Turkish football gave Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan more headaches than likely votes as he battles to ensure that his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) will secure a majority in snap parliamentary elections on Sunday.

Polls on the eve of the election predict that AKP will increase its vote by 6% compared to the June election, enough to form a single-party government.

Erdogan, a former football player, called for Sunday’s, elections after AKP failed to secure the necessary majority in elections in June, to form a government on its own for a fourth time. The failure delayed Erdogan’s plans to make his presidency executive rather than ceremonial, as it is currently envisioned in the Turkish constitution.

The rise of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) that won 13% of the vote in June deprived Erdogan and his AKP of a majority win. A breakdown in peace talks with Kurdish guerrillas in southeast Turkey caused an eruption of renewed hostilities. Various towns who declared themselves autonomous may win Erdogan nationalists votes on Sunday but is likely to cost him in predominantly Kurdish towns and cities like Diyarbakir.

… James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccerblog and a forthcoming book with the same title.