With days left before a critical redo of Istanbul’s municipal elections, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) have pulled out all the stops in a concerted effort to assure victory over their secular rival this time.

According to the leader of Felicity or Saadet, a small overtly pro-Islamist party, the latest tactic is to force it to step out of the race. Temel Karamollaoglu said, “Certain people keep raising the question of our leaving the race. We will not withdraw from the race.” Karamollaoglu’s comments came day after Saadet’s Istanbul provincial boss, Abdullah Sevim, said his party was facing intense pressure from the AKP to withdraw its mayoral candidate.

Saadet garnered a measly 1.21% with 103,300 votes in the March 31 polls. But with the race so tight, every single vote counts. If Saadet were to pull out, the AKP is betting that its supporters would turn to it rather than vote for Ekrem Imamoglu, the pro-secular Republican People’s party candidate, who won by a razor-thin margin of 13,000 or so votes.

Recent polls indicate that Imamoglu is now widening the gap, outrunning his AKP rival Binali Yildirim by as much as 9-10 percentage points. Others suggest that turnout on June 23 will top 90% compared with 81% in March.