Police fired shots in the air to disperse the assailants after they attacked an electioneering group from the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) with sticks and stones following verbal exchanges.

The incident ocurred in a district known as a stronghold of the Democratic Society Party (DTP), Turkey's main Kurdish political movement, in Diyarbakir, the largest city in the Kurdish-majority southeast.

The AKP's candidate for Diyarbakir mayor, Kutbettin Arzu, was among the attacked group, but escaped unscathed.

The Islamist-rooted AKP has waged a vibrant campaign in Diyarbakir to wrestle out the DTP from the local administration in Sunday's vote, keen to prove that Ankara is winning over the Kurds following reforms expanding the restive minority's freedoms.

Agriculture Minister Mehdi Eker, who was in Diyarbakir Thursday, condemned the attack and said it showed that the DTP "wants democracy only for itself."

The DTP campaigns for broader Kurdish freedoms and its electorate include militant sympathizers of Kurdish rebels who have waged a bloody separatist campaign in the southeast since 1984.