President Tayyip Erdogan is unambiguous about what he wants from today's election, casting it as a pivotal moment for Turkey: a return to the single-party rule he presided over for more than a decade until June.
The outcome of the second parliamentary election this year will be important not only for Turkey's domestic stability and its role in resolving the conflict in Syria and Europe's migration crisis, but also for Erdogan himself.
The NATO member and EU candidate nation of 74 million is confronted by a slowing economy, deep social divisions, suicide bombings and renewed conflict in its Kurdish southeast, plus the chaos in neighbouring Syria and an influx of refugees.
Erdogan has made no secret of his ambition to create a presidential system, a constitutional change almost impossible unless the Islamist-rooted AK Party he founded regains the majority it lost in June's election and dominates parliament.
"Turkey has no time to lose ... Sunday is a breaking point for our country ... If our people give a single party a chance, then stability will continue," Erdogan told reporters at a reception on Thursday night at his 1,000-room palace, a grand symbol of the "new Turkey" he wants to build.
"On the morning of Nov. 2, everyone together will undoubtedly show respect and stand up for the result ... After that hopefully the new Turkey won’t relive the trouble we have experienced in the last five months."
If the AKP fails to secure a majority, it may have to share power with the main secularist opposition - an outcome Western allies, foreign investors and many Turks say might ease social divisions and keep Erdogan's hunger for greater power in check.
If the AKP wins a majority or misses by a margin narrow enough to embolden it to govern alone anyway, its opponents fear Turkey will be led further down a path of authoritarianism and disregard for Western values on free speech and the rule of law.
Most opinion polls in recent weeks have suggested the AKP will struggle to win back its majority but may take more of the vote than in the June 7 election, when it won 40.9 percent and was left unable to govern alone for the first time since 2002.
One survey released on Thursday by pollster Adil Gur suggested there had been a late surge in support for the AKP and that it could take as much as 47.2 percent, comfortably enough to secure more than half of the 550-seat parliament.
AKP officials seem confident they have a good chance of pulling together at least 276 loyal MPs and going it alone, with one source close to the presidency saying: "Concerns about instability mean votes are coming back to the AKP."
Etyen Mahcupyan, a former advisor to Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, wrote in the pro-government Daily Sabah that the outcome could shape the political landscape for the next decade.
"A new 10-year period may start from 2015 (for the AK Party)," he wrote in the newspaper, which depicted an AKP victory as a foregone conclusion.
Allies in Europe and the United States want a stable Turkey but can do little beyond offering words of caution if the result emboldens Erdogan.
Washington is using air bases in Turkey to strike Islamic State in Syria and European leaders want Turkey's help to stem the continent's biggest migration crisis since World War Two.
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