Turkey's politicians made a final pitch for votes on the eve of a parliamentary election billed by both the ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party and its nationalist rivals as a key test for their secular democracy.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, 53, hopes his centre-right AK Party's record of strong economic growth, rising living standards and falling inflation will persuade voters to grant him a fresh five-year mandate in Sunday's election.
"Let's keep going forward in unity and solidarity," said AK Party campaign adverts in yesterday's newspapers, contrasting five years of economic reforms and political stability with the mismanagement of previous weak coalition governments.
Erdogan's mainly nationalist and secular-minded rivals have focused more on security, especially a surge in separatist Kurdish violence in the troubled southeast which is home to most Kurds, who make up about a fifth of Turkey's 74 million people.
Opposition parties have also criticised the AK Party's privatisation programme, notably the sale of banks to foreign investors, and its pro-Western foreign policy, including reforms aimed at preparing Turkey for European Union membership.
Tens of thousands of supporters of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) rallied in Istanbul on Saturday against what they branded the government's sellout of Turkish interests.
The protesters waved red MHP flags -- depicting three Islamic crescent moons -- and chanted nationalist slogans as they marched beside the Sea of Marmara in sizzling summer heat.