Elections and decisions

What do Nicolas Sarkozy, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Vladimir Putin have in common? Well, all of them will soon be facing difficult electoral contests. The same goes for Barack Obama and Hugo Chávez. And many other presidents. This year there will be presidential elections or changes of heads of government in countries that together account for over half of the world economy. But this is not all. Even more significant is the fact that many leaders who must seek the people’s votes in upcoming months bear the responsibility of making decisions which, for better or for worse, directly influence the many, grave and simultaneous crises which are now shaking the world. And the demands of national politics are often at odds with those that emanate from international politics and economics.

In Greece, a country where the economic crisis and the country’s creditors are imposing decisions that will forever alter the very nature of the state and the distribution of power has elections in April. And, as we have seen, what happens in in Greece doesn’t stay in Greece; it affects Europe and even the world economy. Iran will vote before Greece does. In the important parliamentary elections on March 2, President Ahmadinejad will see his power drastically curtailed. Don’t start cheering: the supreme leader, the ineffable Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will concentrate even more power. Compared with him, Ahmadinejad is an enlightened, tolerant democratic leader. At the same time as they seek electoral support they are making decisions on their country’s economy, severely damaged by the international embargo, on their unconditional support for Syria, and on how to deal with, or anticipate, the possibility that Israel, or the United States, or both, may bomb their nuclear installations. All this has already affected you directly: the price of oil has skyrocketed.

Two days after the elections in Iran, Russia will go to the polls to choose its next president. Thanks to the “controlled democracy” system that he has imposed, Vladimir Putin has the election in his pocket. But his triumph has been clouded by massive protests against the government, spreading throughout Russia for some time. And like his Iranian colleague, the Russian leader has been obliged to combine electoral calculations with international decisions. Putin needs to recharge his aura of invincibility, and prevent the protests against him from escalating, even while making decisions on Syria, Iran and other global emergencies.

The same applies to Nicolas Sarkozy, who on April 22 must face the strong electoral challenge posed by the Socialist candidate, François Hollande. And with Barack Obama, who between now and the November elections must combine the handling of grave international crises with the defense of his record against the attacks of his Republican contender. In China, the president Hu Jintao is spending his brief remaining time in power before handing it over to Xi Jinping. While this transition takes place without much drama, the change at the highest level of government in a country whose economic and political health is a determinant factor in world stability adds further complexity to an already complex year.

But changes are not going to be limited to superpowers. There will also be presidential elections in Egypt (May or June); Mexico (July 1); and Venezuela (October 7). The results will have consequences beyond the borders of those countries. In the case of Egypt, they will affect the Middle East and the very future of the Arab Spring. In that of Mexico, they will influence the expansion of the anti-drug war. And in Venezuela, the ascendancy of Hugo Chávez over his poorer neighbors.

In democracies elections are normal and, of course, desirable. But they are not cost-free. I am not referring to what is spent in ever-more costly electoral campaigns, but rather to the adverse effect on the quality of the decisions made by governments. Electoral calculations cause leaders to freeze or postpone necessary decisions, or become more prone to make undesirable ones. As election time approaches, the long term becomes less important. The priority is to seduce the voters. This, which is always bad, becomes worse in times of crisis.

We know that one of the factors that aggravates economic crises is that financial markets move at the speed of internet, while governments move at the speed of democracy. To this gap in the speed of decision-making we must add the loss of quality suffered by decisions in electoral periods in every ambit, not only in the economic one. The solution is not to have fewer elections but to have more and better democracy in-between elections.

Follow me on Twitter @moisesnaim