REPORT: Eight killed in clashes during municipal elections in Turkey

The voting may have become a crisis referendum on the rule of Erdogan and his Islamist-rooted AK Party and he has been crisscrossing the nation of 77 million during weeks of hectic campaigning to rally his conservative core voters.   

Voting went ahead peacefully in most parts of the country but fights broke out between groups supporting rival candidates in two villages near the southeastern border with Syria. Six people were killed in a shoot-out in Sanliurfa province while two more died in a village in Hatay, security officials said.   

The clashes were over local council positions and were not directly linked to the wider tensions in the country.   

The level of support for Erdogan will be crucial for his Islamist-rooted AK Party's political survival as well as his possible bid to become the president in August.    

Erdogan has purged some 7,000 people from the judiciary and police since anti-graft raids in December targeting businessmen close to him and sons of ministers. He blames the raids on U.S.-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, an ex-ally, who he says is using supporters in the police to try to topple the government.   

"They are all traitors," Erdogan said of his opponents at a rally in Istanbul on the eve of the vote. "Let them do what they want. Go to the ballot box tomorrow and teach all of them a lesson ... Let's give them an Ottoman slap."   

AK's main opposition, the Republican People's Party (CHP), portrays Erdogan as a corrupt dictator ready to hang on to power by any means. Capture of the capital Ankara or Istanbul would allow them to claim some form of victory.   

AK, which swept to power in 2002 on a platform of eradicating the corruption that blights Turkish life, hopes to equal or better its 2009 vote of 38.8 percent and markets have steadied this week in expectation of such a result.   

A vote of less than 36 percent, not considered likely, would be a huge blow for Erdogan and unleash AK power struggles. A vote of more than 45 percent, some fear, could herald a period of harsh reckoning with opponents in politics and state bodies.   

As voting got under way in western Turkey at 8 a.m. (0600 GMT), an hour later than in the east, some voters subscribed to Erdogan's belief that he is the victim of a plot to unseat him.       

On a sunny morning at a school in the central Istanbul commercial district of Sisli, others saw the election as an opportunity to express their opposition to Erdogan's government.   

"We expect a ray of hope in the elections. Even if the AK Party vote doesn't fall that much, we expect them to lose big cities at least. If not we're thinking of living abroad," said Alper Palabiyik, 30, a financial adviser.   

"It will be a long night for us but a longer night for that dictator," he said. Voting ends at 5 p.m.
  

REUTERS

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