Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in the throes of an intensive election campaign these days. He moves around in a seeming frenzy from one election rally to another, giving speeches, preaching and mostly lashing out at anyone who doesn’t think like him.

Erdogan is giving his all to help candidates of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) win in the March 30 local elections, which he has targeted as a show of force, proof of his political power in light of the growing criticism against him at home and abroad.

This week, the anti-Erdogan protest movement raised its head once more, with tens of thousands taking to the streets of Turkey’s major cities to demonstrate against everything he represents. The protests followed the death of 15-year-old Berkin Elvan, who was injured during the Gezi Park protests in May 2013 and had been hospitalized since in a coma.

Thousands turned out for the boy’s funeral, where his mother wailed, "It's not God who took my son away, but Prime Minister Erdogan." At the very same time, Erdogan told participants at an election rally, “These demonstrations, following the boy’s death, are not democratic,” and accused his opponents of terrorism. At an election rally in the town of Siirt, he defiantly read a jihadist Islamic poem: "The minarets are our bayonets, the domes our helmets, the mosques our barracks and the faithful our army." He reminded the cheering crowd that many years ago he had served a prison sentence for reading that poem in public.