2024: The super-election year
A few weeks ago, in its annual preview of the new year about to start, The Economist highlighted how important 2024 will be for democracy worldwide. The British magazine was one of the first voices to cast attention on the fact that in the next 12 months more than 70 countries will head to the polls. By some accounts, this may be the first time that more than half of the world population (over 4 billion people) will cast a vote within the same year in presidential, legislative of subnational elections.
Although some analysts repute the exact figure, one way or another it is clear that 2024 will be a “super-election year”: an unprecedented electoral cycle showcasing all types of systems and races in what may be the greatest exercise in political participation in human history. These will range from one-day contests to multi-week ones; from transparent and competitive elections to marred ones taking place under conditions of no freedom, coercion and lack of competition; from transcendental votes that the whole world will be watching closely to marginal ones that our media will ignore (did you know that Bhutan held a parliamentary election last week?).
To begin with, every time the world’s superpower elects its president (that is, every four years), it is already a big electoral year for the world. More so if international relations are in such a messy state as nowadays. That is why we will be holding our breath next November 5 and glued to our sofas as John King goes through his “Magic Wall” on CNN casting the results of the mother of all presidential elections in the United States. This will be a long-distance race that, indeed, already started long ago, increasingly grabbing our attention in the months to come, as highlighted by the Iowa caucuses that officially kicked off the process this week. Will Donald Trump return to the White House? This is the big question on everyone’s mind.
2024 will also be the year in which the most populous country in the world, India, will go to the polls. Such a colossal democratic exercise will expand over two months, between April and May, mobilizing over 900 million eligible voters that are expected to grant Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party a third consecutive term in office. Second in size and scope to India will be the critical elections for the European Parliament, taking place between June 6 and 9. With over 400 million eligible voters in the EU’s 27 member-states, the European election will elect the 720 MEPs who will in turn select the new leadership of the EU Commission. Here, turnout tends to be relatively low (at around 50%), although this year the potential advancement of populist and anti-European parties may mobilize a greater share of the electorate. Will the EPP, S&D and Renew hold the fort? The future of the European project is at stake.
Other key countries, such as Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa and the United Kingdom, will also hold very important elections during the year, each of them with their own particularities and in most cases confronting challenging domestic situations. A special mention goes to the presidential election taking place in Russia in mid-March, where rather than unveiling who will be the next occupant of the Kremlin (spoiler: Expect an unopposed Vladimir Putin to clinch a fifth term as president), the interest lies in taking the temperature for the real support he enjoys.
If you think about it, in just the first two weeks of the year we already witnessed critical elections in Bangladesh (a country with a population of 170 million) and Taiwan (a hotspot for global affairs). This provides a good measure of how closely we will be monitoring elections in a still young 2024, and how determinant they will be for global affairs. But rather than focusing on it case by case, we would do well by looking at this busy electoral cycle from a broader perspective. What could be its implications? Let me suggest four important aspects to watch out for.
First, election outcomes will be critical for the future development of many of the major conflicts currently shaping global affairs. We mentioned the case of Russia, where the population’s support for the war in Ukraine will be put to the test as the conflict enters its third year. Could the elections have an influence on its evolution? Recent independent polls suggest that the unmitigated support Putin has enjoyed in his war so far may be beginning to falter, being now weaker than most of us believe. March will be a good thermometer for that. Along these lines, the recent and clear victory by William Lai and the Democratic Progressive Party in Taiwan will certainly mark Beijing’s policy in the region, as Beijing’s hope for a Kuomintang gain have proved flawed. Is the feared potential conflict in the South China Sea closer today?
Needless to say, the situation in the Middle East will probably be the greatest international cleavage. It is, indeed, already playing big into the US campaign, with Biden increasingly questioned within its own party due to his continued support to the ongoing massacre in Gaza. On the other hand, the prospect of a Trump presidency only gives one the shivers regarding what it may imply. His election would probably be a ticket to further escalation and an accelerator in the growing divide between the so-called West and the rest of the world, as well as enhanced division within the transatlantic community.
Second, elections in 2024 will be key for adequately assessing the state of democracy worldwide, but particularly in traditional democracies themselves. Yes, this year more than half of the world population may vote, in part because eight of the 10 most populous countries in the world will hold elections, but many of these will not be free and fair processes. On top of Russians, North Koreans, Chadians and Belarusians also will count as voters this year. Notwithstanding the fact that all elections are important and count, in 2024 we should pay special attention to the robustness of elections in consolidated democracies, where the quality of institutions and the trust of citizens in the system is quickly eroding.
Institutions like Freedom House, International IDEA and V-Dem have been documenting and voicing their growing concern about a democratic backsliding. Not only are more countries becoming increasingly illiberal and joining the ranks of the so-called partial or flawed democracies, when not directly falling into plain autocracy (not in vain, 2023 was named by some as the year of coups in Africa, with almost the complete Sahel turning into a map of military dictatorships). In addition, well-established democracies are increasingly at risk. Many drivers like polarization, rising populism and heightened misinformation are converging into an explosive cocktail that already gave us a first warning three years ago with the dystopic assault on the US Capitol, something that until then had seemed science-fiction but that proved true and, moreover, repeated again last year in Brazil. So, watch closely how campaigns, voting and – maybe most important – the peaceful transition of power take place in democracies that may be not as solid as we sometimes believe.
A third important aspect to look for in 2024, with so many elections going on, will be the measurement of the true influence and effect of technology in our politics. This is not new by any means, with concerns ranging from voter manipulation and echo-chambering to cyberattacks and results rigging present in the public debate since long ago. However, the growing reliance on technology for the full running of elections, ranging from campaigning and outreach to vote counting and verification is bringing associated risks to a whole new level. Past episodes like the Cambridge Analytica scandal, disinformation campaigns and alleged fraud could pale in comparison to what we may witness soon due to technologies like artificial intelligence. They open a whole new world of risks, making it cheaper and easier to influence elections and manipulate the public.
Fourth and final, the outcome of elections will provide the seeds to the ability of the international community to respond to many of the global challenges our planet faces, beyond the aforementioned dimension of peace: climate, health, development… At the end of the day, our multilateral system is in the hands of the national governments we elect, which are the ones who sit at and stir the international institutions we have created to manage our global commons: the United Nations and its many agencies and programs, the World Bank and the IMF, the various regional development banks…
As we have seen in recent years, elections have the ability to turn around a country’s position on global fora, turning spoilers into constructive players but also running the risk of working in the opposite directions. We saw it in 2023: Just as we celebrated the return of a pro-European government in Poland, we also saw the extreme-right coming out on top as the most voted option in one of the founding members of the Union, the Netherlands. At a time when the world needs more than ever leaders capable of building bridges, with the vision and drive to transform our global governance mechanisms, elections will determine who we entrust with such responsibility.
Therefore, brace yourselves for an intense super-election year, one in which the implications of electoral outcomes will resonate far beyond the borders of the specific countries going to the polls. As 2024 unfolds, we will be able to assess the real implications of this hyper-charged electoral cycle for world peace, democracy, and global cooperation. The next few months will be crucial in tackling many of the immediate crises and longer-term questions that humanity faces. Will we fall further into the spiral of violence, confrontation and destructive competition that has taken hold in the past few years, or is there still hope of reversing the course? Voters will tell us.
Angel Alonso Arroba is vice dean of IE School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs (IE University) in Spain.
