50 countries to hold polls this year
LONDON. – More than 50 countries that are home to half the planet’s population are due to hold national elections in 2024, but the number of citizens exercising the right to vote is not unalloyed good news. The year looks set to test even the most robust democracies and strengthen the hands of leaders with authoritarian leanings.
From Russia, Taiwan and the United Kingdom to India, El Salvador and South Africa, the presidential and legislative contests have huge implications for human rights, economies, international relations and prospects for peace in a volatile world.
In some countries, the balloting will be neither free nor fair. In many, curbs on opposition candidates, weary electorates and the potential for manipulation and disinformation have made the fate of democracy a frontand-centre campaign issue.
A possible rematch between President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump looms large in the election calendar; a Trump victory in November is perhaps the greatest global wildcard. Yet high-stakes votes before then also will gauge the “mood of dissatisfaction, impatience, uneasiness” among far-flung electorates, said Bronwen Maddox, director of the London-based think-tank Chatham House.
In South Africa, a legislative election due between May and August has a struggling economy, crippling power blackouts and an unemployment rate of nearly 32 percent as the political backdrop. Overcoming voter disillusionment will be a challenge for the long-dominant African National Congress.
The ANC has held the presidency and a majority in parliament since the end of the country’s racist apartheid system in 1994, but the previously revered organization won less than half the vote in 2021 local elections.
If its support drops below 50 percent, the party will need to form a coalition to ensure that lawmakers re-elect President Cyril Ramaphosa.
South Sudan, the world’s youngest country, plans to hold its long-delayed first elections in December. The balloting would represent a key milestone but could be rife with danger and vulnerable to failure under current conditions.
India, the world’s most populous country, is due to hold a general election by mid-2024 that is likely to bring Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party a third consecutive term.
Mexico is poised to elect its first female president on June 2. – africanews.com