<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>Turkey votes Sunday in a momentous election that could extend President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's 20-year grip on power or put the mostly Muslim nation on a more secular course.</b></span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The presidential and parliamentary ballot has turned into a referendum on Turkey's longest-serving leader and his Islamic-rooted party.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is also the toughest of more than a dozen that Erdogan has confronted -- one that polls suggest he might lose.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The 69-year-old has steered the nation of 85 million through one of its most transformative and divisive eras in the post-Ottoman state's 100-year history.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Turkey has grown into a military and geopolitical heavyweight that plays roles in conflicts stretching from Syria to Ukraine.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The NATO member's footprint in both Europe and the Middle East makes the election's outcome as critical for Washington and Brussels as it is for Damascus and Moscow.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But Erdogan's first decade of economic revival and warming relations with Europe was followed by a second one filled with social and political turmoil.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He responded to a failed 2016 coup attempt with sweeping purges that sent chills through Turkish society and made him an increasingly uncomfortable partner for the West.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The emergence of Kemal Kilicdaroglu and his six-party alliance -- a group that forms the type of broad-based coalition that Erdogan excelled at forging throughout his career -- gives foreign allies and Turkish voters a clear alternative.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Polls suggest the 74-year-old secular opposition leader is within touching distance of breaking the 50-percent threshold needed to win in the first round.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A runoff on May 28 could give Erdogan time to regroup and reframe the debate.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">But he would still be hounded by Turkey's most dire economic crisis of his time in power and disquiet over his government's stuttering response to a February earthquake that claimed more than 50,000 lives.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; "><b>- Body armour -</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Erdogan's second decade in power saw him abandoned by more liberal allies and increasingly reliant on far-right groups from Turkey's political fringe.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">His campaign became increasingly tailored to his core supporters as election day neared.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He branded the opposition a "pro-LGBT" lobby that took orders from outlawed Kurdish militants and was bankrolled by the West.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">His hawkish interior minister has repeatedly rereferred back to Joe Biden's suggestion in 2019 as a then-presidential candidate that Washington should embolden the opposition "to take on and defeat Erdogan".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Erdogan's ministers and pro-government media referred darkly to a Western "political coup" plot.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The opposition began to worry that Erdogan was scheming up ways to hold on to power at any cost.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The tensions boiled over when Istanbul's opposition Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu -- a sworn foe of Erdogan who could become Kilicdaroglu's vice president -- was pelted with rocks and bottles while touring Turkey's conservative heartland.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Kilicdaroglu appeared at two campaign events on Friday wearing body armour and protected by men with long guns.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- Religious support -</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The opposition leader ended his campaign on Saturday by laying carnations at the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk -- a revered military commander who created the secular Turkish state.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Long live democracy, love, the republic and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk," Kilicdaroglu said in his final pre-election video address.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Erdogan wrapped things up by leading prayers at Istanbul's iconic Hagia Sophia mosque.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It was a characteristic flourish that openly defied his critics and paid homage to his most fervent followers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Hagia Sophia was built as a Byzantine cathedral -- once the world's largest -- before being transformed into a mosque by the Ottomans.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It was turned into a museum as part of the modern republic's efforts to remove religion from public life.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Erdogan's decision to reconvert it into a mosque in 2020 solidified his hero status among his religious supporters and contributed to growing Western unease with his rule.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The entire West got mad -- but I did it," Erdogan said on Saturday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- Heavy turnout -</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The election is expected to feature heavy turnout among the country's 64 million registered voters.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The last national election saw Erdogan win 52.5 percent on a turnout of more than 86 percent.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Turkey has no exit polls but tends to count ballots quickly.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Polling stations close at 5:00 pm (1400 GMT) and all reporting restrictions are lifted four hours later. The first results are sometimes published before then.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Voters will also select a new 600-seat parliament.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Polls suggest that Erdogan's right-wing alliance is edging out the opposition bloc in the parliamentary ballot.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But the opposition would win a majority if it secured support from a new leftist alliance that represents the Kurdish vote. AFP</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>