Googling “elections 2024” right now throws about 2,000,000,000 results.
Around 70 countries with a total of more than 3.7 billion inhabitants plan to hold presidential or legislative elections in 2024, with 2 billion people, about half the adult population of the globe, having the chance to vote.
2024 is the year of democracy, isn’t it?
No, it’s not. No. That democracy has been receding for years is now fully accepted. Only 8 of the countries voting are considered full democracies.
So what does this massive election moment mean?
On a geopolitical level, this electoral cycle can have a major impact. Leaving aside pure electoral farces such as the ones in Russia, Belarus, and Rwanda, elections in UK, India, or South Africa will be a test and offer interesting clues.
A return of Donald Trump to the White House, a third consecutive victory in Taiwan by candidates that Beijing considers hostile, or a strong rise of the extreme right in the European Union could all have far-reaching consequences.
The average of polls compiled by Politico indicates a rise of the two far-right blocs and a decline in support among the traditional European conservatives, social democrats, liberals and greens.
President Xi Jinping has clearly signalled that he considers reunification to be an essential part of his political project.
Andrea Rizzi, 2024, when half of the planet goes to the polls
Alec Russell provides some interesting insights in an essay for Finantial Times1.
There is a spirit of the times and it is not a democratic one
Kevin Casas-Zamora, the head of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, cites four key factors:
- The perception that democracies are slow and clumsy to respond to social demand
- A sense of “impunity” for corruption“
- Levels of social anxiety going through the roof leading to an embrace of authoritarian figures
- The decline in the west’s moral authority in the wake of the invasion of Iraq, the financial crisis, and the election of Donald Trump, which have weakened its advocacy for democracy.
But it is the re-election of the demagogic Donald Trump in November’s American elections that would threaten the most damage to democracy.
Right now, Donald Trump is the top trend in democracy.
However, globally the most arresting finding about democracy is how younger voters are increasingly tolerant of autocracy.
Democracy is an old idea, more than 2,500 years old. We used to think it was the way, in fact, the end of history. (Many still think so. Democracy works, we just need better leaders.)
But history has decided to go on for yet another season, and we do not know the role democracy will play in it.
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(1) You can also read it (open) here.
Featured Image: My interpretation of “the spirit of the times…” with a little help from my Generative AI friends.
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