Uneasy Turks vote in crucial election

Turkey voted Sunday in one of its most crucial elections in years, with the country deeply divided in the face of surging Kurdish and Islamic violence and worries about democracy and the faltering economy.

The poll is the second in just five months, called after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) was stripped of its parliamentary majority in June for the first time in 13 years and failed to forge a coalition government.

Opinion polls are predicting a replay Sunday, leaving the strategic Muslim-majority nation of 78 million at risk of further instability just as it faces what some warn are existential threats.

Around 385,000 police and gendarmes have been mobilised nationwide, with security particularly high in the restive Kurdish majority southeast, where armoured vehicles and police were seen outside polling stations.

The political landscape has changed dramatically in Turkey since June, with the country even more polarised on ethnic and sectarian lines.