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Erdogan in final appeals at rallies before vote

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ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was shuttling between seven rallies across Istanbul on Friday, the second-to-last day of campaigning before high-stakes elections in which he’s seeking to extend his 15-year rule despite a boisterous opposition.


In his first campaign speech in Kartal, a district on the Asian side of Istanbul along the Marmara Sea coast, the president touted his administration’s development schemes and vowed to open one of his pet projects there — a free tea and coffee house.


Turkey holds simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elections on Sunday, with polls showing they’re too close to call.


“We have one day left, are we ready to go from door to door?” Erdogan urged the crowd, calling out especially to the women and youth.


“I trust in my people, I love my people. My people will give them [opposition] the necessary answer on Sunday,” he added.


Under election rules, all campaigning must stop at 1500 GMT on Saturday.


Erdogan touched down at Istanbul’s new airport late on Thursday amid much fanfare, with Turkey’s pliant broadcasters dutifully switching coverage away from a major rally in Izmir by his main challenger Muharrem Ince of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).


“Shame on you! Shameless people!” Ince tweeted, reacting to state broadcaster TRT for not airing his address.


Erdogan has an interview scheduled for 11 pm (2200 GMT) on TRT on Friday.


Ince, a former physics teacher, has energised the opposition on the campaign trail with pledges to end what he calls “one-man rule” in fiery speeches, using the same language as Erdogan.


He tweeted that 3 million people attended his rally in Izmir, a stronghold of the secular CHP on the Aegean coast.


While there were no official figures, several newspapers said more than 2 million people attended Thursday’s rally. State-run news agency Anadolu did not provide statistics.


“Erdogan is now a tired man. A passionless man, an arrogant man who looks down on his people,” Ince told cheering supporters who waved Turkish flags.


“Are we ready for the big change, Izmir? Are we ready to... reunite Turkey?”


Ince is scheduled to hold two major rallies, one in Ankara on Friday and the final one in Istanbul on Saturday.


“This was the largest rally since Ince started his campaign. We hear different figures in media, including 3 million attendees, but we cannot confirm this,” a CHP spokesman said on Friday.


In Istanbul’s Maltepe area in his second appearance on Friday, Erdogan praised the unfinished airport — the city’s third — where he landed the previous night.


It’s major construction projects such as these — airports, stadia, hospitals, canals and schools — that he repeatedly cites among the long list of his government’s accomplishments.


The yet-unnamed airport is set to open in 2023, and Erdogan said it would aim to become the world’s top facility with 105 million passengers.


“Why shouldn’t it be named after Recep Tayip Erdogan?” Transportation Minister Ahmet Arslan told Anadolu in an interview on Friday, adding that the president would decide the name. Istanbul’s main airport is named for Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern, secular Turkish republic.


Turkey holds simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elections on Sunday for the first time in the country’s history, which will also propel it into a presidential system, following a constitutional referendum in April 2017 that Erdogan narrowly won. — dpa


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