By Emma Ross-Thomas and Alexandra Hudson
ANKARA/ISTANBUL (Reuters) - No one gives up their seat when Sefika Yilmaz, in her Muslim headscarf, struggles onto the bus with her kids, she says -- but when an uncovered woman gets on at the next stop, offers of seats are abundant.
Yilmaz, who is half-blind and lives in an Ankara shanty town, wanted the ruling religious-leaning AK Party to win Turkey's election on Sunday in part so that devout women will get more respect, and be able to wear their scarves more freely.
The headscarf has become the visible sign of the struggle in Turkey between secularists -- who defend the values of the 80-year-old republic where religion is banished from public life -- and those wanting more religious freedom led by the AK Party.
Women who wear it often say the headscarf is a barrier to jobs, to education, and marks them out for prejudice. Scarves are banned in universities and several public buildings, while lawyers who cover up cannot go to court.
Yilmaz's neighbor Senem Sener says she is sidelined in hospitals because of her scarf.
"I went to hospital ... and the uncovered women were treated with much higher priority," the mother of four said. "Covered women are not given any importance."
Covered women also have to counter claims that asking for the right to wear a headscarf at university is the first step on the way to turning Turkey into an Islamist state.
DIVIDE
Turks boast of their tolerant society and it is not uncommon to see an uncovered girl out with covered friends, or women in the same family making different choices about their headgear.
"We've been friends for 12 years," Nur Gazan, 23, said of a covered friend in Istanbul. "My mum wears one, I don't. It makes no difference."
But the headscarf has become divisive in Turkey, which has become increasingly polarized in the run-up to an election which was called after secularists stymied the AK Party's bid to make foreign minister and former Islamist Abdullah Gul president.
"If I get on a bus and there are lots of covered women, they look at me like an insect," said Ayse Akpinar, a 20-year-old English student at Istanbul University.
Secularists also say headscarves are becoming more common in public offices and universities are getting lax about the ban, a move they say threatens uncovered women's freedom.
When Time magazine ran a headscarfed woman on its front page, many were upset that it tainted Turkey's image abroad. Some secularists are also unhappy that Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his covered wife represent them abroad.
But in this neighborhood, the focus is what Erdogan will do at home and Kubra, a 19-year-old shop-worker voting for the first time, said the headscarf was the main reason she voted AK.
(Additional reporting by Alexandra Hudson in Istanbul)
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