As a long-standing proponent of changing Turkey's parliamentary system of government into an executive presidency, Erdoğan formed an alliance with the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) to establish an executive presidency in 2017, where the changes were accepted in a constitutional referendum. The new system of government formally came into place after the 2018 general election, where Erdoğan and the new AKP-MHP People's Alliance was re-elected. He has since been tackling, but also accused of contributing to, the Turkish currency and debt crisis of 2018, which has caused a significant decline in his popularity and is widely believed to have contributed to the results of the 2019 local elections, in which the ruling party lost control of Ankara and Istanbul for the first time in 15 years. After the loss, the Turkish government ordered a re-election in Istanbul, in which the ruling party lost the elections again with an even greater margin. The two successive losses were considered to be significant defeats for Erdoğan, who had once said that if his party "lost Istanbul, we would lose Turkey".