ISTANBUL/ANKARA (Reuters) - As Tayyip Erdogan's campaign bus swept into Izmir, lair of his political enemies, he looked up and saw a woman making what he took to be a rude gesture at him from a balcony. Plainclothes police officers soon came knocking at her door.
Turkey's prime minister is a man impassioned and irascible, who feels himself under siege by an enemy largely unseen. Critics say his team of confidants has narrowed as he prepares what may prove a visceral struggle to seize back levers of state power he says have been claimed by a covert network of traitors.