ANKARA - Turkish leaders on Friday traded last-minute barbs ahead of Sunday's general elections, with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan under pressure to explain his son's purchase of a two-million-dollar ship.
The Islamist-rooted ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is expected to win a convincing victory in the snap polls, called to end a crippling political crisis prompted by concerns over Turkey's secular fabric.
In a bid to rein in the ruling party's opinion poll lead, the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) hit at the AKP with accusations of fraud and nepotism in newspaper ads.
Opposition leader Deniz Baykal urged Erdogan to explain how his 28-year-old son was able to recently buy a freight ship, shortly after he graduated from university, where he studied on a scholarship provided by a businessman close to the prime minister.
"From which bank did he take a loan? In return of what guarantee was the loan issued?" Baykal told the NTV news channel overnight.
Erdogan denounced the attack as "ugly", dismissed the 4,000-tonne vessel as a "shiplet" and said he had helped his son financially with the purchase. He put the ship's price at 2.1 million dollars (1.5 million euros) and said it was shared by a partner.
Erdogan's wealth, disclosed as 1.2 million dollars in February 2006, has often stirred controversy, mainly because he hails from a working-class family and always portrays himself as a man close to the impoverished masses.
He says the bulk of his wealth came from the sale of shares in several food distribution companies that he owned until several years ago.
"Instead of grappling with me, Mr. Baykal should disclose his own wealth," Erdogan retorted in an interview with ATV television.
"Mr. Baykal has totally lost his composure... Maybe it is because of the public opinion polls he sees every day," he said.
One of the latest surveys predicted that Erdogan would return to power with vote share of 47.9 percent -- a figure some newspapers on Friday suggested might be exaggerated.
"Is that possible? Are half of Turks AKP supporters?" the popular Vatan newspaper wrote.
Another poll, made available to AFP Thursday, said 39.8 percent of the vote would go to the AKP, earning it a parliamentary majority of 297 to 310 seats
The poll, conducted by GENAR Research, ranked the CHP second with 21 percent and the Nationalist Action Party third with 13.3 percent.
Erdogan says he will quit politics if his party fails to retain power on its own.
The elections were brought forward from November after political turmoil blocked the AKP-dominated parliament from electing Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as president.
The opposition boycotted the election on the grounds that an AKP president would be a threat to Turkey's secular system, depriving parliament from the required quorum.
The crisis climaxed when the military issued a stiff warning that it was ready to defend the secular order and millions of Turks took to the streets across the country against the prospect of an AKP head of state.
The AKP, the offshoot of a now-banned Islamist party, has disowned its roots and pledged commitment to secularism.
Since it came to power in November 2002, it has presided over impressive economic progress and enacted democracy reforms that ensured the start of Turkey's accession talks with the European Union.
But its opponents remain unconvinced, arguing that it still harbours Islamist ambitions.

07/20/2007 13:12 GMT