77 pct of Turks back elective Quran courses, survey reveals

The survey, titled “Research Agenda in Turkey,” was conducted by polling company Pollmark. A total of 5,150 people participated in the poll.

According the results of the survey, 77.3 percent of participants said they welcomed the recent regulation regarding elective courses covering the life of the Prophet Muhammad and the Quran, while 18.1 stated they were not pleased with the regulation. The remaining 4.7 percent declined to comment.

In response to a question about whether people found a recent regulation that will enable the reopening of the religious vocational imam-hatip middle schools positive or not, 63.5 percent of respondents said it was positive, while 27.9 of them responded negatively. The percentage of people who did not respond to the question was 8.6.

The survey also revealed that 52.6 percent of respondents think the current government is doing well, while 40.3 percent believe the current government has been unsuccessful, with 7.1 percent declining to comment.

In response to a question on which party they would vote for if general elections were to take place today, 52.4 percent favored the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), 24.5 percent chose the Republican People's Party (CHP), 11.4 percent voted for the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), 7.4 percent said the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and 4.3 percent preferred other political parties.

To the question “Who is the most admired leader in Turkey?” 41.7 percent of participants chose Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. This figure was 7.6 percent for CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, followed by MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli with 3.2 percent. Turkish President Abdullah Gül was chosen as the most admired leader by only 2.8 percent of respondents. This figure was 1.3 percent for Ahmet Türk, an independent Kurdish deputy, and 1 percent for BDP leader Selahattin Demirtaş.