The moment of truth for Turkey's executive president and currency manipulator-in-chief has arrived.

Turks are voting on Sunday in local elections which President Tayyip Erdogan has described as a matter of survival for Turkey and which were marred by lethal violence that left two party members dead in the country's southeast.

While Erdogan, who last June won a presidential election which further cemented his rule by gaining executive powers, has become the country's most popular, yet also most divisive, modern leader, he could be dealt an electoral blow with polls indicating his ruling AK Party (AKP) may lose control of the capital Ankara, and even Istanbul, the country's largest city according to Reuters.