Strong competition.. who will win the election in turkey?

Turkey is heading to the polls, as 64 million citizens cast their ballots in an election that could end Recep Tayyip Erdogan's two decades of rule.

Polls increasingly show Erdogan's presidential challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu in the lead, with the two candidates vying for more than 50% of the vote to avoid a runoff in two weeks.

Strong competition?

Erdogan

Erdogan, 69, is a powerful orator and leading campaigner who gave his all during the campaign as he struggles to survive his toughest political test.

He commands fierce loyalty from Turks who once felt disenfranchised in secular Turkey and his political career survived an attempted coup in 2016.

Erdogan trailed in the polls as voters reacted to the results of his 20 years in power, including a brutal economic crisis that caused the lira to drop in value by half last year alone and soaring inflation. Criticism of his government has grown after the country's slow and erratic response to deadly twin earthquakes in the country's southeast that killed more than 50,000 people and destroyed homes and infrastructure in 11 provinces.

Kilicdaroglu

As for Kilicdaroglu, a 74-year-old former civil servant, he promises that if he wins he will return to the traditional economic policies of Erdogan's heavy-handed administration.

Kilicdaroglu also says he will seek to return the country to a parliamentary system of government, from Erdogan's executive presidential system passed in a 2017 referendum.

The CHP leader has promised to deport millions of Syrian and Afghan refugees who have sought refuge in Turkey from conflicts at home.

  If Kilicdaroglu wins, he will face challenges in maintaining a unified opposition coalition of nationalists, Islamists, secularists and liberals.

The likelihood of Kilicdaroglu or Erdogan reaching the 50% threshold increased a few days before polling, after one of the four candidates, Muharrem İnce, withdrew after releasing what he claimed was a fake sex tape created using deepfakes technology.

Foreign interference

The final days of the campaign were marked by accusations of foreign interference.

Kilicdaroglu said his party had concrete evidence of Russia's responsibility for publishing "extremely fake" content on the Internet, which Moscow denied.

Erdogan accused the opposition of working with US President Joe Biden to overthrow him. A US State Department spokesperson said Washington was not taking sides in the election.