A vital year for the idea of democracy globally

Scores of countries will hold elections in 2024. Among them are India and the United States. The outcomes of these elections could well decide the fate of the idea of democracy itself. 

In India, recent months have seen bewildering spectacles such as laws being passed without proper debate in either the Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha. In the normal course, a panel of parliamentarians drawn from both the ruling and opposition parties vets the draft bills, followed by a debate in both houses. Nearly 150 MPs have been summarily suspended, and Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha member Mahua Moitra has been expelled. 

The misuse of investigative agencies like the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate against the opposition has surged. There has been a four-fold rise in the number of cases filed by the ED since Narendra Modi became prime minister, with 95% of the cases being against opposition leaders.

Supreme Court Justice Abhay S Oka has said the “common man’s faith in the judiciary has eroded considerably.” Senior advocate and former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, Dushyant Dave, has said, “The judiciary is at its weakest in modern Indian history.” 

Most of the media is in the hands of entities aligned with the BJP. 

Professor Tarunabh Khaitan of the London School of Economics argues that the Modi regime is “guilty of killing the constitution by a thousand cuts.” Noted economist Parkala Prabhakar warns that even if Modi loses in the upcoming elections, the majoritarian ideology he has spawned will linger. Precisely what is also being said of what awaits the US after its presidential elections in November: Even if Donald Trump loses, “Trumpism,” which may be loosely characterised as a mélange of jingoism, racism, and total disregard for the rule of law and constitutional norms, will persist.

Noted US-based Dutch writer Ian Buruma says: “What explains the tenacity of Trump’s support? The force of his arguments is unlikely to be the key because he makes few coherent arguments. It is rarely clear what he thinks or whether his thoughts amount to anything at all. He is indifferent to or even contemptuous of facts. But the more he lies, the more his supporters seem to like him, as though his avalanche of falsehoods has numbed their ability to perceive truth. No doubt, the radical shifts in how people receive their information have something to do with this. Many people, not just Trump supporters, find a snug spot inside a bubble of internet-driven misinformation, boosted by hucksters posing as journalists on Fox News and other, even zanier outlets.”

Conservative former Court of Appeals judge J Michael Luttig and Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe say, “The former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the resulting attack on the US Capitol place him squarely within the ambit of the disqualification clause, and he is therefore ineligible to serve as president ever again.” Trump’s National Security Adviser John Bolton and Defence Secretary Mark Esper have warned against electing him.

However, there is a real possibility that ongoing court cases against Trump could be prolonged for so long that, if elected president, he could order them scrapped.

Britain, which goes to the polls later this year, also faces its own political challenges, with the Conservative Party criticised for undermining Britain’s proudest assets like the BBC, the National Health Service (NHS), and British Rail. With Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s current opponent in the Labour Party, the far-right Keir Starmer, voters have little to choose from, and the prospects are that Britain is hurtling towards a socio-economic crisis. Additionally, the regime’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda also looms.

Russia too has elections this year, but its fate is more or less sealed: it will continue to be an authoritarian system with farcical elections intervening. This need not have been the case. In the mid-1980s, with the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev and his talk of reforms, another trajectory for the former Soviet Union seemed possible, but an attempted coup, Gorbachev’s ouster, the rise of Boris Yeltsin, and the authoritarian Vladimir Putin after him have upended Russians’ democratic aspirations. Putin has continuously held office as prime minister or president since 1999, and institutions have suffered so much under him that even after his departure, Russia is unlikely to turn democratic for long.

As for Pakistan’s February 8 election, the “establishment,” meaning the powerful army, seems to have already picked the winner, in former PM Nawaz Sharif.

On January 13, Taiwan again elected a leader of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) as President. William Lai Ching-te takes over from DPP stalwart Tsai Ing-wen, during whose eight-year term, Taipei-Beijing relations suffered. However, China’s reaction to her successor’s election has been muted, perhaps thanks to the sluggish Chinese economy. President Xi Jinping having bitten off more than he could chew during his unprecedented third term, and also the need to maintain good ties with the United States—Taiwan’s main backer—during a time of global turbulence.

Indonesia goes to the polls on February 14, with the real risk of Prabowo Subianto, son-in-law of the late president Suharto, getting elected and raising the possibility of a deep slide as regards human rights, given the duo’s genocidal pasts.

Israel ought to have elections to choose a successor to the corrupt Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who failed to forestall the October 7 attack. But by his own admission, he plans to prolong genocidal attacks against the Palestinians “for months”, thereby attempting to ensure that his “war cabinet” persists in its settler-colonial Apartheid policies in Gaza and the West Bank.

Meanwhile, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva has predicted that 2024 will be “very tough” for fiscal policy, especially for countries holding elections.

“This is going to be a very tough year because fiscal policy has to rebuild buffers and deal with the debt that was accumulated in many countries,” the IMF chief told the media recently. “About 80 will hold elections, and we know what happens with pressure on spending during election cycles,”
she said, hinting at the potential undermining of anti-inflation measures.

(The writer is a senior journalist)