Hi, it's Manvine here. This weekend, Turkey goes to the polls in what already being

built as the most important elections anywhere in the world this year. Today, I'm handing

over the presenting to the Sunday Times mid-least correspondent Louise Callahan, who's been

on the ground following the story.

I remember my sister coming to me and saying that she was wearing a mini skirt. She was

at a hairdresser shop and the hairdresser was like, oh, the AKP won, so you won't be able

to wear those mini skirts again. So she was traumatized. That's Berel Eski, a freelance

Turkish journalist. She's telling me one of her earliest memories of hearing about the

AKP, the party of current Turkish president, Jediti Abadon. The AKP had just won the 2002

election, and many in Turkey were worried that things were going to change.

I remember myself telling my cousin, like, they're so dangerous we won't be able to

wear bikinis again. So the idea was that the Islamist parties, if they can win the elections,

they can rule the country with Sharia, so we were always afraid of them. It was just

the prejudice we had in mind when we were kids.

To begin with, Belin and her friends fears were pretty exaggerated. 20 years ago, Turkey

was, and still is, a proudly secular country. But things did begin to change. And in recent

years, the country's been beset by corruption scandals and economy and free fall and rising

a liberalism. At the center of all, this is one man, Jediti Abadon, a populist, a strong

man who has been compared to Hungary's Viktor Orban and Brazil's Jaya Bolsonaro.

This Sunday, though, Erdogan faces a test. Turkey is holding what might be the most important

presidential and parliamentary elections in their Republic's history. Erdogan is back

on the main stage and facing the world's hardly contested race of his tenure. He slammed

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