CRI听力:Turkey to Vote on Sunday in Critical Test for Erdogan Party

Turkey is preparing to vote later today to elect a new Parliament.

This is seen as the most decisive poll in over a decade and could reshape the country's political system and determine the future of President Tayyip Erdogan.

CRI's Poornima Weerasekara reports.

Turkey's crucial parliamentary election on Sunday is seen more as a referendum on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's tenure than just a chance to elect new members of Parliament.

For the past 13 years, his pro-islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) has held onto power with an iron fist.

Now Erdogan wants to change Turkey's constitution, diminish the role of the parliamentary system and introduce an executive presidency instead.

Critics say he wants to turn Turkey into an autocracy.

But Erdagon, who was on the campaign trail on Saturday, says such a move was essential to strengthen the stability of the country, as it faces a looming threat from the Islamic State terror group just outside its border.

"Nobody should restrain our will for democracy. But you should know that the games enemies of democracy will be disrupted tomorrow. And you will be the ones who will do this."

Despite this rhetoric on upholding democracy, the campaign has been marred by violence.

There have been 161 attacks on main political parties since February, when campaigning began. The latest was a bomb attack on a rally organized by the pro-Kurdish opposition group, the People's Democratic Party on Friday, that killed two and wounded 200 others.

Tensions are high, because for the first time in the history of modern Turkey, a Kurdish political party is poised to enter parliament in force.

Ahmet Insel, a senior columnist at the Cumhuriyet Newspaper says this may bring hope for a peaceful settlement with Kurdish rebels who have been fighting for more than three-decades, demanding for greater autonomy for the Kurdish minority.

"If the Kurdish party and their leftist allies surpass the 10 percent threshold and Erdogan's party cannot get their seats in parliament, in this case there will be a different picture of Turkey. There will be a parliament where Tayyip Erdogan and AK Party will face a strong opposition. This is a picture that they are not used to dealing with for the past 10 years. This may even be the beginning of a post-Erdogan period."

Another key issue in this year's campaign has been stamping out corruption.

Opposition parties have gone to town with allegations against government ministers and the lavish multimillion-dollar presidential palace that allegedly has 1000 rooms.

Turkey's economic woes will also influence the outcome of the polls.

Turkey was recently ranked as the 17th biggest economy in the world.

But its growth rate has slowed down to around 4 percent, a shadow of the soaring double digit figures experiences in the past decade. Unemployment remains high and the Turkish currency, the lira, has lost one-fifth of its value against the dollar in the past 12 months.

Analysts say this is Turkey's least predictable election in more than a decade.

Turkey has long served as a model for a secular country with a Muslim majority.

But the stakes are high, and this may change, as the country goes to the ballot box today.