Spates of violence and accusations of voter intimidation accompanied polls closing for millions of Turks living abroad who are taking part in a tense Turkish election, billed as a vote on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's two decades in power.

Sunday's presidential and parliamentary ballot is the most contested election Türkiye's longest-serving leader has fought in years and will decide whether his conservative Islamist government is given a fresh mandate amid growing anger over the country's economic woes. 

Polls show Erdogan in a tight battle with secular rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu and his alliance of six parties that span the country's cultural and political divide.

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The first votes of the election were cast by members of the Turkish diaspora who moved to Western Europe under job schemes set up amid the continent's labor shortage after World War II. 

They make up 3.4 million of Türkiye's 64.1 million registered voters and have historically supported more socially conservative candidates.

The turnout on Tuesday, the last day of overseas voting, was higher than 51 percent, a slightly larger figure than the last general election in 2018.

Voter intimidation in Germany

In Germany, which is home to nearly half of Türkiye's diaspora vote, Kilicdaroglu's CHP party has been trying take some of Erdogan's traditional base of support by running daily buses taking voters to the Turkish consulate in Berlin.

Local CHP chapter co-leader Ercan Yaprak was confident that the opposition had finally found the numbers to end Erdogan's undefeated election record.

"I think people sense that it's time for change," he said. 

However, Erdogan supporters, according to another local chapter leader, allegedly held a demonstration outside the consulate in a bit to intimidate the voters.

"We are being provoked. But we won't rise to it," the CHP'S Ercan Yaprak said. "If they are waiting in the consulate for us to say something back, we won't do that. We don't want a fight."

Katresu Ergez, 29, a Turkish-German citizen who went to the consulate last week said the government's supporters "insult you on the way in," adding "If you don't wear a headscarf or you wear more modern clothes, you are directly labelled as anti-Erdogan."

Herbert Reul, the interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia state, also accused Erdogan backers of pressing Turks in Germany "with methods that are not acceptable."

"There is a blatant attempt to influence opinion-forming or even to put people under pressure," Reul told the ZDF broadcaster on Tuesday evening.

Brawls in the Netherlands, France and Türkiye

Voting in the Netherlands, which has a Turkish diaspora of 400,000, saw a "massive brawl involving some 300 people" break out at a polling station in Amsterdam on Sunday.

The fight, which erupted shortly before the polling station closed, was apparently sparked by an argument between representatives of opposing parties, Dutch public broadcaster NOS said.

Two people were injured, according to police. 

In the French city of Marseille, authorities used tear gas to stop a similar fight between Erdogan's supporters and opponents last week. A second brawl broke out at the same Marseille polling station later in the day.

Over in Türkiye's conservative heartlands, the campaign bus of Istanbul's popular opposition mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was pelted with rocks and bottles while he was trying to deliver a speech from its roof on Sunday.

The incident prompted opposition leader Kilicdaroglu, who wants to make Imamoglu his vice president, to appeal for everyone to "please, please stay calm."

"We are going to an election and not to war," Kilicdaroglu said in an interview.

'The kitchen sink'

The tense atmosphere shows what is at stake for both sides, as the opposition attempts to overturn Erdogan's centralization of power, political purges, and frosty relations with the West of the last decade. 

Erdogan, 69, is facing anger over Türkiye's economic crisis and the government's response to a February earthquake that led to the deaths of more than 50,000 people. But the Turkish leader retains strong support among poorer and more religious voters who remember the widespread corruption associated with Türkiye's secular rule.

Erdogan has also pledged a slew of new measures to assuage voter concerns in recent months, most recently, promising a 45 percent increase in wages for 700,000 state workers.

According to emerging markets economist Timothy Ash, "Erdogan is throwing the kitchen sink, the cooker, the washing machine and the entire contents of the Turkish house at these elections." 

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