The supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro assaulted and occupied the Brazilian parliament and other federal institutional buildings at the end of last week, to protest against the election of Ignazio Lula da Silva as the new President of Brazil (his third mandate). This episode is closely reminiscent of Trump’s supporters’ assault on Capitol Hill in January 2021, on the occasion of the election of Joe Biden to the presidency of the US. As we discussed in numerous articles, Bolsonaro was widely seen as a leader that would have transformed Brazil into yet another autocracy, had he been re-elected.
Meanwhile, in Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu was re-elected as Prime Minister of the country, following the short parenthesis of Naftali Bennet and Yair Lapid. Netanyahu has formed a government that is widely regarded as the most right-wing in Israeli history. The new government has proposed a reform of the judiciary, which will give the government a say in the appointment of judges. The political and civil society opposition has labelled the move as the “end of democracy” in the country.
In Italy, the September 25th general election resulted in the appointment of Giorgia Meloni, leader of the right-wing party Brothers of Italy, as Prime Minister. As we discussed in our recent trip report, Meloni has adopted a moderate approach, but some of the choices of her government confirms the radical right-wing approach of her coalition. Additionally, she still has not changed the symbol of her party, which contains the flame emanating from Benito Mussolini’s grave.
Also in Rome, but on the other side of the Tiber river, the death of the ultra-conservative former pope Joseph Ratzinger has led the orthodox component of the curia to making an attack on the progressive Pope Francis, who is seen as too open vis a vis the issues of modern society. Ratzinger’s presence was keeping this conservative fringe component at bay, as he did not want to be perceived as an anti-pope. But now the war for the succession of Francis has begun, and it is very unlikely that another equally progressive pope will be elected.
In France, as we discussed in our recent trip report, the election of right-wing Marine Le Pen in 2027 is now considered a central scenario rather than a risk scenario. Marine Le Pen could stage “a Meloni” and pretend to moderate and move to the centre for some time, but her radical positions, especially on immigration and civil rights, would likely emerge before long. Also, she may heavily impact the EU integration process, in a way that Italy will never be able to.
These are only recent examples of a much larger swing that is occurring at the global level, in which right-wing movements are coming to power. In other cases, populist leaders, of the right and the left, are being voted in. Especially in Latin America, populist leaders from the left are contributing to the so-called “Pink Tide”. This goes hand in hand with a broader phenomenon, whereby even democratically elected leaders are becoming autocratic or nationalistic leaders, such as in Turkey and in India. We have discussed in our previous columns this tendency of autocratic leaders to emerge in the last few years.
All these phenomena are contributing to the even broader trend of the decline of liberal democracies in favour of electoral autocracies, as testified by the studies of the V-Dem project and several academic papers.
