Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the opposition of being "pro-LGBT"

At a rally a week before elections...

On Sunday Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a rally accused the opposition of being "pro-LGBT" in Istanbul, week befor elections. 

Protesters threw stones at Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, during an election rally in the eastern city of Erzurum, a member of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), a stronghold of Erdogan's AK Party (AKP).

Imamoglu later claimed nine people had been injured at the event.

Turkey is due to hold presidential and parliamentary elections on May 14 and opinion polls show that Erdogan faces his biggest electoral challenge in his two decades in power.

At his rally in Istanbul, the president was appealing to his conservative Muslim voter base.

"AK Party and other parties in our alliance would never be pro-LGBT, because family is sacred to us. We will bury those pro-LGBT in the ballot box," he told the crowd

Against the LGBT community Erdogan has toughened his rhetoric in past years, frequently labelling members "deviants".

He also attacked his key election rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who heads the main opposition alliance, on Sunday.

"My people will not allow drunks and boozers to take the stage," Erdogan also said. "Mr. Kemal, you can drink barrels of it, nothing can cure you," he said.

"My nation will make the necessary response on May 14. We will not allow Kilicdaroglu, who is hand in hand with terrorists, to divide our homeland," Erdogan said.

Erdogan has also accused Kilicdaroglu of getting support from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency since the 1980s in which more than 40,000 people have been killed. It is considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.