At the end of the first quarter of 2024, which can certainly be described as an "election year", we can take a brief look at the elections that have already taken place. Seventeen elections are scheduled to take place around the world, in which seven of the ten most populous countries in the world are expected to hold national elections, equivalent to more than 2.7 billion people, a third of the total global population. Some of these elections are taking place in countries around the Mediterranean, or in countries in the Middle East, which are undoubtedly of interest to our Foundation.
The elections held in early February in El Salvador and Pakistan were just the appetizer of a very varied and wide-ranging electoral menu for 2024. Voting has already taken place in countries such as Russia and Iran, but, beyond the large numbers and quantities, we can give a bit of context, seeing why these elections are important: for what they imply, beyond the quantitative.
Despite what it may seem, democracy (the worst system of government, except for all the others that have been invented, as Winston Churchill defined it) is not the way in which we humans mostly administer ourselves at the beginning of the 21st century. In fact, it is a system that is increasingly under threat. As an example, Senegal's elections, originally scheduled for 25 February, have been delayed.
In early February, outgoing President Macky Sall delayed the election, which finally took place on 24 March. In it, opposition candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye was elected president with a landslide victory, while Amadou Ba, the ruling coalition candidate, calmly conceded defeat, averting any possible conflict and giving hope to the country's youth (Faye himself is only 46 years old), who have overwhelmingly opted for change.
This is no small matter, as Senegal is located in the complex geopolitical context of the Sahel (where last summer there were coups in Mali, Chad, Guinea Conakry, Burkina Faso, Niger and Gabon) and is a democracy that has been losing steam in recent years, which has led to a review by the Intelligence Unit of The Economistwhich downgraded the Dakar government from a 'deficient democracy' to a 'hybrid regime' in 2020.
With regard to this classification by The Economistis similar to that of other entities (such as Freedom House, for example) that analyse and label the state of democracies globally, and can be summarised in this classification: full democracy, deficient or semi-consolidated democracy, hybrid regime, and authoritarian regime.
Turning to threats to the democratic system, the first two elections of the year, the aforementioned elections in El Salvador and Pakistan, each with their own particularities, can serve to exemplify the issue. Bukele's landslide victory in the Central American country is not without controversy, since, according to the Constitution itself, he could not have run for re-election. But a new interpretation of the Magna Carta by the magistrates of the Supreme Court of Justice - elected by the Legislative Assembly in which his party has an absolute majority - paved the way for a new electoral victory.
In Pakistan, the lower house of parliament elected Shehbaz Sharif as prime minister also for a second term, following a disputed election marked by allegations of large-scale rigging and delays in releasing the results. Shehbaz is the younger brother of three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who was convicted of corruption in 2018 and self-exiled to the UK. Pakistan, a country of 241 million people, faces political instability in the midst of an economic recession and a deteriorating security situation.
As for Russia, just before Easter, and in the midst of its war against Ukraine (which has allowed us to see shocking images of soldiers voting in mobile polling stations near the frontline), it has held elections that have only confirmed what was a more than expected outcome: the re-election of Vladimir Putin as head of a country he has led for almost 25 years - either as head of state or head of government. In that quarter of a century, Russian democracy has charted a course that has earned it the label of authoritarian regime, seen rampant corruption, witnessed systemic human rights abuses, had the independent media virtually shut down and the opposition intimidated and even eliminated in the worst cases. But if despite all this Putin continues to revalidate his mandate, it is worth asking whether (regardless of the cleanliness of the elections) and as some experts suggest, it is merely economic circumstances that are tipping the vote in his favour, since in these 25 years values such as GDP or per capita income have increased considerably, multiplying, while the external debt or inflation meters have only gone down, even in the current complicated context of the war and in the midst of the sanctions imposed on the regime.
To close this brief review of the elections, let us look to Iran, a country that in recent years has been swept by protests that point to the government's waning legitimacy. In addition to the demonstrations caused by the death of Mahsa Amini in moral police custody in September 2022, which sparked months of civic outrage led by 'Generation Z', who severely challenged the clerical regime, Iranian citizens of all ages are upset by the state of the economy of a country where, in 2022, 30% of households were living below the poverty line amid rampant inflation and under the shadow of US sanctions. Despite ultra-conservative Ebrahim Raisi's mending of ties with traditional foe Saudi Arabia, ongoing regional tensions continue to grip Iran.
The elections on 1 March, the first round of the legislative elections to elect 290 members of parliament, were marked by all of these circumstances. Turnout was a record low, at around 40%, in response to calls for a boycott by civil society, including imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi. The votes resulted in the appointment of only 245 of the 290 seats in parliament, as not all candidates passed the minimum threshold and will require a run-off election, to be held in April or May.
Among these 245 elected politicians (including only 11 women), 200 were supported by hardline groups. The regime appears to be entrenched, as all nominations are screened by the Guardian Council, an unelected body that disqualifies all candidates it deems insufficiently loyal to the regime. establishment clerical.
As we can see, despite the many elections, democracy remains a system at risk, and one that needs to be nurtured.
As for the elections still to be held in the remainder of the year, there are some that affect us more directly, such as those in the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Tunisia. We will pay attention to them.