ISTANBUL, Turkey, June 14 (UPI) -- The number of Turks who approve of their country's leadership decreased in 2012 from 2011, a possible indicator of current unrest, a Gallup poll indicated.
The poll results, released Friday, showed 30 percent of Turks living in Istanbul approved of the leadership, down from 59 percent in 2011. Outside of the capital, that number dropped in the same years from 57 percent to 48 percent.
Forty-five percent of Turks said they were satisfied with being able to choose what they do -- ranking Turkey 130 out of 140 countries evaluated on that measure in 2012 -- the poll results indicated.
Dissatisfaction with freedoms and the country's leadership in 2012 was a possible indicator of protests in Turkey during the past two weeks, Gallup said.
What began as a protest against plans to build a shopping mall on a park in Istanbul, spread into anti-government demonstrations against what some are calling Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip's autocratic rule.
The poll was conducted in March and June 2012 through face-to-face interviews with 2,000 adults in Turkey. The margin of error is 3 percent.
