TURKS vote on Sunday, in the most pivotal elections in their modern history, to decide if Recep Tayyip Erdogan remains as president after 20 years in power.
His main rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, promises to scrap many of the powers acquired by President Erdogan after he survived a failed coup in 2016.
Buoyed by a broad opposition alliance, he has a real chance of victory.
But this race has become so intense that campaigning went up to the wire.
President Erdogan was filmed stretching election rules by addressing worshippers at Saturday evening prayers in Istanbul.
Turkey’s 64 million voters go to the polls in particularly hard times.
Rampant inflation is officially almost 44%, but many Turks believe it is far higher, while 11 of the country’s provinces have been affected by twin earthquakes that left more than 50,000 people dead.
At an optician’s in Ankara, Burak Onder complained that hardly anyone was buying glasses any more: “People don’t even ask for discounts, they can’t afford it.”
Inflation soared as President Erdogan abandoned orthodox economics, cutting interest rates while most other countries raised theirs.
A few doors down the street, shopkeeper Rahime revealed layers of price labels that she stuck on top of each other almost daily because of soaring costs.
“People come in and ask why are prices rising all the time, and they leave without buying anything,” she said.
