Turkish Interior Minister Soylu targets top pollster, calls him ‘mafia’

In response to a question about election results, Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu has targeted the country’s top pollster Bekir Ağırdır by calling him “mafia.” “There is a survey mafia and this man is a mafia. Bekir Ağırdır. And this man is playing an operation on Turkey. In every election, he is carrying out an operation,” Soylu said.

Thursday May 18 2023 01:17 pm

This collage photo shows Soylu (L) and Ağırdır (R).

Duvar English

Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu has targeted Konda Research’s general manager Bekir Ağırdır by calling him “mafia.”

During a program aired on Tv100 on May 17, Soylu answered a question about the polls and why they failed in predicting the election results.

“A deviation of half or 1 percentage in polls is normal. There is Konda (Research) in Turkey, and this man is maybe its (the company’s) owner now, he wasn’t so before. There is a survey mafia and this man is a mafia. Bekir Ağırdır. And this man is playing an operation on Turkey. In every election, he is carrying out an operation. Does it have an effect? None at all. If it did, it would have been seen,” Soylu said.

Calling Turkey’s top pollster “the international system’s influence agent in Turkey,” Soylu said: “Turkey needs to cut loose from such men. The deviation of a research is in the range of +1 - -1 (percentage) once you find a good sample. The other one is an understanding that includes complete speculation and tries to fool and mislead people.”

Many polling firms, including that of Ağırdır, failed to predict the outcome of the presidential election on May 14.

Opinion polls from numerous companies had for weeks shown Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in front of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, appearing to chime with perceptions that his popularity had been sapped by soaring inflation and a cost-of-living crisis.

Yet May 14 results were the other way round, with Erdoğan winning 49.52% of the vote and Kılıçdaroğlu on 44.88%. With neither of the candidates having secured more than 50%, the vote goes to a runoff on May 28.