2024: The Ultimate Election Year
H. A. G. Longstaff
NATIONAL ELECTIONS are scheduled or expected in at least 64 countries during 2024, as well as the European Union, which together represent almost half of the global population.
These elections will define the shape of the world and geopolitics for the second half of the 2020s, including several of critical importance to Australia’s relationship with the world.
Notionally, such an outburst of democracy would seem like an encouraging sign. But a quick survey highlights the somewhat peripatetic walk of the peoples’ will.
India, with a population of 1.44 billion, represents the largest free and fair election in the history of the world. It will define India’s future under Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi, who has served as India’s 14th Prime Minister since 2014, as well as India’s position as a counterweight to China.
Map of countries that have an election in 2024
Indonesia is a diverse island archipelago, the world’s largest Muslim democracy and a vital regional player. Its 279 million people go to the polls on Valentine’s Day to replace the termed-out President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, who is still popular but cannot run again. Indonesia represents one of the great democratic success stories since the military-led presidencies ended after Suharto’s fall in 1998. Australia has invested significantly in Indonesia’s democracy, and this remains one of our great foreign policy success stories.
Despite losing ‘showman’ Boris Johnson, the U.K. election will be closely watched, although if polls are right, it will mark the end of a somewhat chaotic 14 years of Conservative rule with a Labour victory and a Prime Ministership for Sir Kier Starmer.
I am sure that SWR readers have missed the elephant in the room… that there is an election for 341 million Americans on 5 November. While the most consequential, it is hard to conclude now that this contest is between the lesser of two evils. There seems to be a likely competition between President Biden, who would be the oldest President ever elected and was recently described by a Special Prosecutor as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”, and President Trump, a man of dubious integrity currently facing several prosecutions.
Trump and Biden are likely to face off in the 2024 election.
Countries where democracy is fragile will also go to the polls.
These include South Africa, where Nelson Mandela’s extraordinary democratic legacy has been trashed by corruption, nepotism and a lack of accountability within his African National Congress party. The next election may represent their last best hope, but signs are not promising.
Democracy in Pakistan also hangs by a thread as the country’s most popular politician, former Prime Minister Imran Khan, sits in jail, while his party has been suppressed and his supporters arrested in the run-up to February’s election.
Other elections are free and fair in name only but can still be worth watching.
Vladimir Putin is embarking upon a sure-win election campaign and has been ruthlessly suppressing opposition, but the March results of Russia’s 144 million people may still contain (if honest results are ever published) something of a referendum on his Ukraine invasion and the impact of Western sanctions.
Kim Jong-un and Putin in a North Korean-Russian bilateral conference.
North Korea’s people vote on 10 April, and it will be a surprise if Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s ‘Dear Leader’, receives a vote of less than 99.9% of his oppressed ‘hermit kingdom’. The comparison could not be greater to South Korea, whose democratic rise since the 1950s from the ashes of the Korean War (still only in ceasefire, not peace) has delivered a vibrant and wealthy country. Ironically, their election is also on 10 April.
Passionate election watchers can also keenly follow elections in Chad, Azerbaijan, Tunisia, Iceland, Belarus, Kiribati and Togo. Tuvalu, with a population of only 11,396 (less than the number of Shore Old Boys but with the same number of United Nations votes as China), will be the smallest country to vote in 2024.
My conclusion: Democracies remain vital. But the allure of power, the fragmentation caused by social media and a fall in the trust and respect for institutions means that we can expect unusual and unexpected results. Hold onto your seats.