In July 2023, we wrote a column titled “Elections in 2024: The Year That Can Change The Fate of The World.” It was based on two pieces of research, one on developed markets and one on emerging markets. We pointed out the risks deriving from six key elections, in the US, the UK and the EU, and in Russia, India, and Taiwan. But other elections will be taking place as well, in Mexico in June and in Ukraine in March (if they are not postponed by the application of martial law), or in Venezuela. This election in Caracas could be of particular interest given the territorial dispute it has opened with Guyana, which we will discuss in an upcoming piece of research.
Six months after we published that column, all the most relevant journals and magazines are now identifying the same risk. Chatham House’s The World Today speaks about “The Power in The Voters’ Hands.” The Economist labels 2024 as “the biggest election year in history,” with 4.2bn people that will be asked to cast their vote to choose the leaders they want to be governed by. Almost all free press considers 2024 as the year in which a sort of referendum between “democracy” and “autocracy” will be held. As The Economist puts it, “there is more to democracy than voting.”
The V-Dem (Variety of Democracy”) project says that only a few countries can be labelled as “liberal democracies,” in which both the judiciary and the press are fully independent from the executive power. Most countries are now “electoral democracies,” in which elections are held, but the leader of the country can influence the press and the judiciary and overrule decisions made by other branches of government. (Turkey being an example) of this. On the other side of the spectrum, there are electoral autocracies (e.g. Russia), in which the leader is elected, but elections are not free. And there are closed autocracies (such as China), in which elections are not held, and most civil liberties (freedom of association, the press, etc.) are suppressed.
Overall, we remain of the view that the six elections we chose as the most significant ones for next year will be the critical ones, starting with the election in Taiwan. As discussed in our recent in-depth analysis, the greatest risk is not that of a ground invasion by China, which is quite unrealistic in our view, but rather the beginning of an intensified phase of destabilisation that may eventually lead to China taking over the control of the political system of the island, as it has done with Hong Kong in the past. The year-end speech by Chinese President Xi, in which he said that “the reunification of the motherland is a historical inevitability,” and that “China will surely be reunified” reinforces this impression.
In Europe, the biggest risk is of a massive success of the populist and anti-European parties, with the AfD doing very well in Germany, Le Pen’s Rassémblement National doing very well in France and Meloni’s Brothers of Italy confirming its undiscussed leadership over the Italian political system. And then there’s the “biggie”, the US presidential election. All other elections until November may go “in the right direction” of confirming democracy as the centerpiece of modern society and statehood, but if in November Donald Trump wins, all this would be irrelevant.
Conversely, even if all five of the other elections before November go “in the wrong direction”, of showing an advancement of autocracies, so long as Trump is not elected one can always hope that democracy will have another chance to reaffirm itself.
