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Opinion: Brace yourself. The elections of 2024 could shock the world
Opinion by David A. Andelman
7 minute read
Published 4:24 AM EST, Mon December 18, 2023

20231213_opinion_electionstowatch24
Illustration by Leah Abucayan/CNN/Getty
Editor’s Note: David A. Andelman, a contributor to CNN, twice winner of the
Deadline Club Award, is a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, author of “A Red
Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still
Happen” and blogs at SubStack’s Andelman Unleashed. He formerly was a foreign
correspondent and bureau chief for The New York Times in Europe and Asia and for
CBS News in Paris. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more
opinion at CNN.

CNN
—
Voters have administered some profound shocks to the world’s stability this past
year — but nothing like what we can expect in 2024.

David Andelman
David A. Andelman
CNN
Next year, countries with more than half the world’s population will hold
elections, as The Economist noted. More than 4 billion people live in the countries
that will be voting.

As I’ve seen over the past two years chronicling the world’s elections, patterns,
at times chilling, have emerged. Across every continent it has become all too easy
for electorates simply to reject long-standing liberal philosophies for shiny brass
promises held out by extremes – often from the populist far right.

And the prospects for dramatic change are only intensifying.

The momentous election year kicks off with Bangladesh in January. Already there
have been anti-government demonstrations sparked by the main opposition Bangladesh
Nationalist Party, whose top leaders are jailed or exiled. The BNP has threatened
to boycott the polls if Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina does not resign and hand power
to a caretaker government ahead of the general election. Hasina is likely to
continue her iron-fisted rule of 15 years.

In February, the world’s two most populous Muslim nations — Pakistan and Indonesia
– have elections within a week of each other. Pakistan will hold its first general
election since popular but divisive former Prime Minister Imran Khan was removed on
corruption charges. (He denies all wrongdoing). Though not a candidate, Khan is
still the driving force behind his political party.

Indonesia will hold the world’s largest single-day election shortly after —
featuring more than 200 million voters in the country and 1.75 million Indonesian
diaspora — though voters are unlikely to loosen the grips on power of wealthy
business and military elites.

This pool photograph distributed by Russia's state agency Sputnik shows Russian
President Vladimir Putin holding his year-end press conference at Gostiny Dvor
exhibition hall in central Moscow on December 14, 2023. (Photo by Alexander KAZAKOV
/ POOL / AFP) (Photo by ALEXANDER KAZAKOV/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Opinion: When it comes to US politics, Putin can read the writing on the wall
Elsewhere, South Africa will hold perhaps the most epiphanal election in Africa,
certainly in its troubled post-Nelson Mandela period. When South Africans went to
the polls in municipal elections two years ago, Mandela’s African National Congress
(ANC) party won fewer than 50% of the vote for the first time, with voters dismayed
by the disarray and corruption that have marked too much of its 30-year hold on
power. If that downward trend continues at the 2024 general election, it will be a
defining moment in South Africa’s political history.

Looking to Europe, there will be nine parliamentary elections, where one of the
biggest challenges for incoming governments will be finding coalition partners to
form majorities.

Keep an eye on Portugal’s snap election in March. It follows a corruption

investigation that forced out the country’s socialist prime minister after eight
years in office — and could herald a swing to the far-right Chega (Enough) party.
Equally, the right seems poised for big gains in Austria’s election, due by fall.

Also due by the end of January 2025 is the United Kingdom’s general election,
meaning we can expect to see British voters likely heading to the polls at the tail
end of 2024 — and could even see a return of the Labour Party to power after 14
fraught years of Conservative rule.

Turning to Latin America, Mexico is set to get its first woman president, as two
are on the ballot for the main parties in June’s elections, where drugs, crime and
migration to the US are at the top of the political agenda. Elsewhere, Venezuela’s
wildly unpredictable, nationalist leader Nicolas Maduro will seek a new mandate
with the stakes including a border battle with neighboring Guyana over oil rights.

But there are five especially dramatic contests worth spotlighting:

Taiwan on January 13: A new president at the center of US-China tensions

TAIPEI, TAIWAN - DECEMBER 03: DPP's presidential candidate, Lai Ching-te, gives a
speech during the Opening of Lai Ching-te's National and Taipei City Campaign
Headquarters on December 03, 2023 in Taipei, Taiwan. Presidential election hopeful,
Lai Ching-te, of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and his vice
presidential candidate, Hsiao Bi-khim, launch their national and Taipei City
campaign headquarters. Taiwan's presidential frontrunner, William Lai, who China
views as a separatist, leads opinion polls to be Taiwan's next president, which
could affect global geopolitics for years to come. Taiwan will head to the polls in
general elections on Jan. 13. (Photo by Annabelle Chih/Getty Images)
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP's) presidential candidate, Lai
Ching-te, gives a speech on December 3 in Taipei. At this stage, he is seen as the
front runner in the general election happening on January 13.
Annabelle Chih/Getty Images
The stakes are especially high in this time of heightened tension between Beijing
and Taipei as the United States continues to pledge a guarantee of Taiwan’s
democracy.

With three presidential candidates, narrow front-runner and ruling Democratic

Progressive Party (DPP) pick Lai Ching-te is anathema to China with his pledge to
continue the determined defense of the island’s sovereignty, set by incumbent
president Tsai Ing-wen. A close second, Hou Yu-Ih of the opposition Kuomintang
(KMT), wants to begin talking with Beijing. A distant third, Ko Wen-je of the
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and former mayor of Taipei, offers a middle ground
closer to conciliation.

If voters go with the status quo, expect Beijing to ratchet up the pressure. “A
choice between war and peace,” was the official Chinese response, after unity talks
between the opposition parties broke down in November.

Russia on March 17: Putin is leaving little to chance

Women walk near an electronic screen on the facade of a building showing an image
of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a quote from his annual end-of-year press
conference and the Direct Line question and answer session, in Moscow, Russia
December 14, 2023. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
An electronic screen in Moscow shows Russian President Vladimir Putin during his
annual end-of-year press conference on December 14. He is all but certain to remain
president following the national election on March 17.
Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
There’s little doubt about Vladimir Putin’s planned president-for-life status in
his fig-leaf re-election campaign. He’ll be 78 by the end of his term, passing
Soviet leader Josef Stalin as longest-serving Russian ruler since Catherine the
Great.

Putin is leaving little to chance. So far, he appears to have just one officially-
sanctioned opponent — Alexei Nechaev, a cosmetics businessman, who happens to be a
member of Putin’s own political coalition the All Russia Peoples Front.

There could well be chaos as there was across Russia in the 2018 presidential
contest, although hundreds of thousands of potentially anti-Putin voices have
fledabroad during the invasion of Ukraine.

With the very real possibility that this could be the Russian president’s final
election — given his age — an emboldened Putin could set his sights after the
election on an even broader and more destabilizing effort at reassembling a Soviet
empire. And the risk of a direct confrontation with NATO should hardly be excluded.

India in April and May: The world’s most populous nation at a crossroads
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi (C) speaks to media at the opening of the
budget session of Parliament in New Delhi on January 31, 2023. (Photo by Sajjad
HUSSAIN / AFP) (Photo by SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP via Getty Images)
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks at the opening of the budget session of
parliament in New Delhi on January 31. The huge country is set to hold an election
over several weeks in April and May.
Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images
Turning the world’s most populous nation from a vibrant democracy into a Hindu
nationalist state approaching a theocracy are the stakes for India in this
election, expected to be held over several weeks in April and May.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi devoted his first term to cementing an unyielding
Hindu nationalism. Out in the cold are the nation’s roughly 200 million Muslims and
28 million Christians. There are fears an anticipated Modi victory would allow him
to complete what he sees as a central element of his mission.

Next month, Modi will inaugurate a sprawling Hindu temple, rising on the ashes of
an old mosque site – a symbolic affirmation of dominance for Modi and all of
India’s Hindus.

How does the United States deal with such an individual — central to the developing
world and at the same time an important trading partner, a counterweight to
Pakistan and its lean toward Russia and China and a strategic bulwark against
unchecked Chinese expansion in the Pacific?

European Parliament from June 6 - 9: A major shift to the right?

TOPSHOT - EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gives her annual State of
the Union address during a plenary session at the European Parliament in
Strasbourg, eastern France, on September 13, 2023. (Photo by FREDERICK FLORIN /
AFP) (Photo by FREDERICK FLORIN/AFP via Getty Images)
European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gives her annual State of
the Union address at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, on September 13. Every
five years, EU citizens choose who represents them in the European Parliament, with
the next election happening in June.
Frederick Florin/AFP/Getty Images
June will be a critical moment for the future of Europe, as the European Parliament
holds its first election since Britain’s withdrawal; and one predicted to provoke
huge disarray.

The foundations of a potentially vast right-wing swing have been in the works for
years, certainly building throughout 2023. The right-wing European Conservatives
and Reformists (ECR) could even take over as the third-biggest group in the new
European Parliament.

Such a block of determined right-wingers and Eurosceptics could throw sand in the
gears of a host of moderate EU programs and backstop rightwing swings domestically
in leading powers like Germany and France.

On the line: further aid to Ukraine, sanctions on Russia (already the subject of
vetoes from Hungary and Slovakia), curbs on immigration, rollbacks on climate
controls, justice and the rule of law across the EU, and a shift on how Europe
deals with China.

United States on November 5: The Trump factor and beyond

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 15: Republican presidential candidate, former President
Donald Trump speaks at the Pray Vote Stand Summit at the Omni Shoreham Hotel on
September 15, 2023 in Washington, DC. The summit featured multiple 2024 Republican
Presidential candidates making their case to the conservative audience members.
(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks at the
Pray Vote Stand Summit on September 15 in Washington, DC.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Even if Donald Trump is not elected president, the balloting and campaign leading
to November 5 could shred the fabric of democracy in the United States. And if he
is elected, it could have ripple effects for large stretches of the world.

What would NATO look like in the event of a Trump withdrawal? Imagine the comfort
to those who would dismantle the alliance entirely.

Then there are all the dictators and would-be dictators that Trump has extended
warm words towards. On the campaign trail in New Hampshire on Saturday, Trump
quoted Putin in calling US President Joe Biden a “threat to democracy.” At the same
event, he praised North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Hungary’s hardline
nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

GET OUR FREE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

Sign up for CNN Opinion’s newsletter
Join us on Twitter and Facebook
How might these words translate into action in the event of a Trump presidency?
After all, he has already pledged to visit Argentina’s bombastic new radical-right
president, Javier Milei, who’s suggested replacing the peso with the US dollar,
while taking a chainsaw to bureaucracy and budgets.

Where the world will be a year from now will be determined by billions of voters
visiting or shunning ballot boxes with varying degrees of freedom and transparency
— and the politicians who will demonstrate to what degree they respect the choices
their people have made.

Hopefully they will consider carefully and vote wisely.

RELATED

MORE FROM CNN

2024: An election about everything

Russia’s Vladimir Putin says he will run for president again ...

How the impasse over Ukraine aid could have critical global ...
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Opinion: Brace yourself. The elections of 2024 could shock the world
Opinion by David A. Andelman
7 minute read
Published 4:24 AM EST, Mon December 18, 2023

20231213_opinion_electionstowatch24
Illustration by Leah Abucayan/CNN/Getty
Editor’s Note: David A. Andelman, a contributor to CNN, twice winner of the
Deadline Club Award, is a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, author of “A Red
Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still
Happen” and blogs at SubStack’s Andelman Unleashed. He formerly was a foreign
correspondent and bureau chief for The New York Times in Europe and Asia and for
CBS News in Paris. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more
opinion at CNN.

CNN
—
Voters have administered some profound shocks to the world’s stability this past
year — but nothing like what we can expect in 2024.

David Andelman
David A. Andelman
CNN
Next year, countries with more than half the world’s population will hold
elections, as The Economist noted. More than 4 billion people live in the countries
that will be voting.

As I’ve seen over the past two years chronicling the world’s elections, patterns,
at times chilling, have emerged. Across every continent it has become all too easy
for electorates simply to reject long-standing liberal philosophies for shiny brass
promises held out by extremes – often from the populist far right.

And the prospects for dramatic change are only intensifying.

The momentous election year kicks off with Bangladesh in January. Already there
have been anti-government demonstrations sparked by the main opposition Bangladesh
Nationalist Party, whose top leaders are jailed or exiled. The BNP has threatened
to boycott the polls if Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina does not resign and hand power
to a caretaker government ahead of the general election. Hasina is likely to
continue her iron-fisted rule of 15 years.

In February, the world’s two most populous Muslim nations — Pakistan and Indonesia
– have elections within a week of each other. Pakistan will hold its first general
election since popular but divisive former Prime Minister Imran Khan was removed on
corruption charges. (He denies all wrongdoing). Though not a candidate, Khan is
still the driving force behind his political party.

Indonesia will hold the world’s largest single-day election shortly after —
featuring more than 200 million voters in the country and 1.75 million Indonesian
diaspora — though voters are unlikely to loosen the grips on power of wealthy
business and military elites.

This pool photograph distributed by Russia's state agency Sputnik shows Russian
President Vladimir Putin holding his year-end press conference at Gostiny Dvor
exhibition hall in central Moscow on December 14, 2023. (Photo by Alexander KAZAKOV
/ POOL / AFP) (Photo by ALEXANDER KAZAKOV/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Opinion: When it comes to US politics, Putin can read the writing on the wall
Elsewhere, South Africa will hold perhaps the most epiphanal election in Africa,
certainly in its troubled post-Nelson Mandela period. When South Africans went to
the polls in municipal elections two years ago, Mandela’s African National Congress
(ANC) party won fewer than 50% of the vote for the first time, with voters dismayed
by the disarray and corruption that have marked too much of its 30-year hold on
power. If that downward trend continues at the 2024 general election, it will be a
defining moment in South Africa’s political history.

Looking to Europe, there will be nine parliamentary elections, where one of the
biggest challenges for incoming governments will be finding coalition partners to
form majorities.

Keep an eye on Portugal’s snap election in March. It follows a corruption

investigation that forced out the country’s socialist prime minister after eight
years in office — and could herald a swing to the far-right Chega (Enough) party.
Equally, the right seems poised for big gains in Austria’s election, due by fall.

Also due by the end of January 2025 is the United Kingdom’s general election,
meaning we can expect to see British voters likely heading to the polls at the tail
end of 2024 — and could even see a return of the Labour Party to power after 14
fraught years of Conservative rule.

Turning to Latin America, Mexico is set to get its first woman president, as two
are on the ballot for the main parties in June’s elections, where drugs, crime and
migration to the US are at the top of the political agenda. Elsewhere, Venezuela’s
wildly unpredictable, nationalist leader Nicolas Maduro will seek a new mandate
with the stakes including a border battle with neighboring Guyana over oil rights.

But there are five especially dramatic contests worth spotlighting:

Taiwan on January 13: A new president at the center of US-China tensions

TAIPEI, TAIWAN - DECEMBER 03: DPP's presidential candidate, Lai Ching-te, gives a
speech during the Opening of Lai Ching-te's National and Taipei City Campaign
Headquarters on December 03, 2023 in Taipei, Taiwan. Presidential election hopeful,
Lai Ching-te, of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and his vice
presidential candidate, Hsiao Bi-khim, launch their national and Taipei City
campaign headquarters. Taiwan's presidential frontrunner, William Lai, who China
views as a separatist, leads opinion polls to be Taiwan's next president, which
could affect global geopolitics for years to come. Taiwan will head to the polls in
general elections on Jan. 13. (Photo by Annabelle Chih/Getty Images)
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP's) presidential candidate, Lai
Ching-te, gives a speech on December 3 in Taipei. At this stage, he is seen as the
front runner in the general election happening on January 13.
Annabelle Chih/Getty Images
The stakes are especially high in this time of heightened tension between Beijing
and Taipei as the United States continues to pledge a guarantee of Taiwan’s
democracy.

With three presidential candidates, narrow front-runner and ruling Democratic

Progressive Party (DPP) pick Lai Ching-te is anathema to China with his pledge to
continue the determined defense of the island’s sovereignty, set by incumbent
president Tsai Ing-wen. A close second, Hou Yu-Ih of the opposition Kuomintang
(KMT), wants to begin talking with Beijing. A distant third, Ko Wen-je of the
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and former mayor of Taipei, offers a middle ground
closer to conciliation.

If voters go with the status quo, expect Beijing to ratchet up the pressure. “A
choice between war and peace,” was the official Chinese response, after unity talks
between the opposition parties broke down in November.

Russia on March 17: Putin is leaving little to chance

Women walk near an electronic screen on the facade of a building showing an image
of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a quote from his annual end-of-year press
conference and the Direct Line question and answer session, in Moscow, Russia
December 14, 2023. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
An electronic screen in Moscow shows Russian President Vladimir Putin during his
annual end-of-year press conference on December 14. He is all but certain to remain
president following the national election on March 17.
Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
There’s little doubt about Vladimir Putin’s planned president-for-life status in
his fig-leaf re-election campaign. He’ll be 78 by the end of his term, passing
Soviet leader Josef Stalin as longest-serving Russian ruler since Catherine the
Great.

Putin is leaving little to chance. So far, he appears to have just one officially-
sanctioned opponent — Alexei Nechaev, a cosmetics businessman, who happens to be a
member of Putin’s own political coalition the All Russia Peoples Front.

There could well be chaos as there was across Russia in the 2018 presidential
contest, although hundreds of thousands of potentially anti-Putin voices have
fledabroad during the invasion of Ukraine.

With the very real possibility that this could be the Russian president’s final
election — given his age — an emboldened Putin could set his sights after the
election on an even broader and more destabilizing effort at reassembling a Soviet
empire. And the risk of a direct confrontation with NATO should hardly be excluded.

India in April and May: The world’s most populous nation at a crossroads
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi (C) speaks to media at the opening of the
budget session of Parliament in New Delhi on January 31, 2023. (Photo by Sajjad
HUSSAIN / AFP) (Photo by SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP via Getty Images)
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks at the opening of the budget session of
parliament in New Delhi on January 31. The huge country is set to hold an election
over several weeks in April and May.
Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images
Turning the world’s most populous nation from a vibrant democracy into a Hindu
nationalist state approaching a theocracy are the stakes for India in this
election, expected to be held over several weeks in April and May.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi devoted his first term to cementing an unyielding
Hindu nationalism. Out in the cold are the nation’s roughly 200 million Muslims and
28 million Christians. There are fears an anticipated Modi victory would allow him
to complete what he sees as a central element of his mission.

Next month, Modi will inaugurate a sprawling Hindu temple, rising on the ashes of
an old mosque site – a symbolic affirmation of dominance for Modi and all of
India’s Hindus.

How does the United States deal with such an individual — central to the developing
world and at the same time an important trading partner, a counterweight to
Pakistan and its lean toward Russia and China and a strategic bulwark against
unchecked Chinese expansion in the Pacific?

European Parliament from June 6 - 9: A major shift to the right?

TOPSHOT - EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gives her annual State of
the Union address during a plenary session at the European Parliament in
Strasbourg, eastern France, on September 13, 2023. (Photo by FREDERICK FLORIN /
AFP) (Photo by FREDERICK FLORIN/AFP via Getty Images)
European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gives her annual State of
the Union address at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, on September 13. Every
five years, EU citizens choose who represents them in the European Parliament, with
the next election happening in June.
Frederick Florin/AFP/Getty Images
June will be a critical moment for the future of Europe, as the European Parliament
holds its first election since Britain’s withdrawal; and one predicted to provoke
huge disarray.

The foundations of a potentially vast right-wing swing have been in the works for
years, certainly building throughout 2023. The right-wing European Conservatives
and Reformists (ECR) could even take over as the third-biggest group in the new
European Parliament.

Such a block of determined right-wingers and Eurosceptics could throw sand in the
gears of a host of moderate EU programs and backstop rightwing swings domestically
in leading powers like Germany and France.

On the line: further aid to Ukraine, sanctions on Russia (already the subject of
vetoes from Hungary and Slovakia), curbs on immigration, rollbacks on climate
controls, justice and the rule of law across the EU, and a shift on how Europe
deals with China.

United States on November 5: The Trump factor and beyond

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 15: Republican presidential candidate, former President
Donald Trump speaks at the Pray Vote Stand Summit at the Omni Shoreham Hotel on
September 15, 2023 in Washington, DC. The summit featured multiple 2024 Republican
Presidential candidates making their case to the conservative audience members.
(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks at the
Pray Vote Stand Summit on September 15 in Washington, DC.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Even if Donald Trump is not elected president, the balloting and campaign leading
to November 5 could shred the fabric of democracy in the United States. And if he
is elected, it could have ripple effects for large stretches of the world.

What would NATO look like in the event of a Trump withdrawal? Imagine the comfort
to those who would dismantle the alliance entirely.

Then there are all the dictators and would-be dictators that Trump has extended
warm words towards. On the campaign trail in New Hampshire on Saturday, Trump
quoted Putin in calling US President Joe Biden a “threat to democracy.” At the same
event, he praised North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Hungary’s hardline
nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

GET OUR FREE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

Sign up for CNN Opinion’s newsletter
Join us on Twitter and Facebook
How might these words translate into action in the event of a Trump presidency?
After all, he has already pledged to visit Argentina’s bombastic new radical-right
president, Javier Milei, who’s suggested replacing the peso with the US dollar,
while taking a chainsaw to bureaucracy and budgets.

Where the world will be a year from now will be determined by billions of voters
visiting or shunning ballot boxes with varying degrees of freedom and transparency
— and the politicians who will demonstrate to what degree they respect the choices
their people have made.

Hopefully they will consider carefully and vote wisely.

RELATED

MORE FROM CNN

2024: An election about everything

Russia’s Vladimir Putin says he will run for president again ...

How the impasse over Ukraine aid could have critical global ...
Search CNN...

Search
World
Africa
Americas
Asia
Australia
China
Europe
India
Middle East
United Kingdom
US Politics
The Biden Presidency
Facts First
2024 Elections
Business
Markets
Tech
Media
Calculators
Videos
Health
Life, But Better
Fitness
Food
Sleep
Mindfulness
Relationships
Entertainment
Movies
Television
Celebrity
Tech
Innovate
Gadget
Foreseeable Future
Mission: Ahead
Upstarts
Work Transformed
Innovative Cities
Style
Arts
Design
Fashion
Architecture
Luxury
Beauty
Video
Travel
Destinations
Food & Drink
Stay
News
Videos
Sports
Football
Tennis
Golf
Motorsport
US Sports
Olympics
Climbing
Esports
Hockey
Watch
Live TV
Digital Studios
CNN Films
HLN
TV Schedule
TV Shows A-Z
CNNVR
Features
As Equals
Call to Earth
Freedom Project
Impact Your World
Inside Africa
2 Degrees
CNN Heroes
All Features
Weather
Climate
Wildfire Tracker
Video
More
Photos
Longform
Investigations
CNN Profiles
CNN Leadership
CNN Newsletters
Work for CNN
Opinion
Watch
Listen
Live TV
FOLLOW CNN
Log In
Terms of Use
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Manage Cookies+
Ad Choices
Accessibility & CC
About
Newsletters
Transcripts
© 2023 Cable News Network. A Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All Rights Reserved.
CNN Sans ™ & © 2016 Cable News Network.Opinion
Political Op-Eds
Social Commentary
Watch
Audio
Live TV

Log In
Opinion: Brace yourself. The elections of 2024 could shock the world
Opinion by David A. Andelman
7 minute read
Published 4:24 AM EST, Mon December 18, 2023

20231213_opinion_electionstowatch24
Illustration by Leah Abucayan/CNN/Getty
Editor’s Note: David A. Andelman, a contributor to CNN, twice winner of the
Deadline Club Award, is a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, author of “A Red
Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still
Happen” and blogs at SubStack’s Andelman Unleashed. He formerly was a foreign
correspondent and bureau chief for The New York Times in Europe and Asia and for
CBS News in Paris. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more
opinion at CNN.

CNN
—
Voters have administered some profound shocks to the world’s stability this past
year — but nothing like what we can expect in 2024.

David Andelman
David A. Andelman
CNN
Next year, countries with more than half the world’s population will hold
elections, as The Economist noted. More than 4 billion people live in the countries
that will be voting.

As I’ve seen over the past two years chronicling the world’s elections, patterns,
at times chilling, have emerged. Across every continent it has become all too easy
for electorates simply to reject long-standing liberal philosophies for shiny brass
promises held out by extremes – often from the populist far right.

And the prospects for dramatic change are only intensifying.

The momentous election year kicks off with Bangladesh in January. Already there
have been anti-government demonstrations sparked by the main opposition Bangladesh
Nationalist Party, whose top leaders are jailed or exiled. The BNP has threatened
to boycott the polls if Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina does not resign and hand power
to a caretaker government ahead of the general election. Hasina is likely to
continue her iron-fisted rule of 15 years.

In February, the world’s two most populous Muslim nations — Pakistan and Indonesia
– have elections within a week of each other. Pakistan will hold its first general
election since popular but divisive former Prime Minister Imran Khan was removed on
corruption charges. (He denies all wrongdoing). Though not a candidate, Khan is
still the driving force behind his political party.

Indonesia will hold the world’s largest single-day election shortly after —
featuring more than 200 million voters in the country and 1.75 million Indonesian
diaspora — though voters are unlikely to loosen the grips on power of wealthy
business and military elites.

This pool photograph distributed by Russia's state agency Sputnik shows Russian
President Vladimir Putin holding his year-end press conference at Gostiny Dvor
exhibition hall in central Moscow on December 14, 2023. (Photo by Alexander KAZAKOV
/ POOL / AFP) (Photo by ALEXANDER KAZAKOV/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Opinion: When it comes to US politics, Putin can read the writing on the wall
Elsewhere, South Africa will hold perhaps the most epiphanal election in Africa,
certainly in its troubled post-Nelson Mandela period. When South Africans went to
the polls in municipal elections two years ago, Mandela’s African National Congress
(ANC) party won fewer than 50% of the vote for the first time, with voters dismayed
by the disarray and corruption that have marked too much of its 30-year hold on
power. If that downward trend continues at the 2024 general election, it will be a
defining moment in South Africa’s political history.

Looking to Europe, there will be nine parliamentary elections, where one of the
biggest challenges for incoming governments will be finding coalition partners to
form majorities.

Keep an eye on Portugal’s snap election in March. It follows a corruption

investigation that forced out the country’s socialist prime minister after eight
years in office — and could herald a swing to the far-right Chega (Enough) party.
Equally, the right seems poised for big gains in Austria’s election, due by fall.

Also due by the end of January 2025 is the United Kingdom’s general election,
meaning we can expect to see British voters likely heading to the polls at the tail
end of 2024 — and could even see a return of the Labour Party to power after 14
fraught years of Conservative rule.

Turning to Latin America, Mexico is set to get its first woman president, as two
are on the ballot for the main parties in June’s elections, where drugs, crime and
migration to the US are at the top of the political agenda. Elsewhere, Venezuela’s
wildly unpredictable, nationalist leader Nicolas Maduro will seek a new mandate
with the stakes including a border battle with neighboring Guyana over oil rights.

But there are five especially dramatic contests worth spotlighting:

Taiwan on January 13: A new president at the center of US-China tensions

TAIPEI, TAIWAN - DECEMBER 03: DPP's presidential candidate, Lai Ching-te, gives a
speech during the Opening of Lai Ching-te's National and Taipei City Campaign
Headquarters on December 03, 2023 in Taipei, Taiwan. Presidential election hopeful,
Lai Ching-te, of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and his vice
presidential candidate, Hsiao Bi-khim, launch their national and Taipei City
campaign headquarters. Taiwan's presidential frontrunner, William Lai, who China
views as a separatist, leads opinion polls to be Taiwan's next president, which
could affect global geopolitics for years to come. Taiwan will head to the polls in
general elections on Jan. 13. (Photo by Annabelle Chih/Getty Images)
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP's) presidential candidate, Lai
Ching-te, gives a speech on December 3 in Taipei. At this stage, he is seen as the
front runner in the general election happening on January 13.
Annabelle Chih/Getty Images
The stakes are especially high in this time of heightened tension between Beijing
and Taipei as the United States continues to pledge a guarantee of Taiwan’s
democracy.

With three presidential candidates, narrow front-runner and ruling Democratic

Progressive Party (DPP) pick Lai Ching-te is anathema to China with his pledge to
continue the determined defense of the island’s sovereignty, set by incumbent
president Tsai Ing-wen. A close second, Hou Yu-Ih of the opposition Kuomintang
(KMT), wants to begin talking with Beijing. A distant third, Ko Wen-je of the
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and former mayor of Taipei, offers a middle ground
closer to conciliation.

If voters go with the status quo, expect Beijing to ratchet up the pressure. “A
choice between war and peace,” was the official Chinese response, after unity talks
between the opposition parties broke down in November.

Russia on March 17: Putin is leaving little to chance

Women walk near an electronic screen on the facade of a building showing an image
of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a quote from his annual end-of-year press
conference and the Direct Line question and answer session, in Moscow, Russia
December 14, 2023. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
An electronic screen in Moscow shows Russian President Vladimir Putin during his
annual end-of-year press conference on December 14. He is all but certain to remain
president following the national election on March 17.
Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
There’s little doubt about Vladimir Putin’s planned president-for-life status in
his fig-leaf re-election campaign. He’ll be 78 by the end of his term, passing
Soviet leader Josef Stalin as longest-serving Russian ruler since Catherine the
Great.

Putin is leaving little to chance. So far, he appears to have just one officially-
sanctioned opponent — Alexei Nechaev, a cosmetics businessman, who happens to be a
member of Putin’s own political coalition the All Russia Peoples Front.

There could well be chaos as there was across Russia in the 2018 presidential
contest, although hundreds of thousands of potentially anti-Putin voices have
fledabroad during the invasion of Ukraine.

With the very real possibility that this could be the Russian president’s final
election — given his age — an emboldened Putin could set his sights after the
election on an even broader and more destabilizing effort at reassembling a Soviet
empire. And the risk of a direct confrontation with NATO should hardly be excluded.

India in April and May: The world’s most populous nation at a crossroads
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi (C) speaks to media at the opening of the
budget session of Parliament in New Delhi on January 31, 2023. (Photo by Sajjad
HUSSAIN / AFP) (Photo by SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP via Getty Images)
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks at the opening of the budget session of
parliament in New Delhi on January 31. The huge country is set to hold an election
over several weeks in April and May.
Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images
Turning the world’s most populous nation from a vibrant democracy into a Hindu
nationalist state approaching a theocracy are the stakes for India in this
election, expected to be held over several weeks in April and May.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi devoted his first term to cementing an unyielding
Hindu nationalism. Out in the cold are the nation’s roughly 200 million Muslims and
28 million Christians. There are fears an anticipated Modi victory would allow him
to complete what he sees as a central element of his mission.

Next month, Modi will inaugurate a sprawling Hindu temple, rising on the ashes of
an old mosque site – a symbolic affirmation of dominance for Modi and all of
India’s Hindus.

How does the United States deal with such an individual — central to the developing
world and at the same time an important trading partner, a counterweight to
Pakistan and its lean toward Russia and China and a strategic bulwark against
unchecked Chinese expansion in the Pacific?

European Parliament from June 6 - 9: A major shift to the right?

TOPSHOT - EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gives her annual State of
the Union address during a plenary session at the European Parliament in
Strasbourg, eastern France, on September 13, 2023. (Photo by FREDERICK FLORIN /
AFP) (Photo by FREDERICK FLORIN/AFP via Getty Images)
European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gives her annual State of
the Union address at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, on September 13. Every
five years, EU citizens choose who represents them in the European Parliament, with
the next election happening in June.
Frederick Florin/AFP/Getty Images
June will be a critical moment for the future of Europe, as the European Parliament
holds its first election since Britain’s withdrawal; and one predicted to provoke
huge disarray.

The foundations of a potentially vast right-wing swing have been in the works for
years, certainly building throughout 2023. The right-wing European Conservatives
and Reformists (ECR) could even take over as the third-biggest group in the new
European Parliament.

Such a block of determined right-wingers and Eurosceptics could throw sand in the
gears of a host of moderate EU programs and backstop rightwing swings domestically
in leading powers like Germany and France.

On the line: further aid to Ukraine, sanctions on Russia (already the subject of
vetoes from Hungary and Slovakia), curbs on immigration, rollbacks on climate
controls, justice and the rule of law across the EU, and a shift on how Europe
deals with China.

United States on November 5: The Trump factor and beyond

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 15: Republican presidential candidate, former President
Donald Trump speaks at the Pray Vote Stand Summit at the Omni Shoreham Hotel on
September 15, 2023 in Washington, DC. The summit featured multiple 2024 Republican
Presidential candidates making their case to the conservative audience members.
(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks at the
Pray Vote Stand Summit on September 15 in Washington, DC.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Even if Donald Trump is not elected president, the balloting and campaign leading
to November 5 could shred the fabric of democracy in the United States. And if he
is elected, it could have ripple effects for large stretches of the world.

What would NATO look like in the event of a Trump withdrawal? Imagine the comfort
to those who would dismantle the alliance entirely.

Then there are all the dictators and would-be dictators that Trump has extended
warm words towards. On the campaign trail in New Hampshire on Saturday, Trump
quoted Putin in calling US President Joe Biden a “threat to democracy.” At the same
event, he praised North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Hungary’s hardline
nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

GET OUR FREE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

Sign up for CNN Opinion’s newsletter
Join us on Twitter and Facebook
How might these words translate into action in the event of a Trump presidency?
After all, he has already pledged to visit Argentina’s bombastic new radical-right
president, Javier Milei, who’s suggested replacing the peso with the US dollar,
while taking a chainsaw to bureaucracy and budgets.

Where the world will be a year from now will be determined by billions of voters
visiting or shunning ballot boxes with varying degrees of freedom and transparency
— and the politicians who will demonstrate to what degree they respect the choices
their people have made.

Hopefully they will consider carefully and vote wisely.

RELATED

MORE FROM CNN

2024: An election about everything

Russia’s Vladimir Putin says he will run for president again ...

How the impasse over Ukraine aid could have critical global ...
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Opinion: Brace yourself. The elections of 2024 could shock the world
Opinion by David A. Andelman
7 minute read
Published 4:24 AM EST, Mon December 18, 2023

20231213_opinion_electionstowatch24
Illustration by Leah Abucayan/CNN/Getty
Editor’s Note: David A. Andelman, a contributor to CNN, twice winner of the
Deadline Club Award, is a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, author of “A Red
Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still
Happen” and blogs at SubStack’s Andelman Unleashed. He formerly was a foreign
correspondent and bureau chief for The New York Times in Europe and Asia and for
CBS News in Paris. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more
opinion at CNN.

CNN
—
Voters have administered some profound shocks to the world’s stability this past
year — but nothing like what we can expect in 2024.
David Andelman
David A. Andelman
CNN
Next year, countries with more than half the world’s population will hold
elections, as The Economist noted. More than 4 billion people live in the countries
that will be voting.

As I’ve seen over the past two years chronicling the world’s elections, patterns,
at times chilling, have emerged. Across every continent it has become all too easy
for electorates simply to reject long-standing liberal philosophies for shiny brass
promises held out by extremes – often from the populist far right.

And the prospects for dramatic change are only intensifying.

The momentous election year kicks off with Bangladesh in January. Already there
have been anti-government demonstrations sparked by the main opposition Bangladesh
Nationalist Party, whose top leaders are jailed or exiled. The BNP has threatened
to boycott the polls if Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina does not resign and hand power
to a caretaker government ahead of the general election. Hasina is likely to
continue her iron-fisted rule of 15 years.

In February, the world’s two most populous Muslim nations — Pakistan and Indonesia
– have elections within a week of each other. Pakistan will hold its first general
election since popular but divisive former Prime Minister Imran Khan was removed on
corruption charges. (He denies all wrongdoing). Though not a candidate, Khan is
still the driving force behind his political party.

Indonesia will hold the world’s largest single-day election shortly after —
featuring more than 200 million voters in the country and 1.75 million Indonesian
diaspora — though voters are unlikely to loosen the grips on power of wealthy
business and military elites.

This pool photograph distributed by Russia's state agency Sputnik shows Russian
President Vladimir Putin holding his year-end press conference at Gostiny Dvor
exhibition hall in central Moscow on December 14, 2023. (Photo by Alexander KAZAKOV
/ POOL / AFP) (Photo by ALEXANDER KAZAKOV/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Opinion: When it comes to US politics, Putin can read the writing on the wall
Elsewhere, South Africa will hold perhaps the most epiphanal election in Africa,
certainly in its troubled post-Nelson Mandela period. When South Africans went to
the polls in municipal elections two years ago, Mandela’s African National Congress
(ANC) party won fewer than 50% of the vote for the first time, with voters dismayed
by the disarray and corruption that have marked too much of its 30-year hold on
power. If that downward trend continues at the 2024 general election, it will be a
defining moment in South Africa’s political history.

Looking to Europe, there will be nine parliamentary elections, where one of the
biggest challenges for incoming governments will be finding coalition partners to
form majorities.

Keep an eye on Portugal’s snap election in March. It follows a corruption

investigation that forced out the country’s socialist prime minister after eight
years in office — and could herald a swing to the far-right Chega (Enough) party.
Equally, the right seems poised for big gains in Austria’s election, due by fall.

Also due by the end of January 2025 is the United Kingdom’s general election,
meaning we can expect to see British voters likely heading to the polls at the tail
end of 2024 — and could even see a return of the Labour Party to power after 14
fraught years of Conservative rule.
Turning to Latin America, Mexico is set to get its first woman president, as two
are on the ballot for the main parties in June’s elections, where drugs, crime and
migration to the US are at the top of the political agenda. Elsewhere, Venezuela’s
wildly unpredictable, nationalist leader Nicolas Maduro will seek a new mandate
with the stakes including a border battle with neighboring Guyana over oil rights.

But there are five especially dramatic contests worth spotlighting:

Taiwan on January 13: A new president at the center of US-China tensions

TAIPEI, TAIWAN - DECEMBER 03: DPP's presidential candidate, Lai Ching-te, gives a
speech during the Opening of Lai Ching-te's National and Taipei City Campaign
Headquarters on December 03, 2023 in Taipei, Taiwan. Presidential election hopeful,
Lai Ching-te, of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and his vice
presidential candidate, Hsiao Bi-khim, launch their national and Taipei City
campaign headquarters. Taiwan's presidential frontrunner, William Lai, who China
views as a separatist, leads opinion polls to be Taiwan's next president, which
could affect global geopolitics for years to come. Taiwan will head to the polls in
general elections on Jan. 13. (Photo by Annabelle Chih/Getty Images)
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP's) presidential candidate, Lai
Ching-te, gives a speech on December 3 in Taipei. At this stage, he is seen as the
front runner in the general election happening on January 13.
Annabelle Chih/Getty Images
The stakes are especially high in this time of heightened tension between Beijing
and Taipei as the United States continues to pledge a guarantee of Taiwan’s
democracy.

With three presidential candidates, narrow front-runner and ruling Democratic

Progressive Party (DPP) pick Lai Ching-te is anathema to China with his pledge to
continue the determined defense of the island’s sovereignty, set by incumbent
president Tsai Ing-wen. A close second, Hou Yu-Ih of the opposition Kuomintang
(KMT), wants to begin talking with Beijing. A distant third, Ko Wen-je of the
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and former mayor of Taipei, offers a middle ground
closer to conciliation.

If voters go with the status quo, expect Beijing to ratchet up the pressure. “A
choice between war and peace,” was the official Chinese response, after unity talks
between the opposition parties broke down in November.

Russia on March 17: Putin is leaving little to chance

Women walk near an electronic screen on the facade of a building showing an image
of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a quote from his annual end-of-year press
conference and the Direct Line question and answer session, in Moscow, Russia
December 14, 2023. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
An electronic screen in Moscow shows Russian President Vladimir Putin during his
annual end-of-year press conference on December 14. He is all but certain to remain
president following the national election on March 17.
Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
There’s little doubt about Vladimir Putin’s planned president-for-life status in
his fig-leaf re-election campaign. He’ll be 78 by the end of his term, passing
Soviet leader Josef Stalin as longest-serving Russian ruler since Catherine the
Great.

Putin is leaving little to chance. So far, he appears to have just one officially-
sanctioned opponent — Alexei Nechaev, a cosmetics businessman, who happens to be a
member of Putin’s own political coalition the All Russia Peoples Front.

There could well be chaos as there was across Russia in the 2018 presidential
contest, although hundreds of thousands of potentially anti-Putin voices have
fledabroad during the invasion of Ukraine.

With the very real possibility that this could be the Russian president’s final
election — given his age — an emboldened Putin could set his sights after the
election on an even broader and more destabilizing effort at reassembling a Soviet
empire. And the risk of a direct confrontation with NATO should hardly be excluded.

India in April and May: The world’s most populous nation at a crossroads
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi (C) speaks to media at the opening of the
budget session of Parliament in New Delhi on January 31, 2023. (Photo by Sajjad
HUSSAIN / AFP) (Photo by SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP via Getty Images)
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks at the opening of the budget session of
parliament in New Delhi on January 31. The huge country is set to hold an election
over several weeks in April and May.
Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images
Turning the world’s most populous nation from a vibrant democracy into a Hindu
nationalist state approaching a theocracy are the stakes for India in this
election, expected to be held over several weeks in April and May.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi devoted his first term to cementing an unyielding
Hindu nationalism. Out in the cold are the nation’s roughly 200 million Muslims and
28 million Christians. There are fears an anticipated Modi victory would allow him
to complete what he sees as a central element of his mission.

Next month, Modi will inaugurate a sprawling Hindu temple, rising on the ashes of
an old mosque site – a symbolic affirmation of dominance for Modi and all of
India’s Hindus.

How does the United States deal with such an individual — central to the developing
world and at the same time an important trading partner, a counterweight to
Pakistan and its lean toward Russia and China and a strategic bulwark against
unchecked Chinese expansion in the Pacific?

European Parliament from June 6 - 9: A major shift to the right?

TOPSHOT - EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gives her annual State of
the Union address during a plenary session at the European Parliament in
Strasbourg, eastern France, on September 13, 2023. (Photo by FREDERICK FLORIN /
AFP) (Photo by FREDERICK FLORIN/AFP via Getty Images)
European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gives her annual State of
the Union address at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, on September 13. Every
five years, EU citizens choose who represents them in the European Parliament, with
the next election happening in June.
Frederick Florin/AFP/Getty Images
June will be a critical moment for the future of Europe, as the European Parliament
holds its first election since Britain’s withdrawal; and one predicted to provoke
huge disarray.

The foundations of a potentially vast right-wing swing have been in the works for
years, certainly building throughout 2023. The right-wing European Conservatives
and Reformists (ECR) could even take over as the third-biggest group in the new
European Parliament.

Such a block of determined right-wingers and Eurosceptics could throw sand in the
gears of a host of moderate EU programs and backstop rightwing swings domestically
in leading powers like Germany and France.

On the line: further aid to Ukraine, sanctions on Russia (already the subject of
vetoes from Hungary and Slovakia), curbs on immigration, rollbacks on climate
controls, justice and the rule of law across the EU, and a shift on how Europe
deals with China.

United States on November 5: The Trump factor and beyond

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 15: Republican presidential candidate, former President
Donald Trump speaks at the Pray Vote Stand Summit at the Omni Shoreham Hotel on
September 15, 2023 in Washington, DC. The summit featured multiple 2024 Republican
Presidential candidates making their case to the conservative audience members.
(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks at the
Pray Vote Stand Summit on September 15 in Washington, DC.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Even if Donald Trump is not elected president, the balloting and campaign leading
to November 5 could shred the fabric of democracy in the United States. And if he
is elected, it could have ripple effects for large stretches of the world.

What would NATO look like in the event of a Trump withdrawal? Imagine the comfort
to those who would dismantle the alliance entirely.

Then there are all the dictators and would-be dictators that Trump has extended
warm words towards. On the campaign trail in New Hampshire on Saturday, Trump
quoted Putin in calling US President Joe Biden a “threat to democracy.” At the same
event, he praised North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Hungary’s hardline
nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

GET OUR FREE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

Sign up for CNN Opinion’s newsletter
Join us on Twitter and Facebook
How might these words translate into action in the event of a Trump presidency?
After all, he has already pledged to visit Argentina’s bombastic new radical-right
president, Javier Milei, who’s suggested replacing the peso with the US dollar,
while taking a chainsaw to bureaucracy and budgets.

Where the world will be a year from now will be determined by billions of voters
visiting or shunning ballot boxes with varying degrees of freedom and transparency
— and the politicians who will demonstrate to what degree they respect the choices
their people have made.

Hopefully they will consider carefully and vote wisely.

RELATED

MORE FROM CNN

2024: An election about everything

Russia’s Vladimir Putin says he will run for president again ...

How the impasse over Ukraine aid could have critical global ...
Search CNN...

Search
World
Africa
Americas
Asia
Australia
China
Europe
India
Middle East
United Kingdom
US Politics
The Biden Presidency
Facts First
2024 Elections
Business
Markets
Tech
Media
Calculators
Videos
Health
Life, But Better
Fitness
Food
Sleep
Mindfulness
Relationships
Entertainment
Movies
Television
Celebrity
Tech
Innovate
Gadget
Foreseeable Future
Mission: Ahead
Upstarts
Work Transformed
Innovative Cities
Style
Arts
Design
Fashion
Architecture
Luxury
Beauty
Video
Travel
Destinations
Food & Drink
Stay
News
Videos
Sports
Football
Tennis
Golf
Motorsport
US Sports
Olympics
Climbing
Esports
Hockey
Watch
Live TV
Digital Studios
CNN Films
HLN
TV Schedule
TV Shows A-Z
CNNVR
Features
As Equals
Call to Earth
Freedom Project
Impact Your World
Inside Africa
2 Degrees
CNN Heroes
All Features
Weather
Climate
Wildfire Tracker
Video
More
Photos
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Investigations
CNN Profiles
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Work for CNN
Opinion
Watch
Listen
Live TV
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Log In
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About
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Transcripts
© 2023 Cable News Network. A Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All Rights Reserved.
CNN Sans ™ & © 2016 Cable News Network.Opinion
Political Op-Eds
Social Commentary
Watch
Audio
Live TV

Log In
Opinion: Brace yourself. The elections of 2024 could shock the world
Opinion by David A. Andelman
7 minute read
Published 4:24 AM EST, Mon December 18, 2023

20231213_opinion_electionstowatch24
Illustration by Leah Abucayan/CNN/Getty
Editor’s Note: David A. Andelman, a contributor to CNN, twice winner of the
Deadline Club Award, is a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, author of “A Red
Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still
Happen” and blogs at SubStack’s Andelman Unleashed. He formerly was a foreign
correspondent and bureau chief for The New York Times in Europe and Asia and for
CBS News in Paris. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more
opinion at CNN.

CNN
—
Voters have administered some profound shocks to the world’s stability this past
year — but nothing like what we can expect in 2024.

David Andelman
David A. Andelman
CNN
Next year, countries with more than half the world’s population will hold
elections, as The Economist noted. More than 4 billion people live in the countries
that will be voting.

As I’ve seen over the past two years chronicling the world’s elections, patterns,
at times chilling, have emerged. Across every continent it has become all too easy
for electorates simply to reject long-standing liberal philosophies for shiny brass
promises held out by extremes – often from the populist far right.

And the prospects for dramatic change are only intensifying.

The momentous election year kicks off with Bangladesh in January. Already there
have been anti-government demonstrations sparked by the main opposition Bangladesh
Nationalist Party, whose top leaders are jailed or exiled. The BNP has threatened
to boycott the polls if Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina does not resign and hand power
to a caretaker government ahead of the general election. Hasina is likely to
continue her iron-fisted rule of 15 years.

In February, the world’s two most populous Muslim nations — Pakistan and Indonesia
– have elections within a week of each other. Pakistan will hold its first general
election since popular but divisive former Prime Minister Imran Khan was removed on
corruption charges. (He denies all wrongdoing). Though not a candidate, Khan is
still the driving force behind his political party.

Indonesia will hold the world’s largest single-day election shortly after —
featuring more than 200 million voters in the country and 1.75 million Indonesian
diaspora — though voters are unlikely to loosen the grips on power of wealthy
business and military elites.

This pool photograph distributed by Russia's state agency Sputnik shows Russian
President Vladimir Putin holding his year-end press conference at Gostiny Dvor
exhibition hall in central Moscow on December 14, 2023. (Photo by Alexander KAZAKOV
/ POOL / AFP) (Photo by ALEXANDER KAZAKOV/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Opinion: When it comes to US politics, Putin can read the writing on the wall
Elsewhere, South Africa will hold perhaps the most epiphanal election in Africa,
certainly in its troubled post-Nelson Mandela period. When South Africans went to
the polls in municipal elections two years ago, Mandela’s African National Congress
(ANC) party won fewer than 50% of the vote for the first time, with voters dismayed
by the disarray and corruption that have marked too much of its 30-year hold on
power. If that downward trend continues at the 2024 general election, it will be a
defining moment in South Africa’s political history.

Looking to Europe, there will be nine parliamentary elections, where one of the
biggest challenges for incoming governments will be finding coalition partners to
form majorities.
Keep an eye on Portugal’s snap election in March. It follows a corruption
investigation that forced out the country’s socialist prime minister after eight
years in office — and could herald a swing to the far-right Chega (Enough) party.
Equally, the right seems poised for big gains in Austria’s election, due by fall.

Also due by the end of January 2025 is the United Kingdom’s general election,
meaning we can expect to see British voters likely heading to the polls at the tail
end of 2024 — and could even see a return of the Labour Party to power after 14
fraught years of Conservative rule.

Turning to Latin America, Mexico is set to get its first woman president, as two
are on the ballot for the main parties in June’s elections, where drugs, crime and
migration to the US are at the top of the political agenda. Elsewhere, Venezuela’s
wildly unpredictable, nationalist leader Nicolas Maduro will seek a new mandate
with the stakes including a border battle with neighboring Guyana over oil rights.

But there are five especially dramatic contests worth spotlighting:

Taiwan on January 13: A new president at the center of US-China tensions

TAIPEI, TAIWAN - DECEMBER 03: DPP's presidential candidate, Lai Ching-te, gives a
speech during the Opening of Lai Ching-te's National and Taipei City Campaign
Headquarters on December 03, 2023 in Taipei, Taiwan. Presidential election hopeful,
Lai Ching-te, of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and his vice
presidential candidate, Hsiao Bi-khim, launch their national and Taipei City
campaign headquarters. Taiwan's presidential frontrunner, William Lai, who China
views as a separatist, leads opinion polls to be Taiwan's next president, which
could affect global geopolitics for years to come. Taiwan will head to the polls in
general elections on Jan. 13. (Photo by Annabelle Chih/Getty Images)
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP's) presidential candidate, Lai
Ching-te, gives a speech on December 3 in Taipei. At this stage, he is seen as the
front runner in the general election happening on January 13.
Annabelle Chih/Getty Images
The stakes are especially high in this time of heightened tension between Beijing
and Taipei as the United States continues to pledge a guarantee of Taiwan’s
democracy.

With three presidential candidates, narrow front-runner and ruling Democratic

Progressive Party (DPP) pick Lai Ching-te is anathema to China with his pledge to
continue the determined defense of the island’s sovereignty, set by incumbent
president Tsai Ing-wen. A close second, Hou Yu-Ih of the opposition Kuomintang
(KMT), wants to begin talking with Beijing. A distant third, Ko Wen-je of the
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and former mayor of Taipei, offers a middle ground
closer to conciliation.

If voters go with the status quo, expect Beijing to ratchet up the pressure. “A
choice between war and peace,” was the official Chinese response, after unity talks
between the opposition parties broke down in November.

Russia on March 17: Putin is leaving little to chance

Women walk near an electronic screen on the facade of a building showing an image
of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a quote from his annual end-of-year press
conference and the Direct Line question and answer session, in Moscow, Russia
December 14, 2023. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
An electronic screen in Moscow shows Russian President Vladimir Putin during his
annual end-of-year press conference on December 14. He is all but certain to remain
president following the national election on March 17.
Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
There’s little doubt about Vladimir Putin’s planned president-for-life status in
his fig-leaf re-election campaign. He’ll be 78 by the end of his term, passing
Soviet leader Josef Stalin as longest-serving Russian ruler since Catherine the
Great.

Putin is leaving little to chance. So far, he appears to have just one officially-
sanctioned opponent — Alexei Nechaev, a cosmetics businessman, who happens to be a
member of Putin’s own political coalition the All Russia Peoples Front.

There could well be chaos as there was across Russia in the 2018 presidential
contest, although hundreds of thousands of potentially anti-Putin voices have
fledabroad during the invasion of Ukraine.

With the very real possibility that this could be the Russian president’s final
election — given his age — an emboldened Putin could set his sights after the
election on an even broader and more destabilizing effort at reassembling a Soviet
empire. And the risk of a direct confrontation with NATO should hardly be excluded.

India in April and May: The world’s most populous nation at a crossroads
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi (C) speaks to media at the opening of the
budget session of Parliament in New Delhi on January 31, 2023. (Photo by Sajjad
HUSSAIN / AFP) (Photo by SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP via Getty Images)
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks at the opening of the budget session of
parliament in New Delhi on January 31. The huge country is set to hold an election
over several weeks in April and May.
Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images
Turning the world’s most populous nation from a vibrant democracy into a Hindu
nationalist state approaching a theocracy are the stakes for India in this
election, expected to be held over several weeks in April and May.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi devoted his first term to cementing an unyielding
Hindu nationalism. Out in the cold are the nation’s roughly 200 million Muslims and
28 million Christians. There are fears an anticipated Modi victory would allow him
to complete what he sees as a central element of his mission.

Next month, Modi will inaugurate a sprawling Hindu temple, rising on the ashes of
an old mosque site – a symbolic affirmation of dominance for Modi and all of
India’s Hindus.

How does the United States deal with such an individual — central to the developing
world and at the same time an important trading partner, a counterweight to
Pakistan and its lean toward Russia and China and a strategic bulwark against
unchecked Chinese expansion in the Pacific?

European Parliament from June 6 - 9: A major shift to the right?

TOPSHOT - EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gives her annual State of
the Union address during a plenary session at the European Parliament in
Strasbourg, eastern France, on September 13, 2023. (Photo by FREDERICK FLORIN /
AFP) (Photo by FREDERICK FLORIN/AFP via Getty Images)
European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gives her annual State of
the Union address at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, on September 13. Every
five years, EU citizens choose who represents them in the European Parliament, with
the next election happening in June.
Frederick Florin/AFP/Getty Images
June will be a critical moment for the future of Europe, as the European Parliament
holds its first election since Britain’s withdrawal; and one predicted to provoke
huge disarray.

The foundations of a potentially vast right-wing swing have been in the works for
years, certainly building throughout 2023. The right-wing European Conservatives
and Reformists (ECR) could even take over as the third-biggest group in the new
European Parliament.

Such a block of determined right-wingers and Eurosceptics could throw sand in the
gears of a host of moderate EU programs and backstop rightwing swings domestically
in leading powers like Germany and France.

On the line: further aid to Ukraine, sanctions on Russia (already the subject of
vetoes from Hungary and Slovakia), curbs on immigration, rollbacks on climate
controls, justice and the rule of law across the EU, and a shift on how Europe
deals with China.

United States on November 5: The Trump factor and beyond

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 15: Republican presidential candidate, former President
Donald Trump speaks at the Pray Vote Stand Summit at the Omni Shoreham Hotel on
September 15, 2023 in Washington, DC. The summit featured multiple 2024 Republican
Presidential candidates making their case to the conservative audience members.
(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks at the
Pray Vote Stand Summit on September 15 in Washington, DC.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Even if Donald Trump is not elected president, the balloting and campaign leading
to November 5 could shred the fabric of democracy in the United States. And if he
is elected, it could have ripple effects for large stretches of the world.

What would NATO look like in the event of a Trump withdrawal? Imagine the comfort
to those who would dismantle the alliance entirely.

Then there are all the dictators and would-be dictators that Trump has extended
warm words towards. On the campaign trail in New Hampshire on Saturday, Trump
quoted Putin in calling US President Joe Biden a “threat to democracy.” At the same
event, he praised North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Hungary’s hardline
nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

GET OUR FREE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

Sign up for CNN Opinion’s newsletter
Join us on Twitter and Facebook
How might these words translate into action in the event of a Trump presidency?
After all, he has already pledged to visit Argentina’s bombastic new radical-right
president, Javier Milei, who’s suggested replacing the peso with the US dollar,
while taking a chainsaw to bureaucracy and budgets.

Where the world will be a year from now will be determined by billions of voters
visiting or shunning ballot boxes with varying degrees of freedom and transparency
— and the politicians who will demonstrate to what degree they respect the choices
their people have made.

Hopefully they will consider carefully and vote wisely.

RELATED

MORE FROM CNN

2024: An election about everything

Russia’s Vladimir Putin says he will run for president again ...

How the impasse over Ukraine aid could have critical global ...
Search CNN...
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Opinion: Brace yourself. The elections of 2024 could shock the world
Opinion by David A. Andelman
7 minute read
Published 4:24 AM EST, Mon December 18, 2023

20231213_opinion_electionstowatch24
Illustration by Leah Abucayan/CNN/Getty
Editor’s Note: David A. Andelman, a contributor to CNN, twice winner of the
Deadline Club Award, is a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, author of “A Red
Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still
Happen” and blogs at SubStack’s Andelman Unleashed. He formerly was a foreign
correspondent and bureau chief for The New York Times in Europe and Asia and for
CBS News in Paris. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more
opinion at CNN.

CNN
—
Voters have administered some profound shocks to the world’s stability this past
year — but nothing like what we can expect in 2024.

David Andelman
David A. Andelman
CNN
Next year, countries with more than half the world’s population will hold
elections, as The Economist noted. More than 4 billion people live in the countries
that will be voting.

As I’ve seen over the past two years chronicling the world’s elections, patterns,
at times chilling, have emerged. Across every continent it has become all too easy
for electorates simply to reject long-standing liberal philosophies for shiny brass
promises held out by extremes – often from the populist far right.

And the prospects for dramatic change are only intensifying.

The momentous election year kicks off with Bangladesh in January. Already there
have been anti-government demonstrations sparked by the main opposition Bangladesh
Nationalist Party, whose top leaders are jailed or exiled. The BNP has threatened
to boycott the polls if Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina does not resign and hand power
to a caretaker government ahead of the general election. Hasina is likely to
continue her iron-fisted rule of 15 years.

In February, the world’s two most populous Muslim nations — Pakistan and Indonesia
– have elections within a week of each other. Pakistan will hold its first general
election since popular but divisive former Prime Minister Imran Khan was removed on
corruption charges. (He denies all wrongdoing). Though not a candidate, Khan is
still the driving force behind his political party.

Indonesia will hold the world’s largest single-day election shortly after —
featuring more than 200 million voters in the country and 1.75 million Indonesian
diaspora — though voters are unlikely to loosen the grips on power of wealthy
business and military elites.

This pool photograph distributed by Russia's state agency Sputnik shows Russian
President Vladimir Putin holding his year-end press conference at Gostiny Dvor
exhibition hall in central Moscow on December 14, 2023. (Photo by Alexander KAZAKOV
/ POOL / AFP) (Photo by ALEXANDER KAZAKOV/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Opinion: When it comes to US politics, Putin can read the writing on the wall
Elsewhere, South Africa will hold perhaps the most epiphanal election in Africa,
certainly in its troubled post-Nelson Mandela period. When South Africans went to
the polls in municipal elections two years ago, Mandela’s African National Congress
(ANC) party won fewer than 50% of the vote for the first time, with voters dismayed
by the disarray and corruption that have marked too much of its 30-year hold on
power. If that downward trend continues at the 2024 general election, it will be a
defining moment in South Africa’s political history.

Looking to Europe, there will be nine parliamentary elections, where one of the
biggest challenges for incoming governments will be finding coalition partners to
form majorities.

Keep an eye on Portugal’s snap election in March. It follows a corruption

investigation that forced out the country’s socialist prime minister after eight
years in office — and could herald a swing to the far-right Chega (Enough) party.
Equally, the right seems poised for big gains in Austria’s election, due by fall.

Also due by the end of January 2025 is the United Kingdom’s general election,
meaning we can expect to see British voters likely heading to the polls at the tail
end of 2024 — and could even see a return of the Labour Party to power after 14
fraught years of Conservative rule.

Turning to Latin America, Mexico is set to get its first woman president, as two
are on the ballot for the main parties in June’s elections, where drugs, crime and
migration to the US are at the top of the political agenda. Elsewhere, Venezuela’s
wildly unpredictable, nationalist leader Nicolas Maduro will seek a new mandate
with the stakes including a border battle with neighboring Guyana over oil rights.

But there are five especially dramatic contests worth spotlighting:

Taiwan on January 13: A new president at the center of US-China tensions

TAIPEI, TAIWAN - DECEMBER 03: DPP's presidential candidate, Lai Ching-te, gives a
speech during the Opening of Lai Ching-te's National and Taipei City Campaign
Headquarters on December 03, 2023 in Taipei, Taiwan. Presidential election hopeful,
Lai Ching-te, of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and his vice
presidential candidate, Hsiao Bi-khim, launch their national and Taipei City
campaign headquarters. Taiwan's presidential frontrunner, William Lai, who China
views as a separatist, leads opinion polls to be Taiwan's next president, which
could affect global geopolitics for years to come. Taiwan will head to the polls in
general elections on Jan. 13. (Photo by Annabelle Chih/Getty Images)
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP's) presidential candidate, Lai
Ching-te, gives a speech on December 3 in Taipei. At this stage, he is seen as the
front runner in the general election happening on January 13.
Annabelle Chih/Getty Images
The stakes are especially high in this time of heightened tension between Beijing
and Taipei as the United States continues to pledge a guarantee of Taiwan’s
democracy.

With three presidential candidates, narrow front-runner and ruling Democratic

Progressive Party (DPP) pick Lai Ching-te is anathema to China with his pledge to
continue the determined defense of the island’s sovereignty, set by incumbent
president Tsai Ing-wen. A close second, Hou Yu-Ih of the opposition Kuomintang
(KMT), wants to begin talking with Beijing. A distant third, Ko Wen-je of the
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and former mayor of Taipei, offers a middle ground
closer to conciliation.

If voters go with the status quo, expect Beijing to ratchet up the pressure. “A
choice between war and peace,” was the official Chinese response, after unity talks
between the opposition parties broke down in November.

Russia on March 17: Putin is leaving little to chance

Women walk near an electronic screen on the facade of a building showing an image
of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a quote from his annual end-of-year press
conference and the Direct Line question and answer session, in Moscow, Russia
December 14, 2023. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
An electronic screen in Moscow shows Russian President Vladimir Putin during his
annual end-of-year press conference on December 14. He is all but certain to remain
president following the national election on March 17.
Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
There’s little doubt about Vladimir Putin’s planned president-for-life status in
his fig-leaf re-election campaign. He’ll be 78 by the end of his term, passing
Soviet leader Josef Stalin as longest-serving Russian ruler since Catherine the
Great.

Putin is leaving little to chance. So far, he appears to have just one officially-
sanctioned opponent — Alexei Nechaev, a cosmetics businessman, who happens to be a
member of Putin’s own political coalition the All Russia Peoples Front.

There could well be chaos as there was across Russia in the 2018 presidential
contest, although hundreds of thousands of potentially anti-Putin voices have
fledabroad during the invasion of Ukraine.

With the very real possibility that this could be the Russian president’s final
election — given his age — an emboldened Putin could set his sights after the
election on an even broader and more destabilizing effort at reassembling a Soviet
empire. And the risk of a direct confrontation with NATO should hardly be excluded.

India in April and May: The world’s most populous nation at a crossroads
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi (C) speaks to media at the opening of the
budget session of Parliament in New Delhi on January 31, 2023. (Photo by Sajjad
HUSSAIN / AFP) (Photo by SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP via Getty Images)
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks at the opening of the budget session of
parliament in New Delhi on January 31. The huge country is set to hold an election
over several weeks in April and May.
Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images
Turning the world’s most populous nation from a vibrant democracy into a Hindu
nationalist state approaching a theocracy are the stakes for India in this
election, expected to be held over several weeks in April and May.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi devoted his first term to cementing an unyielding
Hindu nationalism. Out in the cold are the nation’s roughly 200 million Muslims and
28 million Christians. There are fears an anticipated Modi victory would allow him
to complete what he sees as a central element of his mission.

Next month, Modi will inaugurate a sprawling Hindu temple, rising on the ashes of
an old mosque site – a symbolic affirmation of dominance for Modi and all of
India’s Hindus.

How does the United States deal with such an individual — central to the developing
world and at the same time an important trading partner, a counterweight to
Pakistan and its lean toward Russia and China and a strategic bulwark against
unchecked Chinese expansion in the Pacific?

European Parliament from June 6 - 9: A major shift to the right?

TOPSHOT - EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gives her annual State of
the Union address during a plenary session at the European Parliament in
Strasbourg, eastern France, on September 13, 2023. (Photo by FREDERICK FLORIN /
AFP) (Photo by FREDERICK FLORIN/AFP via Getty Images)
European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gives her annual State of
the Union address at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, on September 13. Every
five years, EU citizens choose who represents them in the European Parliament, with
the next election happening in June.
Frederick Florin/AFP/Getty Images
June will be a critical moment for the future of Europe, as the European Parliament
holds its first election since Britain’s withdrawal; and one predicted to provoke
huge disarray.

The foundations of a potentially vast right-wing swing have been in the works for
years, certainly building throughout 2023. The right-wing European Conservatives
and Reformists (ECR) could even take over as the third-biggest group in the new
European Parliament.

Such a block of determined right-wingers and Eurosceptics could throw sand in the
gears of a host of moderate EU programs and backstop rightwing swings domestically
in leading powers like Germany and France.

On the line: further aid to Ukraine, sanctions on Russia (already the subject of
vetoes from Hungary and Slovakia), curbs on immigration, rollbacks on climate
controls, justice and the rule of law across the EU, and a shift on how Europe
deals with China.

United States on November 5: The Trump factor and beyond

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 15: Republican presidential candidate, former President
Donald Trump speaks at the Pray Vote Stand Summit at the Omni Shoreham Hotel on
September 15, 2023 in Washington, DC. The summit featured multiple 2024 Republican
Presidential candidates making their case to the conservative audience members.
(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks at the
Pray Vote Stand Summit on September 15 in Washington, DC.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Even if Donald Trump is not elected president, the balloting and campaign leading
to November 5 could shred the fabric of democracy in the United States. And if he
is elected, it could have ripple effects for large stretches of the world.

What would NATO look like in the event of a Trump withdrawal? Imagine the comfort
to those who would dismantle the alliance entirely.

Then there are all the dictators and would-be dictators that Trump has extended
warm words towards. On the campaign trail in New Hampshire on Saturday, Trump
quoted Putin in calling US President Joe Biden a “threat to democracy.” At the same
event, he praised North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Hungary’s hardline
nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

GET OUR FREE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

Sign up for CNN Opinion’s newsletter
Join us on Twitter and Facebook
How might these words translate into action in the event of a Trump presidency?
After all, he has already pledged to visit Argentina’s bombastic new radical-right
president, Javier Milei, who’s suggested replacing the peso with the US dollar,
while taking a chainsaw to bureaucracy and budgets.

Where the world will be a year from now will be determined by billions of voters
visiting or shunning ballot boxes with varying degrees of freedom and transparency
— and the politicians who will demonstrate to what degree they respect the choices
their people have made.

Hopefully they will consider carefully and vote wisely.

RELATED

MORE FROM CNN

2024: An election about everything

Russia’s Vladimir Putin says he will run for president again ...

How the impasse over Ukraine aid could have critical global ...
Search CNN...

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Opinion: Brace yourself. The elections of 2024 could shock the world
Opinion by David A. Andelman
7 minute read
Published 4:24 AM EST, Mon December 18, 2023

20231213_opinion_electionstowatch24
Illustration by Leah Abucayan/CNN/Getty
Editor’s Note: David A. Andelman, a contributor to CNN, twice winner of the
Deadline Club Award, is a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, author of “A Red
Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still
Happen” and blogs at SubStack’s Andelman Unleashed. He formerly was a foreign
correspondent and bureau chief for The New York Times in Europe and Asia and for
CBS News in Paris. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more
opinion at CNN.

CNN
—
Voters have administered some profound shocks to the world’s stability this past
year — but nothing like what we can expect in 2024.
David Andelman
David A. Andelman
CNN
Next year, countries with more than half the world’s population will hold
elections, as The Economist noted. More than 4 billion people live in the countries
that will be voting.

As I’ve seen over the past two years chronicling the world’s elections, patterns,
at times chilling, have emerged. Across every continent it has become all too easy
for electorates simply to reject long-standing liberal philosophies for shiny brass
promises held out by extremes – often from the populist far right.

And the prospects for dramatic change are only intensifying.

The momentous election year kicks off with Bangladesh in January. Already there
have been anti-government demonstrations sparked by the main opposition Bangladesh
Nationalist Party, whose top leaders are jailed or exiled. The BNP has threatened
to boycott the polls if Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina does not resign and hand power
to a caretaker government ahead of the general election. Hasina is likely to
continue her iron-fisted rule of 15 years.

In February, the world’s two most populous Muslim nations — Pakistan and Indonesia
– have elections within a week of each other. Pakistan will hold its first general
election since popular but divisive former Prime Minister Imran Khan was removed on
corruption charges. (He denies all wrongdoing). Though not a candidate, Khan is
still the driving force behind his political party.

Indonesia will hold the world’s largest single-day election shortly after —
featuring more than 200 million voters in the country and 1.75 million Indonesian
diaspora — though voters are unlikely to loosen the grips on power of wealthy
business and military elites.

This pool photograph distributed by Russia's state agency Sputnik shows Russian
President Vladimir Putin holding his year-end press conference at Gostiny Dvor
exhibition hall in central Moscow on December 14, 2023. (Photo by Alexander KAZAKOV
/ POOL / AFP) (Photo by ALEXANDER KAZAKOV/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Opinion: When it comes to US politics, Putin can read the writing on the wall
Elsewhere, South Africa will hold perhaps the most epiphanal election in Africa,
certainly in its troubled post-Nelson Mandela period. When South Africans went to
the polls in municipal elections two years ago, Mandela’s African National Congress
(ANC) party won fewer than 50% of the vote for the first time, with voters dismayed
by the disarray and corruption that have marked too much of its 30-year hold on
power. If that downward trend continues at the 2024 general election, it will be a
defining moment in South Africa’s political history.

Looking to Europe, there will be nine parliamentary elections, where one of the
biggest challenges for incoming governments will be finding coalition partners to
form majorities.

Keep an eye on Portugal’s snap election in March. It follows a corruption

investigation that forced out the country’s socialist prime minister after eight
years in office — and could herald a swing to the far-right Chega (Enough) party.
Equally, the right seems poised for big gains in Austria’s election, due by fall.

Also due by the end of January 2025 is the United Kingdom’s general election,
meaning we can expect to see British voters likely heading to the polls at the tail
end of 2024 — and could even see a return of the Labour Party to power after 14
fraught years of Conservative rule.
Turning to Latin America, Mexico is set to get its first woman president, as two
are on the ballot for the main parties in June’s elections, where drugs, crime and
migration to the US are at the top of the political agenda. Elsewhere, Venezuela’s
wildly unpredictable, nationalist leader Nicolas Maduro will seek a new mandate
with the stakes including a border battle with neighboring Guyana over oil rights.

But there are five especially dramatic contests worth spotlighting:

Taiwan on January 13: A new president at the center of US-China tensions

TAIPEI, TAIWAN - DECEMBER 03: DPP's presidential candidate, Lai Ching-te, gives a
speech during the Opening of Lai Ching-te's National and Taipei City Campaign
Headquarters on December 03, 2023 in Taipei, Taiwan. Presidential election hopeful,
Lai Ching-te, of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and his vice
presidential candidate, Hsiao Bi-khim, launch their national and Taipei City
campaign headquarters. Taiwan's presidential frontrunner, William Lai, who China
views as a separatist, leads opinion polls to be Taiwan's next president, which
could affect global geopolitics for years to come. Taiwan will head to the polls in
general elections on Jan. 13. (Photo by Annabelle Chih/Getty Images)
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP's) presidential candidate, Lai
Ching-te, gives a speech on December 3 in Taipei. At this stage, he is seen as the
front runner in the general election happening on January 13.
Annabelle Chih/Getty Images
The stakes are especially high in this time of heightened tension between Beijing
and Taipei as the United States continues to pledge a guarantee of Taiwan’s
democracy.

With three presidential candidates, narrow front-runner and ruling Democratic

Progressive Party (DPP) pick Lai Ching-te is anathema to China with his pledge to
continue the determined defense of the island’s sovereignty, set by incumbent
president Tsai Ing-wen. A close second, Hou Yu-Ih of the opposition Kuomintang
(KMT), wants to begin talking with Beijing. A distant third, Ko Wen-je of the
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and former mayor of Taipei, offers a middle ground
closer to conciliation.

If voters go with the status quo, expect Beijing to ratchet up the pressure. “A
choice between war and peace,” was the official Chinese response, after unity talks
between the opposition parties broke down in November.

Russia on March 17: Putin is leaving little to chance

Women walk near an electronic screen on the facade of a building showing an image
of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a quote from his annual end-of-year press
conference and the Direct Line question and answer session, in Moscow, Russia
December 14, 2023. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
An electronic screen in Moscow shows Russian President Vladimir Putin during his
annual end-of-year press conference on December 14. He is all but certain to remain
president following the national election on March 17.
Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
There’s little doubt about Vladimir Putin’s planned president-for-life status in
his fig-leaf re-election campaign. He’ll be 78 by the end of his term, passing
Soviet leader Josef Stalin as longest-serving Russian ruler since Catherine the
Great.

Putin is leaving little to chance. So far, he appears to have just one officially-
sanctioned opponent — Alexei Nechaev, a cosmetics businessman, who happens to be a
member of Putin’s own political coalition the All Russia Peoples Front.

There could well be chaos as there was across Russia in the 2018 presidential
contest, although hundreds of thousands of potentially anti-Putin voices have
fledabroad during the invasion of Ukraine.
With the very real possibility that this could be the Russian president’s final
election — given his age — an emboldened Putin could set his sights after the
election on an even broader and more destabilizing effort at reassembling a Soviet
empire. And the risk of a direct confrontation with NATO should hardly be excluded.

India in April and May: The world’s most populous nation at a crossroads
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi (C) speaks to media at the opening of the
budget session of Parliament in New Delhi on January 31, 2023. (Photo by Sajjad
HUSSAIN / AFP) (Photo by SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP via Getty Images)
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks at the opening of the budget session of
parliament in New Delhi on January 31. The huge country is set to hold an election
over several weeks in April and May.
Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images
Turning the world’s most populous nation from a vibrant democracy into a Hindu
nationalist state approaching a theocracy are the stakes for India in this
election, expected to be held over several weeks in April and May.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi devoted his first term to cementing an unyielding
Hindu nationalism. Out in the cold are the nation’s roughly 200 million Muslims and
28 million Christians. There are fears an anticipated Modi victory would allow him
to complete what he sees as a central element of his mission.

Next month, Modi will inaugurate a sprawling Hindu temple, rising on the ashes of
an old mosque site – a symbolic affirmation of dominance for Modi and all of
India’s Hindus.

How does the United States deal with such an individual — central to the developing
world and at the same time an important trading partner, a counterweight to
Pakistan and its lean toward Russia and China and a strategic bulwark against
unchecked Chinese expansion in the Pacific?

European Parliament from June 6 - 9: A major shift to the right?

TOPSHOT - EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gives her annual State of
the Union address during a plenary session at the European Parliament in
Strasbourg, eastern France, on September 13, 2023. (Photo by FREDERICK FLORIN /
AFP) (Photo by FREDERICK FLORIN/AFP via Getty Images)
European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gives her annual State of
the Union address at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, on September 13. Every
five years, EU citizens choose who represents them in the European Parliament, with
the next election happening in June.
Frederick Florin/AFP/Getty Images
June will be a critical moment for the future of Europe, as the European Parliament
holds its first election since Britain’s withdrawal; and one predicted to provoke
huge disarray.

The foundations of a potentially vast right-wing swing have been in the works for
years, certainly building throughout 2023. The right-wing European Conservatives
and Reformists (ECR) could even take over as the third-biggest group in the new
European Parliament.

Such a block of determined right-wingers and Eurosceptics could throw sand in the
gears of a host of moderate EU programs and backstop rightwing swings domestically
in leading powers like Germany and France.

On the line: further aid to Ukraine, sanctions on Russia (already the subject of
vetoes from Hungary and Slovakia), curbs on immigration, rollbacks on climate
controls, justice and the rule of law across the EU, and a shift on how Europe
deals with China.
United States on November 5: The Trump factor and beyond
WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 15: Republican presidential candidate, former President
Donald Trump speaks at the Pray Vote Stand Summit at the Omni Shoreham Hotel on
September 15, 2023 in Washington, DC. The summit featured multiple 2024 Republican
Presidential candidates making their case to the conservative audience members.
(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks at the
Pray Vote Stand Summit on September 15 in Washington, DC.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Even if Donald Trump is not elected president, the balloting and campaign leading
to November 5 could shred the fabric of democracy in the United States. And if he
is elected, it could have ripple effects for large stretches of the world.

What would NATO look like in the event of a Trump withdrawal? Imagine the comfort
to those who would dismantle the alliance entirely.

Then there are all the dictators and would-be dictators that Trump has extended
warm words towards. On the campaign trail in New Hampshire on Saturday, Trump
quoted Putin in calling US President Joe Biden a “threat to democracy.” At the same
event, he praised North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Hungary’s hardline
nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

GET OUR FREE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

Sign up for CNN Opinion’s newsletter
Join us on Twitter and Facebook
How might these words translate into action in the event of a Trump presidency?
After all, he has already pledged to visit Argentina’s bombastic new radical-right
president, Javier Milei, who’s suggested replacing the peso with the US dollar,
while taking a chainsaw to bureaucracy and budgets.

Where the world will be a year from now will be determined by billions of voters
visiting or shunning ballot boxes with varying degrees of freedom and transparency
— and the politicians who will demonstrate to what degree they respect the choices
their people have made.

Hopefully they will consider carefully and vote wisely.

RELATED

MORE FROM CNN

2024: An election about everything

Russia’s Vladimir Putin says he will run for president again ...

How the impasse over Ukraine aid could have critical global ...
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Opinion: Brace yourself. The elections of 2024 could shock the world
Opinion by David A. Andelman
7 minute read
Published 4:24 AM EST, Mon December 18, 2023

20231213_opinion_electionstowatch24
Illustration by Leah Abucayan/CNN/Getty
Editor’s Note: David A. Andelman, a contributor to CNN, twice winner of the
Deadline Club Award, is a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, author of “A Red
Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still
Happen” and blogs at SubStack’s Andelman Unleashed. He formerly was a foreign
correspondent and bureau chief for The New York Times in Europe and Asia and for
CBS News in Paris. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more
opinion at CNN.

CNN
—
Voters have administered some profound shocks to the world’s stability this past
year — but nothing like what we can expect in 2024.

David Andelman
David A. Andelman
CNN
Next year, countries with more than half the world’s population will hold
elections, as The Economist noted. More than 4 billion people live in the countries
that will be voting.

As I’ve seen over the past two years chronicling the world’s elections, patterns,
at times chilling, have emerged. Across every continent it has become all too easy
for electorates simply to reject long-standing liberal philosophies for shiny brass
promises held out by extremes – often from the populist far right.

And the prospects for dramatic change are only intensifying.

The momentous election year kicks off with Bangladesh in January. Already there
have been anti-government demonstrations sparked by the main opposition Bangladesh
Nationalist Party, whose top leaders are jailed or exiled. The BNP has threatened
to boycott the polls if Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina does not resign and hand power
to a caretaker government ahead of the general election. Hasina is likely to
continue her iron-fisted rule of 15 years.

In February, the world’s two most populous Muslim nations — Pakistan and Indonesia
– have elections within a week of each other. Pakistan will hold its first general
election since popular but divisive former Prime Minister Imran Khan was removed on
corruption charges. (He denies all wrongdoing). Though not a candidate, Khan is
still the driving force behind his political party.

Indonesia will hold the world’s largest single-day election shortly after —
featuring more than 200 million voters in the country and 1.75 million Indonesian
diaspora — though voters are unlikely to loosen the grips on power of wealthy
business and military elites.

This pool photograph distributed by Russia's state agency Sputnik shows Russian
President Vladimir Putin holding his year-end press conference at Gostiny Dvor
exhibition hall in central Moscow on December 14, 2023. (Photo by Alexander KAZAKOV
/ POOL / AFP) (Photo by ALEXANDER KAZAKOV/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Opinion: When it comes to US politics, Putin can read the writing on the wall
Elsewhere, South Africa will hold perhaps the most epiphanal election in Africa,
certainly in its troubled post-Nelson Mandela period. When South Africans went to
the polls in municipal elections two years ago, Mandela’s African National Congress
(ANC) party won fewer than 50% of the vote for the first time, with voters dismayed
by the disarray and corruption that have marked too much of its 30-year hold on
power. If that downward trend continues at the 2024 general election, it will be a
defining moment in South Africa’s political history.

Looking to Europe, there will be nine parliamentary elections, where one of the
biggest challenges for incoming governments will be finding coalition partners to
form majorities.
Keep an eye on Portugal’s snap election in March. It follows a corruption
investigation that forced out the country’s socialist prime minister after eight
years in office — and could herald a swing to the far-right Chega (Enough) party.
Equally, the right seems poised for big gains in Austria’s election, due by fall.

Also due by the end of January 2025 is the United Kingdom’s general election,
meaning we can expect to see British voters likely heading to the polls at the tail
end of 2024 — and could even see a return of the Labour Party to power after 14
fraught years of Conservative rule.

Turning to Latin America, Mexico is set to get its first woman president, as two
are on the ballot for the main parties in June’s elections, where drugs, crime and
migration to the US are at the top of the political agenda. Elsewhere, Venezuela’s
wildly unpredictable, nationalist leader Nicolas Maduro will seek a new mandate
with the stakes including a border battle with neighboring Guyana over oil rights.

But there are five especially dramatic contests worth spotlighting:

Taiwan on January 13: A new president at the center of US-China tensions

TAIPEI, TAIWAN - DECEMBER 03: DPP's presidential candidate, Lai Ching-te, gives a
speech during the Opening of Lai Ching-te's National and Taipei City Campaign
Headquarters on December 03, 2023 in Taipei, Taiwan. Presidential election hopeful,
Lai Ching-te, of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and his vice
presidential candidate, Hsiao Bi-khim, launch their national and Taipei City
campaign headquarters. Taiwan's presidential frontrunner, William Lai, who China
views as a separatist, leads opinion polls to be Taiwan's next president, which
could affect global geopolitics for years to come. Taiwan will head to the polls in
general elections on Jan. 13. (Photo by Annabelle Chih/Getty Images)
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP's) presidential candidate, Lai
Ching-te, gives a speech on December 3 in Taipei. At this stage, he is seen as the
front runner in the general election happening on January 13.
Annabelle Chih/Getty Images
The stakes are especially high in this time of heightened tension between Beijing
and Taipei as the United States continues to pledge a guarantee of Taiwan’s
democracy.

With three presidential candidates, narrow front-runner and ruling Democratic

Progressive Party (DPP) pick Lai Ching-te is anathema to China with his pledge to
continue the determined defense of the island’s sovereignty, set by incumbent
president Tsai Ing-wen. A close second, Hou Yu-Ih of the opposition Kuomintang
(KMT), wants to begin talking with Beijing. A distant third, Ko Wen-je of the
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and former mayor of Taipei, offers a middle ground
closer to conciliation.

If voters go with the status quo, expect Beijing to ratchet up the pressure. “A
choice between war and peace,” was the official Chinese response, after unity talks
between the opposition parties broke down in November.

Russia on March 17: Putin is leaving little to chance

Women walk near an electronic screen on the facade of a building showing an image
of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a quote from his annual end-of-year press
conference and the Direct Line question and answer session, in Moscow, Russia
December 14, 2023. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
An electronic screen in Moscow shows Russian President Vladimir Putin during his
annual end-of-year press conference on December 14. He is all but certain to remain
president following the national election on March 17.
Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
There’s little doubt about Vladimir Putin’s planned president-for-life status in
his fig-leaf re-election campaign. He’ll be 78 by the end of his term, passing
Soviet leader Josef Stalin as longest-serving Russian ruler since Catherine the
Great.

Putin is leaving little to chance. So far, he appears to have just one officially-
sanctioned opponent — Alexei Nechaev, a cosmetics businessman, who happens to be a
member of Putin’s own political coalition the All Russia Peoples Front.

There could well be chaos as there was across Russia in the 2018 presidential
contest, although hundreds of thousands of potentially anti-Putin voices have
fledabroad during the invasion of Ukraine.

With the very real possibility that this could be the Russian president’s final
election — given his age — an emboldened Putin could set his sights after the
election on an even broader and more destabilizing effort at reassembling a Soviet
empire. And the risk of a direct confrontation with NATO should hardly be excluded.

India in April and May: The world’s most populous nation at a crossroads
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi (C) speaks to media at the opening of the
budget session of Parliament in New Delhi on January 31, 2023. (Photo by Sajjad
HUSSAIN / AFP) (Photo by SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP via Getty Images)
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks at the opening of the budget session of
parliament in New Delhi on January 31. The huge country is set to hold an election
over several weeks in April and May.
Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images
Turning the world’s most populous nation from a vibrant democracy into a Hindu
nationalist state approaching a theocracy are the stakes for India in this
election, expected to be held over several weeks in April and May.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi devoted his first term to cementing an unyielding
Hindu nationalism. Out in the cold are the nation’s roughly 200 million Muslims and
28 million Christians. There are fears an anticipated Modi victory would allow him
to complete what he sees as a central element of his mission.

Next month, Modi will inaugurate a sprawling Hindu temple, rising on the ashes of
an old mosque site – a symbolic affirmation of dominance for Modi and all of
India’s Hindus.

How does the United States deal with such an individual — central to the developing
world and at the same time an important trading partner, a counterweight to
Pakistan and its lean toward Russia and China and a strategic bulwark against
unchecked Chinese expansion in the Pacific?

European Parliament from June 6 - 9: A major shift to the right?

TOPSHOT - EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gives her annual State of
the Union address during a plenary session at the European Parliament in
Strasbourg, eastern France, on September 13, 2023. (Photo by FREDERICK FLORIN /
AFP) (Photo by FREDERICK FLORIN/AFP via Getty Images)
European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gives her annual State of
the Union address at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, on September 13. Every
five years, EU citizens choose who represents them in the European Parliament, with
the next election happening in June.
Frederick Florin/AFP/Getty Images
June will be a critical moment for the future of Europe, as the European Parliament
holds its first election since Britain’s withdrawal; and one predicted to provoke
huge disarray.

The foundations of a potentially vast right-wing swing have been in the works for
years, certainly building throughout 2023. The right-wing European Conservatives
and Reformists (ECR) could even take over as the third-biggest group in the new
European Parliament.

Such a block of determined right-wingers and Eurosceptics could throw sand in the
gears of a host of moderate EU programs and backstop rightwing swings domestically
in leading powers like Germany and France.

On the line: further aid to Ukraine, sanctions on Russia (already the subject of
vetoes from Hungary and Slovakia), curbs on immigration, rollbacks on climate
controls, justice and the rule of law across the EU, and a shift on how Europe
deals with China.

United States on November 5: The Trump factor and beyond

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 15: Republican presidential candidate, former President
Donald Trump speaks at the Pray Vote Stand Summit at the Omni Shoreham Hotel on
September 15, 2023 in Washington, DC. The summit featured multiple 2024 Republican
Presidential candidates making their case to the conservative audience members.
(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks at the
Pray Vote Stand Summit on September 15 in Washington, DC.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Even if Donald Trump is not elected president, the balloting and campaign leading
to November 5 could shred the fabric of democracy in the United States. And if he
is elected, it could have ripple effects for large stretches of the world.

What would NATO look like in the event of a Trump withdrawal? Imagine the comfort
to those who would dismantle the alliance entirely.

Then there are all the dictators and would-be dictators that Trump has extended
warm words towards. On the campaign trail in New Hampshire on Saturday, Trump
quoted Putin in calling US President Joe Biden a “threat to democracy.” At the same
event, he praised North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Hungary’s hardline
nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

GET OUR FREE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

Sign up for CNN Opinion’s newsletter
Join us on Twitter and Facebook
How might these words translate into action in the event of a Trump presidency?
After all, he has already pledged to visit Argentina’s bombastic new radical-right
president, Javier Milei, who’s suggested replacing the peso with the US dollar,
while taking a chainsaw to bureaucracy and budgets.

Where the world will be a year from now will be determined by billions of voters
visiting or shunning ballot boxes with varying degrees of freedom and transparency
— and the politicians who will demonstrate to what degree they respect the choices
their people have made.

Hopefully they will consider carefully and vote wisely.

RELATED

MORE FROM CNN

2024: An election about everything

Russia’s Vladimir Putin says he will run for president again ...

How the impasse over Ukraine aid could have critical global ...
Search CNN...
Search
World
Africa
Americas
Asia
Australia
China
Europe
India
Middle East
United Kingdom
US Politics
The Biden Presidency
Facts First
2024 Elections
Business
Markets
Tech
Media
Calculators
Videos
Health
Life, But Better
Fitness
Food
Sleep
Mindfulness
Relationships
Entertainment
Movies
Television
Celebrity
Tech
Innovate
Gadget
Foreseeable Future
Mission: Ahead
Upstarts
Work Transformed
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Fashion
Architecture
Luxury
Beauty
Video
Travel
Destinations
Food & Drink
Stay
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Football
Tennis
Golf
Motorsport
US Sports
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Climbing
Esports
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About
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© 2023 Cable News Network. A Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All Rights Reserved.
CNN Sans ™ & © 2016 Cable News Network.
2 Degrees
CNN Heroes
All Features
Weather
Climate
Wildfire Tracker
Video
More
Photos
Longform
Investigations
CNN Profiles
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CNN Newsletters
Work for CNN
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Listen
Live TV
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Terms of Use
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Manage Cookies+
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About
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Transcripts
© 2023 Cable News Network. A Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All Rights Reserved.
CNN Sans ™ & © 2016 Cable News Network.