Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) may have secured a rerun of Istanbul’s mayoral race to try to reverse its defeat in March, but it has had little to celebrate ahead of the critical vote, with economic woes sinking consumer confidence to record lows.

The AKP’s election scores over the years show that the party has suffered setbacks in times of plunging consumer confidence. Turkey today is in the midst of a serious economic downturn that is hitting hard, especially in Istanbul, the country’s biggest city and economic hub.

In the March 31 local polls, the bloc led by the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) emerged victorious, not only in Istanbul, but in almost all major urban centers, including the capital Ankara and the third largest city, Izmir. The AKP refused to concede defeat in Istanbul, the long-standing pillar of its patronage networks, claiming irregularities and raining objections to the higher election board. Under pressure from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself, the majority of the judges on the board voted to void the result on grounds that some polling station officials were not public servants, without any mention of vote-rigging. It was an unprecedented move that many saw as a travesty of electoral laws.

The redo vote on June 23 will be Turkey’s third election within a year. In June 2018, the country held parliamentary and presidential polls, which the government brought forward from November 2019, alarmed that the brewing economic crisis would cause it greater political damage down the road. This proved a wise decision, as the crisis was not yet palpable in earnest, and the AKP won the elections.