But it will also be a roller coaster: more than two billion people in 50 countries around the world will participate in the elections.
December 25, 2023 3:00 p.m.(Update 3:15 p.m.)
2024 is expected to be the greatest democratic year in human history. By chance of electoral cycles, more than two billion people in 50 countries will participate in the elections.
This includes the Presidential election in the United States of America; general elections in India, the world’s largest democracy; and the election of the European Parliament. Unless Rishi Sunak ends up hanging on, John Major-style, until the last possible moment of his term in office, we in the The United Kingdom will be part of this number.
The very fact that so many people have the right to vote is itself a remarkable achievement and a milestone – in every place where voters will go to the polls, this right is the product of struggles to obtain it and keep it, often in the very recent past.
In this sense, it will be a festival of democracy, reaching a new record in terms of the mass of humanity living and thriving under a system that has only really existed for the last two centuries. We are fortunate to live in a rare time when so many of us are exempt from the dominant arc of history in which tyrants, warlords, monarchs, and theocrats have ruled.
The coming year will surely also be a political roller coaster.
The very essence of democracy is that it promises – or threatens, in the eyes of its detractors – change. An eternal, continuous and unpredictable change. This is why so many countries have had to fight for it – from the American Revolution to World War II, the end of the empire and more recently the fall of the Iron Curtain, the revolutions of color of the 2000s and the Arab Spring – for the simple reason that those for whom this change promised the end of their power were not enthusiastic about this prospect.
It is unique that democratic practices evolve continuously within their own system. A revolution without democracy as an outcome may overthrow one corrupt and stale elite, but it inevitably ends up raising another. Only in democratic systems do we view the ongoing process of peaceful transitions of power as a feature and not a bug.
Therefore, 2024 holds the potential for all kinds of change and upheaval in the world’s democracies. We will learn who is the commander-in-chief of the world’s greatest superpower; we will see whether the EU’s centrist parties will resist the insurrection of right-wing radicals; here we will find out whether Sir Keir Starmer’s cleaned-up and tweaked Labor Party will succeed in overthrowing the historic Conservative majority and ending 13 years of blue rule.
Indeed, the power of voters voting collectively is such that the impact of their choices will be felt beyond the furthest frontiers of democracy itself. Dissidents in Iran, Ukrainians under Russian occupation, Palestinians living under Hamas, the 1.5 billion citizens of China’s autocracy, and many others will also see their own futures influenced by decisions made by voters who they have never met.
This is good news, and the fact that two billion people enjoy the right to choose their own leaders should not be overlooked or underestimated. But it is also a time to reflect on the fragility of such a precious heritage.
Two billion voters constitute a great milestone for democracy; The question is what are we doing to ensure this doesn’t become a high levelAlso.
There is nothing guaranteed about democratic rights. that of Vladimir Putin The war to stifle Ukrainian democracy illustrates this all too starkly.just like China’s threatening stance towards democratic and free Taiwan.
In the three great moments of potential liberation of the last 35 years – the fall of communism, the subsequent color revolutions against the “strongmen” leading the post-Soviet states, and the Arab Spring – while democrats in some countries have won and retained their freedom, others have been violently crushed, such as in Syria, while others have suffered backsliding and creeping repression.
This is also a current problem. At the gates of Europe, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has long attacked the Turkish Democratic Republic, accumulating more and more power while erecting barriers to the entry of smaller parties that run counter to his personal agenda. Within the EU, Viktor Orban is increasingly using state power to strengthen his own party’s political position. In the United States, of course, Donald Trump is seeking re-election, even though he denies his previous defeat and even though he called the January 6 insurgents, who attempted to overthrow the American Republic, “great people.” in his name.
Democracy has enemies within and without, for the same reason that is worth knowing and essential to preserve: it is the surest weapon against tyrants, and The strongest armor against the myriad horrors of tyranny that human beings have ever discovered. Those who see him as a threat to themselves and their ambitions will never stop trying to discredit, undermine and demolish him.
It is up to us, and no one else, to choose to defend democracy. And that’s what our system is about.
