Erdogan may face both an election and a decision

FOR MORE THAN 20 years, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has remade and dominated Turkey's politics

First as Prime Minister, then as President, he built a political foundation with support from voters outside the country's powerhouse cities-Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir-with appeals to traditional religious values and socially conservative policies.

Over time, however, he has also polarized the country by amassing more and more executive power in his own hands, and by silencing, in some cases imprisoning, critics and journalists who tell stories he doesn't like. He has sidelined judges who don't rule his way. Following a failed military coup in 2016, he purged the upper ranks of the army.

Now he faces his toughest test. The largest opposition parties have united behind the candidacy of a single challenger, a technocrat named Kemal Kilicdaroglu. Voting begins on May 14, and a second-round runoff on May 28 appears likely between the combative and charismatic Erdogan and the mild-mannered and consensus-oriented Kilicdaroglu. Current polling says this race could go either way.