(Bloomberg) -- As if the rollback of rich-world monetary stimulus and a U.S.-China trade war weren’t enough, some key emerging markets are about to run the gantlet of potentially game-changing elections.
Turkey goes to the polls June 24, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan -- who’s pressed for lower interest rates -- battling for reelection. Mexico and Indonesia also contest in the next two weeks. Colombia has already passed its election hurdle, with market-favorite Ivan Duque’s victory this month helping make the peso the best-performing emerging currency so far in 2018.
Political risk poses another headwind to developing-nation stocks that are heading for their worst quarter since the mid-2015 angst over a China hard landing, with the MSCI Emerging Markets Index down more than 7 percent. Rising U.S. Treasury yields and a strengthening dollar have already done damage, spurring -- in Asia’s case -- the biggest equity capital outflow since the 2008 financial crisis.
“With the Fed’s rate hike and an escalation in the U.S.-China trade frictions, election results will inevitably get more attention,” said Tsutomu Soma, general manager for fixed-income trading at SBI Securities Co. in Tokyo. “It’d be a double whammy for emerging markets if both the economy and politics turn sour.”
Risk goes both ways, as the Colombia example shows. And with that, here’s the timeline and points of focus for major elections coming up through 2019:
Election Timetable