth.

Among the poll results, among the policies of the government found most successful, health (64.4), education (47.7), economy (45.8), and foreign policy (45) lead, while among the most unsuccessful policies come terror (72.6) and jobs and employment (29.2).

When the participants were asked about the method of solving the problem of terror and the PKK, it is seen that those saying that priority should be given to harsh and direct military measures stand out. Another interesting point is that women show a harsher attitude on this than men. Yet another interesting point is that as the level of education rises, the proportion of those saying that measures against the PKK should be hardened rises. This is truly very interesting, a matter that deserves to be dwelt on with concern, particularly in terms of both our education system and women's culture. What does a society in which the principal carriers of an ideology of violence are women signify, for instance?

The people were asked their approaches to many more topics on the agenda in the poll and meaningful results emerged. We cannot relay all of them here, of course, but finally let us share the results that emerged on two subjects.

First, 40 percent of those who took part in the research hold a positive opinion about the education reform known as 4+4+4. The proportion of those who support the teaching of the Quran and the life of the Prophet as elective courses in schools is at 74.5 percent. Support for teaching Kurdish as an elective course in schools, on the other hand, remains at 36.5 percent. The truly interesting datum that stands out in this result is that among those who say they are Kurdish, support for teaching Kurdish as an elective course in schools is at the level of 80 percent. It is an interesting datum showing that the rejectionist stance of BDP circles, which evaluate this step as an assimilation aimed at Kurds, finds a completely opposite response among Kurds.

Second, regarding the status of the Presidency of Religious Affairs, 44.4 percent of the respondents say that the institution should remain the same, while a segment at the 40 percent level say it should continue after being reformed, and the proportion of those who think it should be abolished emerges as only 10.4 percent. This is a datum that requires taking into account, when advancing theses about the Diyanet, that as an institution it has a social resonance that no other institution has been granted.

This is the view that appears when we take a break from advertising and listen to the public. The rest of the results can be downloaded from www.sde.org.tr.