Turkey's leading Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtas is facing not only President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in this month's presidential elections but the seemingly insurmountable obstacle of having to campaign from jail.

The former human rights lawyer won almost 10 percent of the vote in the presidential elections of 2014, establishing himself as a serious rival to Erdogan.

According to Transparency International Turkey, state broadcaster TRT only gave three seconds of airtime to Demirtas in its main television news programming in May compared to 105 minutes for Erdogan.

Demirtas on Wednesday issued his first, and possibly only, audio message of the campaign, delivered in a telephone call received by his wife Basak and filmed by the party.

According to Gezici polls, Demirtas will win eight to nine percent of the vote in the presidential election, and HDP 9.7 percent in the parliamentary poll.

But Ozer Sencar, chairman of the Metropoll pollster, said his polls indicate Demirtas could win 11.4 percent of the vote and the HDP 11 percent.

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