Gonul Tol, Founding Director, Middle East Institute Center for Turkish Studies: I know it's a cliche for the politicians to say that the upcoming elections are existential, but, in Turkey's case, it's actually true.
Nick Schifrin: Gonul Tol is the founding director of the Middle East Institute's Turkey Program and the author of "Erdogan's War."
Gonul Tol: If he wins another term, I think Turkey will degenerate further into an authoritarian regime. If the opposition wins, however, I think Turkish democracy will have a shot.
Schifrin: Turkey's economic pain runs deep, but analysts say Erdogan's unorthodox prescription of slashing interest rates made the country sicker.
Tol: The country's faltering economy and the cost of living crisis has been high on the voters' agenda. And these economic troubles are largely of President Erdogan's own making. And the second problem for voters is this growing repression.
Schifrin: But that portrayal of himself crumbled in February's earthquake. Countless buildings collapsed. At least 50,000 people died. Survivors criticized the government for a slow response and for favoring builders who cut corners.
Tol: He promised that, if the country switched to a presidential system that would grant him unprecedented powers, that he would be able to solve the country's pressing problems in a more efficient way. And on the day of the earthquake, we saw that that was not the case.
Schifrin: It was another megaquake in that helped propel him to 1999 power. He became prime minister in 2003 thanks to anger against the secular political elite.
He was the alternative, a religious, working-class outsider who presented himself a progressive ally of the West, and helped lead the country to economic growth. But, today, Erdogan's charisma and populism has divided society.
Tol: He has become a very polarizing figure. And that's why I think he's facing such a huge challenge in the upcoming vote, because he always relied on others, relied on alliances to secure a majority, and for the first time in two decades, he's struggling to find new allies.