2020 was a difficult year for everyone for many reasons. At the start of the year, even if people discussed how the Coronavirus Pandemic would change our lives, there wasn’t talk of how strange and extraordinary it would be. As it turned out, our lives were overturned in many ways. Medical masks became essential parts of daily life, national borders were almost completely shut, and travel became extraordinarily difficult. And it seems that the economic and political impact of the Pandemic will be felt for years to come.

Anxiety surrounding the Pandemic is now higher than it was at the start of the infections in March. In addition, those who oppose vaccines or are “hesitant” make up about half the population.

Turkey’s Pulse has changed a great deal since the Pandemic began. Society is dominated by worry and pessimism for the state of the nation and the economy most of all. Our December 2020 findings show support rising for a “strengthened parliamentary system” and for an independent foreign policy that is free of alliances.

This internal and perceptual transformation may stem from a feeling, driven mainly by economic problems, that the country “is not where it should be”. The transformation will have an impact on politics and we will be following the implications throughout 2021.

We would like to thank you for standing by us through a difficult and demanding year as we took Turkey’s Pulse together. We hope and plan to continue doing the same together through 2021. We are in a time of change and transformation; Turkey has started to change its skin.

We wish you all a 2021 that is far better than 2020.

Here’s to health, strength and renewal.

The December Turkey's Pulse survey was carried out using the stratified sampling and weighting method on 1,791 people in 28 provinces based on the 26 regions of Turkey's NUTS 2 system between November 20 - 27. The survey used CATI (computer-assisted telephone interviewing) methodology with a margin error of 2.31 percent at the 95 percent level of confidence.