Turkish Prime Minister, rivals make final appeal to voters: thousands of MHP supporters rally

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 Saturday'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 south-east 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.
"We want a government that will defend Turkey's interests, not those of the EU and the United States. The AK Party has not defended our interests, but the MHP would," said Aydin Calgici, 44, a construction worker. 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.
The MHP and other opposition parties have demanded a Turkish army incursion into northern Iraq to crush Kurdish rebels hiding there - a move US officials say they are increasingly worried about as Ankara masses troops along the border. Underlining security fears, a Kurdish rebel rocket strike wounded two Turkish policemen on Friday near the Iraqi border.
As well as the AK Party, the MHP and the main opposition centre-left Republican People's Party (CHP), pro-Kurdish activists are also expected to win seats in the new parliament.