ISTANBUL: Turkish citizens voted Sunday in local elections seen as a referendum on the rule of Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan after turbulent months of mass protests, corruption scandals and Internet blocks.

Erdogan has a central role in Turkey’s local elections even though his name won’t be on the ballots.

The elections are widely seen as a referendum on Erdogan’s tumultuous rule of more than a decade, and the prime minister has been campaigning as if his own career were on the line.

The recent turmoil, fought out in fierce street clashes and explosive online leaks, has left the country of 75 million deeply polarised between Erdogan’s Muslim conservative supporters and a secular political camp.

The premier’s heavy-handed response, including blocks on Twitter and YouTube, has detracted from his much-lauded 11-year record of driving an economic boom and transforming Turkey into an emerging global player.

One Erdogan supporter casting her vote was Nurcan Caliskan, 38, an Istanbul mother of three wearing a headscarf, who said “we’re here to show with our votes that Erdogan can weather all kinds of attacks.”

She dismissed graft charges against Erdogan allies and relatives and praised him for modernising Turkey, saying, “don’t you see all the hospitals, schools and roads he has built?”

An opposition supporter charged meanwhile that Erdogan “is damaging democracy and freedom of expression.”

“If he really cared about the Turkish people, he would have resigned a long time ago,” added Gonca Gurses, 28, a financial director voting in Istanbul’s upmarket Sisli district.