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2024, an election year that overturned ruling parties in many countries around the world

2024-12-31 17:48:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

2024, an election year that overturned ruling parties in many countries around

illustrative photo

The year 2024 was an election year. More than 70 electoral processes took place around the world, affecting more than half of the global population.

Elections this year took place in some of the largest countries in the world such as the United States, India, Indonesia and Bangladesh, as well as 27 European countries that elected the new Parliament of Europe.

The total number of votes cast in 71 electoral processes and the European Parliament elections was more than 1.6 billion, according to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, known as IDEA.

Changing the status quo

Elections in 2024 generally did not go in favor of the politicians in power. Every ruling party that has faced a national election in 2024 has suffered a decline, according to a November article in the Financial Times newspaper, citing the project of database of parliaments and governments 'ParlGov', linked to numerous universities in Europe.

This happened for the first time in almost 120 years, since the recording and grouping of data in this project began.

In more than 80 percent of countries, both rich and poor democracies, ruling parties lost or lost votes in recent elections, according to an ABC News analysis.

Changes in ruling parties hit the political left and right.

Conservatives scored victories in states and regions that included the United States, where former President Donald Trump won all the battleground states in the November election; Portugal, where the center-right Democratic Alliance surged in March; and the EU Parliament, where more far-right members won seats in June's elections than ever before, bringing their total to nearly a quarter of the legislative chamber.

The left capitalized on public discontent with power by surging in Britain's July parliamentary election, in which the ruling Conservative Party lost almost 20 percent of the vote compared to 2019. In South Korea, liberal opposition parties, led by from the Democratic Party, took power in the April parliamentary elections.

In some countries, ruling parties won elections but saw their parliamentary majorities shrink, including in India, where Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party lost an outright majority in parliament in June but retained power with the help of of the allies. Incumbent parties in Japan, South Africa and France saw similar trends on their way to re-election.

Another tendency is observed in less democratic countries, in which the parties in power manage the electoral process by ensuring their desired result. In Rwanda, President Paul Kagame, who was unopposed, won 99 percent of the vote. In Russia, President Vladimir Putin scored a landslide victory in March elections, which international observers said were not free or fair.

However, signs of discontent against the government have also been observed in less democratic countries. In Bangladesh, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was re-elected in January in elections boycotted by the opposition, but by a narrower margin than before. Seven months later, the government was overthrown in a popular uprising.

In Iran, where supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has the final say on all state affairs, voters in July elected Masoud Pezeshkian, the most moderate presidential candidate, to replace Ebrahim Raisin, who died in a helicopter crash.

Why these changes?

Analysts say voter discontent is linked to the state of the global economy, including rising living costs.

One of the few places where the ruling party succeeded was Mexico, where Claudia Sheinbaum, handpicked by her predecessor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, easily won the presidency in June. Voters there expressed satisfaction with the state of the economy, one of the few countries with that trend, according to a Pew Research Center poll in June.

Another issue faced by voters in 2024 was the increase in the number of immigrants in some countries and the ongoing consequences of the pandemic period.

In addition, the Pew research company's survey findings reveal that democracy itself has become less attractive to voters, an indication of citizens' disillusionment with government.

According to the February survey of residents of 24 democratic countries, while a large majority believe that representative democracy is a "good" system of government, an average of 59 percent told pollsters that they are dissatisfied with the way democracy works in their country. theirs.

In almost all the countries surveyed, the majority of participants said that elected officials do not care what citizens think of them. According to 42 percent of respondents, no party in their country adequately represents their views.

The year 2025 will not be as big an election year as the year 2024. However, the votes in this new year will determine if the tendencies against the incumbents will continue to grow, or if new factors will determine the results. Next year there will be elections in Argentina, Australia, Belarus, Canada, Japan, the Philippines and several other countries./VOA