Starting with Bangladesh on January 7, the polls include seven out of the world’s 10 most populous nations: India, the United States, Indonesia, Pakistan, Russia and Mexico are the others.
Some are established democracies, others are fledgling ones, and still others are effectively autocracies with votes but few real options for the electorate to choose from.
Yet, amid growing concerns that democracies as a whole are backsliding – worries articulated by nonprofits like the Swedish V-Dem Institute and the US-based Freedom House – the elections in this mixed bag of nations represent a watershed year for the concept of democracy itself, according to cultural and political sociologist Andrew Perrin of Johns Hopkins University.
From increased ethnic violence to steps aimed at weakening judicial and other checks on the power of the executive, the threats to democracy are real, say experts. But Perrin noted that there are countervailing pressures too. The popularity of democracy as measured by public opinion remains high.
A survey of over 36, 000 respondents from across 30 countries conducted by Open Society Foundations in 2023 backs this up. More than 80 percent of survey respondents said they wanted to live in a democracy.
That appeal now faces its stiffest test in a single year. Here are 10 key elections in 2024 that could shape the world, and the future of democracy.
Bangladesh
Incumbent Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is seeking a fifth term in office after an intense crackdown on opposition parties and activists.
Hasina, who belongs to the Awami League, has been in power since 2009. The main opposition, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), has boycotted the elections, citing government interference. It had demanded that a caretaker government be allowed to conduct the election – the Awami League government rejected that demand. The BNP’s top leadership is either jailed or in exile.
Several political activists including BNP leaders have faced arrests and violence at the hands of police and ruling party supporters. In December 2023, Human Rights Watch reported that at least 10,000 opposition activists were arrested in the month following a planned rally by the BNP on October 28. Rights groups and countries such as the US have expressed concern about the violence and potential lack of fairness in the elections.
Additionally, there are concerns about corruption scandals and an economic downturn. While Bangladesh’s growing economy has traditionally been a stabilising force in the country’s politics, labour unrest and protests for higher wages, along with diminishing purchasing power, are adding strain.
“Bangladesh’s 2024 election can become the most consequential election in the history of the country,” said Ali Riaz, chair of the Department of Politics and Government at Illinois State University. “The country is standing at the crossroads of becoming a de facto one-party state and reversing its [democratic] course.”
Riaz explained that the lack of a viable opposition can lead to an autocracy. But if the West responds to what many are describing as a sham election by imposing sanctions on Bangladesh, it could hurt the country’s working classes the most.
“If any punitive measure is taken by the Western countries, the situation will have devastating impacts on the lives of the poor and middle class, who are already suffering”, he said.
Bangladesh has a population of 170 million people. More than 1,800 candidates will be contesting 300 seats in Bangladesh’s national parliament. A total of 27 political parties have registered.
Taiwan
Self-ruled Taiwan, which is claimed by Beijing, will elect its president on January 13. The president will replace incumbent Tsai Ing-Wen and navigate through a critical phase of Taiwan’s history.
Tsai of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was elected in 2016. Ever since then, China has intensified its pressure on the island by conducting military activities around the island and encouraging Taipei’s few remaining formal diplomatic allies to switch recognition to Beijing.
The three candidates running for president are Lai Ching-te from the DPP who is known to be even more independence-leaning than Tsai, moderate Kuomintang leader Hou You-yi and former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je from the Taiwan People’s Party.
The stakes are high as China has warned that there is a risk of war if the DPP continues to stay in power. While DPP’s Lai is the frontrunner, his opposition is arguing that the ruling party’s posture risks creating a security risk for Taiwan in the form of a possible war.
The US on the other hand, is a significant international ally of Taiwan and provides Taiwan with the means for self-defence. Hence, the Taiwanese elections have also become a theatre for the competing interests of the rival superpowers.
Pakistan
Pakistan — which votes for its national legislature on February 8 – has been facing a turbulent political landscape since its former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who was elected in July 2018, was removed in a no-confidence vote in April 2022.
An intense crackdown on his party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and political activists has sparked concerns about the credibility of the election, and the role of the country’s all-powerful military establishment in it.
The country is currently run by a caretaker government, led by interim Prime Minister Anwar ul-Haq Kakar. It has a population of more than 241 million people, and 127 million registered voters, according to data released by the election commission in September 2023.
Political tensions escalated on May 9, 2023, when paramilitary security officials arrested Khan in an anticorruption case that he has denied and said was politically motivated. Following his removal, Khan had openly opposed Pakistan’s military apparatus which has been embedded in the country’s politics and economy since its inception.
In the month following May 9, about 5,000 supporters and aides of PTI were arrested, according to Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah. Several members also left the party amid this atmosphere. Last week, Khan’s nomination bid to contest the elections was also rejected.
“Never before in Pakistan’s history have we had such an impression of unfairness and the election process starting a month or two or before the actual elections,” said Rasul Bakhsh Rais, professor of political science at the Lahore University of Management Sciences.
The crackdown from the Pakistani establishment has discouraged political participation and added to the impression that elections will be rigged in favour of one of the country’s major and dynastic political parties, Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) or Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), according to Rais.
“We may not see a spirited participation of the people,” said Rais, adding that he expects the voter turnout of the forthcoming elections to be the lowest in Pakistan’s history.
Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was in exile for several years following a spate of cases and convictions on corruption charges, has returned to Pakistan. Courts have overturned past convictions against him, and many analysts see him as the military’s favoured candidate to lead the country next.
Indonesia
Also in February, Indonesians will vote in the world’s largest single-day election to choose their president, vice president and nearly 20,000 representatives for district, provincial and national parliaments.
Although free and fair elections have been widely celebrated in Indonesia since its democratic transition in 1998, the democracy is still dominated by political, business and military figures who established their prominence during Soeharto’s authoritarian rule, writes Sana Jaffrey for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
She added that power has largely shifted among the Soeharto-era elites. Even though the current president, outsider Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has subverted this tradition by winning the highly competitive 2014 election through popular vote, he has learned that he needs to play by the rules of the elites.
Now that Jokowi has completed his maximum two terms, three candidates are vying to succeed him: Prabowo Subianto, Ganjar Pranowo and Anies Baswedan.
Defence Minister Prabowo, 72, is representing the nationalist right-wing Gerindra party. His running mate is Widodo’s son, the 36-year-old Gibran Rakabuming Raka, who is controversial due to allegations of inexperience and being a “nepo baby”. Besides this, Prabowo was allegedly involved in kidnappings of student activists in 1998 and is accused of other human rights abuses. Despite the controversy, Prabowo seems to be the frontrunner in the race.
Gibran was allowed to contest elections despite being under 40, the minimum age of running candidates, because he previously held public office as the current mayor of Surakarta. This caveat was introduced by Indonesia’s Constitutional Court in October.
Jokowi’s governing secular-nationalist Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) has selected Ganjar as its candidate. Meanwhile, Anies is favoured by conservative Muslims and Islamist groups. He chose Muhaimin Iskandar, the chairman of the Islamist National Awakening Party (PKB), as his running mate.
After the first presidential debate in December, Usman Hamid, the head of Amnesty Indonesia, noted that Ganjar and Anies talked more about freedom of expression, accountability for violence by security forces and resolution for past human rights abuses during the debate, while Prabowo – who has been in power – did not.
India
In the spring of 2014, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Narendra Modi was sworn in as India’s 14th prime minister. A decade later, he appears poised to win a third straight term in office in what will be history’s largest-ever democratic exercise: 900 million people voters will choose their next government.
Running against Modi’s Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party is a coalition of 28 parties, called the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA). INDIA is led by the main opposition, the Indian National Congress party spearheaded by Rahul Gandhi, whose father (Rajiv Gandhi), grandmother (Indira Gandhi) and great-grandfather (Jawaharlal Nehru) were all prime ministers.
Over the decade of the BJP government’s rule, the country has seen what the ruling party’s critics call an erosion of democracy. Academic and writer Apoorvanand told Al Jazeera that autonomous institutions including the election commission have lost their autonomy.
In December, an investigation revealed that the Indian government was likely surveilling high-profile journalists using the Pegasus spyware. Earlier in the same month, 141 opposition lawmakers were suspended from parliament.
The shrinking space for the opposition and attempts to coerce the media have emerged as prominent issues in these elections alongside a struggling economy, rising unemployment and attacks by Hindu nationalists on religious minority communities. Parts of the country, such as the northeast state of Manipur, have been on fire for months after ethnic clashes broke out in May. Meanwhile, the far-right Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) – the ideological parent of the BJP – has increasingly been able to influence the nation’s textbooks, sparking concerns that the next generation of Indians could imbibe myth over science and history, and bigotry over secular values.
“These elections are very crucial because this is the only change to revive democracy in India,” Apoorvanand said.
Yet, Modi remains vastly popular in major parts of the country. The BJP steamrolled opposition parties to triumph in a series of state elections in December, signposting its political strength entering 2024. Despite challenges, the size of India’s economy has overtaken those of France and the United Kingdom. India also became the fourth country to have a successful moon landing and hosted the G20 summit.
