By Bosphorus News Türkiye Desk
A SONAR Research poll released on August 6, 2026, placed Özgür Özel's Yeni Parti ahead of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) by 4.1 percentage points, less than two weeks after the new opposition movement formally entered parliament as Türkiye's second-largest political group.
After undecided voters were redistributed, Yeni Parti received 34.3% support compared with 30.2% for the AK Party. The same survey found that 59.4% of respondents favored an early general election, while President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan remained the leading answer in an open-ended question on who voters would like to win the next presidential election.
The findings provide one of the first indications of voter support for Yeni Parti since Özel and 90 other lawmakers formally established the party on July 24, giving it 91 seats and replacing the Republican People's Party (CHP) as Türkiye's main opposition in parliament.
Yeni Parti leads before and after undecided voters are distributed
SONAR asked respondents which party they would support if a general election were held on Sunday. Before undecided voters were redistributed, Yeni Parti stood at 24.1%, ahead of the AK Party at 21.2%.
After redistribution, Yeni Parti rose to 34.3% and the AK Party to 30.2%, producing a 4.1-point gap between the two largest parties.
The Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) was third with 8.5%, followed by the İYİ Party at 7%. The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) received 5.1%, while the CHP, from which Yeni Parti emerged last month, was measured at 5%.
Anahtar Party stood at 2.6%, Zafer Party at 2.3%, the New Welfare Party at 1.6% and the Great Unity Party at 1.3%, with other parties accounting for a combined 2.1%.
The result is particularly significant for Yeni Parti because the movement's parliamentary strength was inherited from lawmakers elected on CHP lists rather than secured in a national election under its own name.
That question was central to an analysis by Bosphorus News contributing editor Spiros Sideris, who argued shortly after the party's formation that its long-term position would depend on whether parliamentary strength could be converted into an independent electoral base, local organization and durable voter loyalty.
The SONAR result offers an early indication that the party may be attracting support beyond its 91-member parliamentary group, although one opinion poll cannot establish whether that support will persist through an election campaign.
Nearly six in ten respondents favor an early election
The poll also found substantial support for bringing the next general election forward.
Asked whether an early general election should be held, 59.4% answered yes and 32.9% said no. The remaining respondents either expressed no preference or were included outside the two principal answers reported from the survey.
Roj Girasun of Rawest Research said during the television discussion in which the SONAR figures were presented that his organization's polling had also placed Yeni Parti first, although he did not provide figures from that research.
Girasun cautioned against treating current polling as a fixed prediction of the next election, describing surveys as a snapshot of political opinion that can change as campaigning, candidate selection and the wider political environment develop.
Erdoğan remains first in presidential preference
The survey produced a different ranking when voters were asked an open-ended question about the presidency.
Asked who they would like to win if a presidential election were held on Sunday, 27.4% named Erdoğan, putting the incumbent president well ahead of any individual opposition politician.
Jailed Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu followed with 11.4%, while Özel received 11% and Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş 10.2%. Former Peoples' Democratic Party co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş was named by 6% of respondents and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan by 2%.
The difference between the party and presidential findings means the SONAR survey does not translate Yeni Parti's 34.3% party support directly into an equivalent personal rating for Özel. It instead shows Erdoğan retaining a sizeable individual lead in an open-ended presidential question while his party trails Yeni Parti in the parliamentary voting question.
Poll comes less than two weeks after Yeni Parti's launch
Yeni Parti formally emerged on July 24 with 91 lawmakers and immediately became the second-largest parliamentary group after the AK Party, which at the time held 277 seats. The transfer reduced the CHP to 44 lawmakers. Bosphorus News reported that Özel was unanimously elected chairman at the party's first Founders' Council meeting and maintained his support for İmamoğlu's presidential candidacy.
The party retained much of the CHP's social democratic and Kemalist political inheritance while adopting a program centered on parliamentary reform, judicial independence, renewed European Union integration and expanded social policy. It also carried over Özel's relationships with European socialist parties.
The SONAR poll is therefore an early test of whether the parliamentary realignment that created Türkiye's new main opposition party is also appearing among voters.
That conclusion needs to be treated cautiously because the segment in which the results were published did not provide the survey's fieldwork dates, sample size, interview method or margin of error. Without those technical details, the poll can be reported as a measurement of current opinion but cannot be reliably compared with other surveys or treated as a forecast of an election result.
Sources: SONAR Research data reported by Karar, Bosphorus News review and reporting.