WATCH: Louise Greenwood previews the runoff election 

Just one day before Türkiye's historic runoff election, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan decided to use the final moments of his campaign to pay homage to his executed Islamic predecessor.

Visiting the Istanbul mausoleum of Adnan Menderes, a former Turkish prime minister was tried and hanged after the military staged a coup in 1960, Erdogan was trying to rally his conservative base. 

Menderes's deposition and death would put Türkiye back on a more secular course, something that Erdogan wants to avoid at all costs in Sunday's vote, which could see an extension - or an end - to two decades of his Islamic-rooted rule. 

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Erdogan himself survived a putsch attempt against his own government in 2016.

"The era of coups and juntas is over," the 69-year-old declared after laying a wreath at his mentor's tomb.

"I once again call on you to go to the ballot boxes. Tomorrow is a special day for us all."

Erdogan told his followers in January that he wanted to continue Menderes's fight for religious rights and nationalist causes in the officially secular but overwhelmingly Muslim republic of 85 million people.

In the first round of voting earlier in May, he ended up beating secular opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu by nearly five percentage points.

But his failure to top the 50-percent threshold set up Türkiye's first runoff on Sunday - and has underscored a slow decline in the massive support Erdogan once claimed. 

'They are afraid of us'

Kilicdaroglu has focused on more immediate issues - particularly the economy - as he tries to return power to the secular party that ruled Türkiye for most of the 20th century.

He used a late-night TV interview on Friday to accuse Erdogan's government of unfairly blocking his mass text messages to voters.

"They are afraid of us," the 74-year-old former civil servant said.

Observers say Türkiye's votes are largely free of interference on election days - but because of Erdogan's crackdown on opposition parties and widespread control over the country's media, the odds are stacked against the opposition in advance.

"These were competitive but still limited elections," the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe election observer mission's chief Michael Georg Link said after the first round.

"The criminalization of some political forces... prevented full political pluralism and impeded individuals' rights to run in the elections," Link said.

Opposition supporter Zerrin Altayli said she thought Kilicdaroglu would win a fairly held vote.

"I hope the votes come out of the ballot boxes without any fraud," the 60-year-old said. "If that happens, the results will be different than in the first round."

A legacy challenged

Erdogan's first decade in power was distinguished by strong economic growth and warm relations with Western powers that elevated his global status and domestic support.

His second began with a corruption scandal and soon descended into a political crackdown and years of economic turmoil that hurt many of the early gains.

Erdogan's consolidation of power included a near-complete monopolisation of the media by the government and its business allies.

Reporters Without Borders estimated that Erdogan received 60 times as much airtime on the TRT Haber state broadcaster as Kilicdaroglu in April.

"They have taken over all the institutions," Kilicdaroglu said in his television interview.

Erdogan used his own TV appearance Friday to attack Western coverage of the campaign.

"They are more interested in the elections in Türkiye than in their own countries," Erdogan said. "But they are always creating fake news."

Economic doldrums

The election has been particularly fraught due to the country's economic crisis.

Erdogan forced Türkiye's central bank to follow through on his unconventional theory that lower interest rates bring down inflation.

The exact opposite has occurred, with the country's annual inflation rate hitting 85 percent last year, while the lira entered a brief freefall.

Despite this, the lira has been holding remarkably steady this year - a sign the government could be putting large amounts of money into market interventions to avoid politically sensitive falls.

The central bank's net foreign currency holdings last week dropped into negative territory for the first time since 2002.

Many economists claim that Erdogan's government will have to to reverse course and sharply raise rates or stop supporting the lira if it wants to avoid a full-fledged crisis after the vote.

But retiree Nurdan Karac said she cared more about "continuity" than personal wealth.

"The economy might have been bad yesterday and get better tomorrow," she said. "What is important is our country, our people and our government."

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