The super year for elections: Taking stock of the state of democracy after a period of unprecedented attacks

In 2024, more than 70 countries held general elections and almost half of the world’s population went to the polls.

The impressive series of elections offered us an exceptional laboratory to observe democracy’s state of health on a global scale. And the results confirm that the democratic model faces unprecedented challenges. In many cases, democratic systems are in decline, but this doesn’t mean that there haven’t been significant signs of resilience within this political system.

The United States has crudely exhibited the risk of plutocracy — the government of the rich — usurping democracy, while highly-polarized societies have seen growing political violence.

But in countries such as Senegal and Bangladesh, mobilized citizens and independent institutions have led to inspiring democratic victories overcoming authoritarian tendencies.

The struggle between democracy and its enemies will have a decisive impact on the future of the world, which is experiencing a turbulent transition phase. Following the wave of expansion that followed the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the main international studies agree that, in recent years, there’s been a phase of erosion in the democratic model. The final result of this struggle can only be the subject of speculation, but observing what happened in 2024 offered us important clues. While negative news is abundant and details both internal and external challenges, the positive news indicates that democracy can withstand tremendous attacks.

Below is an overview of the main trends in 2024.

Plutocracy

Among the countries that went to the polls in 2024 was the most powerful in the world: the United States. Regardless of ideological preferences, Donald Trump’s victory is a disturbing result for democracy, as he’s a candidate who refused to recognize the verdict of the previous elections (despite no evidence of fraud) and who encouraged an assault on the nation’s Congress.

Beyond Trump’s profile, the U.S. elections last November gave rise to other reasons for alarm. “The elections showed us that the state of democracy in the U.S. is worse than we imagined. Not so much because of the result, but because of what was evident in the process: the outrageous levels of polarization, the absolutely widespread use of disinformation and the grotesque role of money, which I would emphasize,” analyzes Kevin Casas-Zamora, secretary general of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA).

The expert points out “the absolute distortion that money creates in a democracy like the United States. [It has reached] a point where Mr. [Elon] Musk — after handing out checks for a million dollars to voters and spending $200 million on the campaign supporting Trump — has practically moved into the president-elect’s house while he names his Cabinet. You see the absolute shamelessness with which a very small and extraordinarily rich elite has taken over and has captured the political process in the United States,” says Casas-Zamora, who served as vice president of Costa Rica from 2006 until 2007.

Before his role in Trump’s campaign, Musk — the richest person in the world — also acquired one of the main platforms for digital public debate (X, then called Twitter) and turned it into a powerful propaganda machine in favor of his interests and those of his allies. The Musk-Trump alliance highlights the resurgent risk of collusion between the ultra-rich and politicians. This is the 21st century variant of the plague of plutocracy, which seriously endangers the future viability of democracy.

Foreign interference

If the U.S. highlights the risks that arise from within, countries such as Romania and Georgia underline the growing scope of foreign interference. Like the concept of plutocracy, malicious propaganda promoted by foreign powers isn’t new. Yet, its effectiveness in the era of digital platforms is unprecedented.

The Romanian judicial authorities have ordered a rerun of the presidential elections that took place this past December, after local intelligence services detected anomalous activity on TikTok — a Chinese-owned social media network — and a scheme “coordinated by a state actor” outside the country in favour of the nationalist, populist and pro-Russian candidate, Calin Georgescu, who achieved an astonishing result despite being a semi-unknown until not long before his participation.

Meanwhile in Georgia — which has been behind a strong democratic deterioration for years, according to respected independent organizations — the ruling party secured another victory that was criticised by the OSCE observer mission. It’s a pro-Russian party, led by a tycoon who amassed his fortune in Russia and who has frozen the process of Georgia potentially joining the European Union. This is despite the fact that the country has a strong pro-European majority, which makes the supposed electoral victory even more striking.

“Certainly, many elections were affected by disinformation campaigns. We’ve seen this in recent weeks, particularly in Eastern European countries… [foreign actors] have had an undeniable presence,” Casas-Zamora affirms. “Having said that, I think it’s very important to introduce a note of caution and a dose of humility into the debate: we don’t know exactly how much these types of campaigns determine the results, because establishing a direct causal link is very complex.”

Political violence

Another worrying element that surged in 2024 was political violence. “We’ve detected a certain increase in political violence around elections. We’ve monitored that, in at least 26 of the 75 elections that were held this past year, there was some kind of manifestation of violence,” says Gerardo Berthin, vice president of International Programs at Freedom House, a think tank based in Washington, D.C. “First of all, we can mention the assassination attempts on Trump. But there were physical attacks in other cases, also against those who work in the organization of elections,” Berthin adds.

Here appears the worst face of the consequences of unbridled polarization, which tends to exacerbate tempers, delegitimize electoral processes, or even dehumanize political adversaries. And polarization — even without directly inciting violence — creates a breeding ground for it.

Discontent

The 2024 electoral cycle resulted in a notable number of defeats for candidates and parties in power, as well as the rise of radical alternatives. “In the West, 2024 has been the year of unrest,” says Cristina Monge, a political scientist and president of the Más Democracia association.

Far-right forces seem to have taken electoral advantage of this unrest in many countries. “The essential question in the air is whether the famous phrase ‘it’s the economy, stupid’ is still valid, or whether we’ve turned the page on that. Because, in many of these countries where unrest is detected, the macroeconomy has very good figures. It’s worth asking whether these good macroeconomic figures are hiding shortcomings, or whether this unrest also responds to other types of uncertainties, worries, or fears that don’t have to be incompatible with economic unrest, but which do reveal another type of concern,” says Monge.

Representation of women

“It hasn’t been a good year when it comes to the representation of women,” Casas-Zamora concludes. This has been growing throughout the 21st century, from a level close to 13% of female parliamentary representatives worldwide in 2000, to 27% at the beginning of 2024. This is according to data collected by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, an organization that provides information on the composition of parliaments around the world. By the end of 2024, however, the trend was broken.

“When you look at the numbers from the elections that have been held this year, the percentage of seats occupied by women fell by one percentage point. And, in terms of heads of state or government, there’s one more [woman] than there was a year ago. So, there’s been a stagnation,” Casas-Zamora points out.

This is only the most visible aspect of the difficulties in moving towards full gender parity. Beneath this lies the practice of discrimination, and also a disturbing tendency towards verbal aggression in the digital debate, which makes it more difficult for women to participate.

Consolidation of authoritarianism

Not only have disturbing trends been revealed in democracies with genuine electoral competitions. Several elections have also been held that have confirmed — via processes that have become farcical — the authoritarian drifts of certain nations.

Tunisia — once a democratic hope in North Africa — consolidated its regression by holding a shameful election, without real competition. Only 28% of eligible citizens voted. In El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele — another master in the use of social media — violated the Constitution to secure a second term, despite the prohibition of re-election. Ukraine — which should have held elections in 2024 — was unable to do so due to Russia’s aggression. Additionally, a multitude of authoritarian regimes deepened their democratic farce, from Russia to Venezuela.

Climate change

The experts consulted by EL PAÍS offer two observations on the subject of climate change in the global electoral context. “Despite the fact that the consequences of the phenomenon are increasingly evident on the planet, it’s still not the main issue when we talk about elections. We continue to completely disconnect the climate crisis from political issues, especially electoral ones,” Monge notes.

According to Casa-Zamora, the irony is that “14 national elections were affected to varying degrees by extreme weather events.” Climate change not only ravages the planet in general: it also has disruptive effects on electoral processes. However, despite its importance, it doesn’t seem to be central when it comes to choosing who to vote for.

Participation

In the electoral balance, not everything is bad news. One piece of good news is the notable level of turnout in the elections held in 2024. “This makes us think that people still have hope in the electoral process,” Berthin suggests.

According to IDEA data, the average turnout rate in the more than 70 national elections held was 61%, with a total of 1.6 billion voters. This figure shouldn’t eliminate the alarm about the widespread distrust in democratic institutions, but it’s certainly a cause for hope.

Alternation

Discontent as a force promoting political change is disturbing when it exclusively reflects citizen displeasure with the effectiveness of the management of democratic institutions. However, alternation is an essential feature of democracy. The possibility of removing rulers from power based on their poor management is the very soul of the model. The fact that this change has occurred in many cases is also a reflection of democratic vitality. Even though excessive volatility isn’t a good thing — with constant changes in government between groups that don’t agree on even basic policies related to essential issues — the long permanence in power of the same parties is potentially an even greater evil.

In some of the cases observed in 2024, there wasn’t an alternation, but rather a healthy reduction in the power of some rulers. In this sense, good democratic news has come from two important countries in the Global South: India and South Africa. In the former, after winning two absolute majorities and holding up a democratic record much-criticized by opponents and international think tanks, Prime Minister Narendra Modi suffered a considerable setback. He now has to govern as part of a coalition. Likewise, after decades in power, the African National Congress (ANC) has been punished at the polls by losing its absolute majority for the first time in 30 years. The ANC continues to govern today in South Africa, although it faces checks and balances due to its need for consistent support from other parties.

Resilience

In the face of the great risks that were evident in 2024, extraordinary episodes of democratic resilience also emerged. One admirable one is that of Senegal, a country in a region of Africa that has experienced numerous coups d’état. Despite the imprisonment of a prominent opposition leader and the attempts of the previous president to postpone the elections, the resistance of civic institutions and the mobilization of citizens managed to make everything flow along a democratic path. An opposition candidate ended up winning.

There was also good news in the face of external interference. In Moldova, a scheme similar to the one which supported the Romanian populist was detected. There was an attempt to promote the local pro-Russian candidate in the presidential elections; a BBC journalist even collected testimony regarding a plot to distribute payments in exchange for votes. In the end, despite everything, the pro-EU president — Maia Sandu — managed to win re-election.

There was also good news not directly linked to electoral processes, such as the resilience of democracy in South Korea, Bolivia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo in the face of coups. In the first case, there was an attempted self-coup by the now-departed president, who tried to introduce martial law. In the second, there was a coup attempt with military characteristics that seemed long forgotten in Latin America. And, in the third, an armed attack on institutions was repressed by the Armed Forces.

Another extraordinary episode occurred in Bangladesh. Months after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina secured a fifth consecutive term in a farcical election, a movement driven by student protests forced the collapse of the regime and the opening of a hopeful democratic transition.

In Georgia, mass demonstrations against moving the country away from the path towards EU membership are taking place day after day in the streets of Tbilisi. Despite the inability to displace the current government, it’s been an inspiring mobilization.

The electoral calendar for 2025 is much less striking when compared to the year that just ended. But the forces that seek to erode democracy from within and from without will continue to act with the enormous levers at their disposal. Democracies will have to work hard to design effective defence strategies.

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