ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey's ruling AK Party has increased its support by six percentage points ahead of a snap election on Sunday, pollster Adil Gur said on Thursday, enough to form a single-party majority after falling short in a June poll.
The forecast by Gur's A&G Research puts AKP votes at 47.2 percent, well above those reported by other recent polls, which generally show the party slightly increasing its share but still unable to win enough votes to form a government on its own.
In a separate poll released on Thursday, MetroPoll found that the AKP would still fail to secure a majority, winning 43.3 percent of the vote compared with the 40.8 percent it took in a June 7 general election, when it lost the majority it had enjoyed since 2002.
After failing to form a coalition, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu formed an interim cabinet. But the country has been wracked with violence. A 30-year-old conflict with Kurdish militants was reignited in July, and Islamic State is blamed for a bomb attack in the capital that killed 102 people this month.
"While everyone is expecting a coalition, our result was a surprise. Respondents said they want a single-party government for stability and the economy," Gur told Reuters. "It will not be a borderline majority. Between 285 and 290 (AKP) lawmakers are to win" in the 550-seat parliament.
"After the June 7 election, voters do not see a possibility of a coalition with the AKP."
A&G conducted its poll of 4,536 people on Oct. 24-25. The centre-left Republican People's Party (CHP) is seen winning 25.3 percent, compared with 24.9 percent in the last vote.
The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) is expected to lose the most number of votes, falling to 13.5 percent from 16.2 percent, according to A&G. The pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) is forecast to take 12.2 percent, compared with 13.1 percent in June, but will win more seats than the MHP, Gur said.
For its part, MetroPoll forecast CHP at 25.9 percent, MHP at 14.8 percent and the HDP at 13.4 percent in the Sunday election.