Welcome to an exciting year of elections

Global politics is up for grabs in 2024. According to two assessments, the largest election year in history will also provide the largest global election cycle till 2048. The governance of a major swathe of humanity will be at stake in elections in countries and territories that include Bangladesh and Taiwan in January, Pakistan and Indonesia in February, Russia in March, India by May, Mexico in June, and the United States in November. The polls will act as a weathercock on the politics of the globe. The winner of Indonesia’s presidential election will inherit the task of keeping South-east Asia’s largest country and economy as a key player in Asean’s stability and unity amid great-power rivalry in the Indo-Pacific region. The outcome of Taiwan’s presidential and parliamentary elections will shape how China assesses its relations with the latest consolidation of democracy in the breakaway island. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s expected victory will preserve a painful status quo that sustains the domestic and international costs of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The ruling dispensations of some countries going into elections have been criticised for being far less than free and fair in their handling of political opponents. A pointed example is Bangladesh. India is different, but the uncompromising muscular nationalism of its ruling party, which critics say is exercised at the expense of religious minorities and others, is expected to take Prime Minister Narendra Modi into his third term in office. Former US president Donald Trump has vowed retribution on his opponents should he return to power. The mother of all elections in the mother of all democracies in November will do more than any other election to influence the course of global affairs over the next few years.