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2024: Year of the vote
In 2024, half the world’s adults are going to the polls, including in nations where democracy is in poor health. Will they slip further into illiberalism, or start climbing to freedom?The year ahead, from one perspective, will be the most successful democracy has ever seen. Never in history will so many people have the opportunity to put a mark on a ballot: More than half the world’s almost six billion adults will go to the polls in some sort of nationwide vote in 2024, according to an estimate by The Economist.
Those elections will include some of the world’s biggest and most populated countries – India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Russia, Mexico, the United States, and likely Britain and Canada, will have a major vote in 2024, as will the European Parliament. You could call it a high-water mark for democracy, if the success of democracy were measured only by people voting.
Those elections will include some of the world’s biggest and most populated countries – India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Russia, Mexico, the United States, and likely Britain and Canada, will have a major vote in 2024, as will the European Parliament. You could call it a high-water mark for democracy, if the success of democracy were measured only by people voting.
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Most crucial will be the Nov. 5 presidential election in the U.S., whose outcome could set the temperature of democracy worldwide. But while Donald Trump’s sometimes violent assaults on democratic institutions and outspoken alliances with overseas autocrats, if returned to world politics in a second presidential term, have the ominous potential of cementing a worldwide far-right authoritarian bloc, he is far from the only democracy-threatening candidate on the ballot next year.
The Sweden-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, in its 2023 report, described 2022 as “the sixth consecutive year in which more countries have experienced net declines in democratic processes than net improvements.” And 2023 will almost certainly prove to have been a seventh – “democracy has continued to contract,” its analysis found, with declines of at least one major democratic measure in half the world’s countries.
The Sweden-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, in its 2023 report, described 2022 as “the sixth consecutive year in which more countries have experienced net declines in democratic processes than net improvements.” And 2023 will almost certainly prove to have been a seventh – “democracy has continued to contract,” its analysis found, with declines of at least one major democratic measure in half the world’s countries.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-half-the-world-is-holding-elections-in-2024-democracys-future-is/
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