Turkey counts down to vote in climate of tension

A week ahead of Turkey's second election in five months, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's party is working overtime in its quest to claw back its parliamentary majority, in a climate of tension fuelled by the Ankara attacks and the Kurdish conflict.

 Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, leader of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), called on supporters at a campaign rally Sunday to defy the opinion polls that predict a replay on November 1 of the inconclusive June vote.

 The country is more polarised than ever, and on edge after the October 10 bombings in the heart of the capital, the worst in the country's modern history.

 Adding to the jitters, security forces are hunting four suspected members of the Islamic State group, including a German woman, who have crossed from Syria, media reports say.

 The four belong to the same cell behind the Ankara carnage and are feared to be plotting a major attack "such as hijacking a plane or a vessel or detonating suicide bombs in a crowded location," the Anatolia news agency said Saturday.

 Although several thousand AKP faithful turned out in a sea of Turkish and party flags, numbers were far lower than at previous rallies.

 The June result stunned the AKP, which after 13 years dominating the political scene won barely 40 percent of the vote and lost its absolute control of parliament, partly due to a surprisingly strong performance by the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).