Elections, certain and uncertain

Elections are always significant, never more so than when so many key players are on the ballots at a moment of global instability. In 2024 2 billion people will go to the polls in a bumper year for voting.

The United States’ elections on November 5 could potentially see Trump return to the White House. Trump has a commanding lead over his Republican rivals for their party’s nomination, but the Colorado Supreme Court judgment that he cannot run in the state due to the 2021 insurrection case, followed by a similar decision in Maine, may foreshadow the obstacles he will face.

There is no precedent for a candidate running under indictment. The mobilizing impact Trump’s claims of a legal “witch hunt” has had on his base is unlikely to translate to the wider electorate. However, President Joe Biden is not energizing Democrats – opinion polls suggest the majority of voters think the octogenarian is too old to be reelected and his approval ratings are low. As ever, the places to watch are the swing states.

India will hold the world’s largest democratic elections throughout April and May.

More than a billion people will head to the polls across South Asia in 2024

Incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi alongside his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is expected to secure a third term with a popular but religiously divisive brand of politics. Despite issues around inflation and purchasing power, Modi enjoys broad support among India’s Hindu majority based on patriotism and a confident foreign policy. Critics counter that India’s once secular and democratic founding ethos is taking a back seat and that minorities feel unsafe.

Russia goes to the polls on March 17. With prominent opposition leader Alexey Navalny incarcerated in a remote Siberian penal colony and comprehensive suppression of independent media, there won’t be any surprises here. However, the level of turnout will be revealing. If Russia’s elections offer limited indication of the government’s popularity, a low turnout could add pressure on the Kremlin and its stalling invasion of Ukraine. Fellow autocracies Belarus and Iran also hold elections.

There will be an early election flashpoint when, in less than two weeks, Taiwan votes, setting the tone with China for the next four years. If the winner is Democratic Progressive Party’s Lai Ching-te, previously a hardline advocate of Taiwanese independence, relations with Beijing are expected to deteriorate or remain frozen. The competing Kuomintang (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party candidates promise to create less friction with China although all three parties oppose the “one country, two systems” principle espoused by Beijing.

Elsewhere, for the first time since it came to power three decades ago, South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) faces a real risk of losing its parliamentary majority in the 2024 elections. Unemployment, an unstable economy and crime have broken the ANC’s dominance. Party leader and President Cyril Ramaphosa, who took office in 2018 after his scandal-plagued predecessor Jacob Zuma was effectively pushed out of office, himself faced questions over alleged corruption, which he denied.

 

 

swing states : 경합주

octogenarian : 80대

turnout

• 1.명사 참가자의 수
• 2.명사 투표자의 수, 투표율

incarcerate ( 과거형: incarcerated ) ( 과거 분사: incarcerated )

• 동사 감금[투옥]하다 (=imprison)\
• turnout
  • 1.명사 참가자의 수
  • 2.명사 투표자의 수, 투표율