Democracy at risk in a year of global election bumper – POLITICO

Will 2024 be the year when democracy reaches a tipping point and begins to slide toward dictatorship?

This may seem an odd question to ask at a time when countries representing nearly half of the world’s population, or an estimated 3.8 billion people, are sending their voters to the polls in some form of election.

Indeed, some of the world’s most strategically important countries will hold elections this year, from the United States to the United Kingdom to the European Union, India to Mexico, Taiwan to Indonesia.

But even in the midst of the voting and voting blitz, experts warn: democratia The form of government pioneered by the nobility in Athens in the 6th century BC is entering a dangerous zone.

Not only are dictators such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei expected to exploit the trappings of democracy to prop up their rule and stifle opposition; They argue that democracy is also at risk in Western countries.

US President Donald Trump has threatened to weaponize democratic institutions against his political opponents if he wins re-election next November. His possible re-election has already sparked panic that he will turn his back on Ukraine and indeed NATO, freeing Putin’s hand to rebuild the Russian Empire and influence networks in Central and Eastern Europe. It’s spreading to Europe.

In Europe, June’s EU elections will see far-right parties gain serious momentum (perhaps most prominent in France and Germany), with EU institutions in Brussels and potential national governments hostile to Europe’s Muslims. This seems to be a sign that things are changing. It is also more sympathetic to the Kremlin. The big question hanging over these parties is whether, after winning power through the ballot box, they will dismantle the cornerstones of European democracy, such as an independent judiciary and a free press.

“It’s perfectly legitimate to be very concerned about the state of democracy around the world,” said Daniel Kelemen, a public policy professor at Georgetown University and an expert on EU law. “Democracy is being challenged everywhere, not just in places that rank poorly in surveys of democratic values, but also in established democracies like the United States and the European Union.”

The first high-stakes election in the transition from 2023 to 2024 will be held in Taiwan on January 13th. The election will test whether Chinese President Xi Jinping continues to tolerate Taiwan’s democracy or invades and collapses its large-scale security system. South China Sea crisis.

Europe’s political fragility was also on full display in the last week of December. In Serbia, dozens of people were detained as protesters chanted election fraud in Belgrade, where populist President Aleksandar Vučić has been criticized for abusing his influence over the media and civil servants. . Russia has stepped in to play its traditional role of stirring up trouble against Vučić, a close friend of President Vladimir Putin, accusing Western countries of trying to instigate a Ukrainian-style Maidan.

map to shrink

A quick look at studies comparing the spread of democracy today with other forms of government reveals some worrying trends. According to the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, democracies have been rapidly losing ground to dictatorships in recent decades.

Around the world, “the level of democracy enjoyed by the average global citizen in 2022 has declined to 1986 levels,” V-Dem researchers said in a 2023 report. “For the first time in more than 20 years, there are more closed dictatorships than free democracies.”

Alarming population declines have been recorded in the Asia-Pacific region, with 72 percent of the world’s population, or 5.7 billion people, living under authoritarian rule by 2022, V-Dem researchers write. There is.

The latest report from Freedom House, another leading tracker of democracy, couldn’t be more encouraging. The Washington-based nonprofit writes that in 2023, “world freedom will have declined for the 17th consecutive year” and that freedom of expression will be the main casualty of the global march toward authoritarianism. There is.

Freedom House cited Russia’s February 2022 move to cancel Kiev’s democratic aspirations and sever ties with the EU as an example of democracy being under direct attack by an authoritarian regime. called for a full-scale invasion of

But even in the midst of this rout, experts who assess the health of democratic norms and their destruction argue that 2024 carries great risks for democracy. And nowhere is this more applicable than in the United States, which will hold a presidential election in 2024.

Nearly three years after inciting a riot by telling a crowd gathered in front of the Capitol to “fight like hell” to overturn the 2020 election results, President Trump is back and seeking a return to the White House. There is.

Polls show Trump has a strong chance of winning the Republican nomination for president and defeating incumbent Joe Biden, despite legal issues that could crush his ambitions. His return to power seems more likely than ever.

Trump dictatorship?

And while President Trump is playing the democracy game with his get-out-the-vote campaign, his remarks at large rallies across the country suggest that if re-elected, the real estate mogul will become the world’s most powerful This is fueling concerns that the country could turn into a “dictatorship.”

Most likely, the transition from democracy to dictatorship in the United States will not be announced as such, but rather will take place gradually through the destruction of institutions and norms until only the trappings and facades of democracy remain.

A good example is judicial independence. It is an important indicator of whether democracy is working. But President Trump has repeatedly said he would use the Justice Department to go after his political opponents if re-elected, and has promised to line up key agencies with supporters.

“I’m very worried about the United States, more than any other country,” Kelemen added. “The fundamental problem is that for a democracy to work, we need at least two major political parties committed to democratic norms and processes. And unfortunately in the United States, the Trump forces, the MAGA forces has taken over the Republican Party.”

In Europe, where hundreds of millions of people will vote in pan-EU elections in June, the risk of a full-scale slide into dictatorship appears less serious. But Kelemen believes Europe’s tolerance of the dictator at its center, Hungary’s strongman leader Viktor Orbán, is setting a dangerous precedent by encouraging others to follow his path. warns you if

Indeed, many European countries are vulnerable to Mr. Orban’s model of power, exercised through crony networks and media control. Bulgaria is a fragile democracy, with political parties acting as large patronage networks, especially when it comes to elections, while organized crime and Russia play a major role. Greece has also attracted increasing attention for government pressure on public institutions, with President Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ government accused of undermining regulators investigating state wiretapping of politicians and journalists. .

All of these are questions about the functioning of the EU itself, which has had very limited success in policing its member states for rule of law failures and democratic backsliding, while those same countries has the power to interfere with the EU. Prime Minister Orbán perfectly illustrates this great weakness in the EU, where a single Kremlin-aligned leader can block progress on important decisions. For example, in December it blocked a vital financial lifeline for Ukraine.

Kelemen says it was a grave mistake to continue pandering to Hungarian leaders by agreeing in December to give Budapest 10 billion euros in EU funds that had been frozen over rule of law concerns. .

“There will be a heavy price to pay for relinquishing influence,” he said, referring to Brussels’ ability to force Prime Minister Orban to make pro-democracy reforms. “The whole defunding mechanism right now doesn’t really have the same deterrent effect. I think other administrations will take note.”

More broadly, confidence in the functioning of European democracies is declining in several major EU countries, including France and Italy, according to an IPSOS survey published late last year.

The rise of an elected dictator

So will President Putin and his supporters among the European far right, who have a common interest in undermining the EU’s democracy, Kelemen added.

Far-right parties are gaining momentum in France, the Netherlands, Germany and other major EU countries ahead of EU elections that will involve hundreds of millions of participants. These parties are unlikely to secure government, but if they get high scores in the June 6-9 vote, they could have greater influence over EU policy than ever before. Brussels will be forced to overlook rule of law issues in EU member states and retreat from advocacy. Values ​​that support a democratic society.

“This may be the year we see the collapse of the rules-based order,” said Alberto Alemanno, a professor of EU law at France’s HEC Business School. “It’s uncharted territory.”

Whatever the outcome of the world’s 2024 “Electoral Super Bowl,” the people who do the most damage to democracy are unlikely to be dictators or want to become dictators.

On the contrary, the closer we get to a total solar eclipse, the more triumphant talk we will hear about “democracy in action” from so-called “elected dictators” like Orbán, who will rush to They will try to seize control of the media and crack down on media control. Opponent. Kelemen added that the task of defending democracy is therefore becoming increasingly difficult.

“All the current elected dictators are trying to dress themselves in the cloak of democracy,” he says. “For many people, confusion has arisen and it has become difficult to point out the true nature of these regimes, including electoral dictatorships and one-party systems.”