The year 2024 will be remembered as the year that reshuffled the political cards on a global scale. The news is full of surprises and unexpected political upheavals, demonstrating that the electoral landscape is constantly evolving. Major elections with surprising results have shaken the world, marking the beginning of an era of unexpected disincumbency.
In India, Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party lost its majority, defying the predictions of analysts and pollsters. In Japan, the Liberal Democratic Party lost its majority for the first time since 2009. In the United Kingdom, the Conservatives suffered their worst electoral defeat since 1832.
In France, the centrist alliance, embodied by President Emmanuel Macron, suffered a decline of more than 14 percentage points, overtaken by political forces on the left and right. In the US, the Democrats were soundly defeated, allowing Donald Trump to retake the White House and the Republicans to take control of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Closer to home, in Botswana, the Botswana Democratic Party, in power since independence in 1966, was defeated, while in Namibia, Swapo, the dominant party since independence in 1990, came within three seats of losing the majority it held of 87% just five years ago.
Since the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, incumbent governments have been ousted in 40 of the 54 elections in Western democracies. Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, has called this trend “a kind of electoral long Covid,” insightfully highlighting the inflationary consequences of the pandemic and the dark impact of history looming over these elections.
Pandemic, inflation, economic depression, the rise of fascism, world war. The history of the 1920s and 1930s seems to be repeating itself, not as a reckless march, but as a blind march toward another abyss. Can the center hold this time?
Far-right anti-EU parties made significant gains in the European Parliament elections, at the expense of pro-EU moderates. Even more alarming, in the September state elections in the eastern German state of Thuringia, the Alternative for Germany became the first far-right party since the Nazi era to win a majority of seats in a German state election.
In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally won the largest share of the French vote in the European Parliament elections, with 31%, and now looks set to win the presidency in 2027.
However, an ageing Europe does not necessarily reflect the global balance point. There are reasons to be more optimistic about the state of democracy in other parts of the world, notably in South Africa, where support for the African National Congress (ANC) has fallen from 57.2% to 40.2%. Still, the country has calmly accepted the loss of its 30-year majority rule.
There were moments of tension in the days that followed, but thanks to a cleverly tight constitutional timetable that focused minds, a power-sharing deal between the centralist parties was struck.
The sinister assortment of thieves and populist demagogues has been relegated to the periphery, at least for now.
The political calendar, however, does not wait. In less than a year, we will be a year away from the next municipal elections, and the main protagonists are already sharpening their weapons for what will undoubtedly be seen as a referendum on the Government of National Unity (GNU).
This will then feed into the ANC’s 2027 national conference. So far, internal polls in the ANC and the Democratic Alliance (DA) are encouraging for both parties: voters appear satisfied with how the party leaders played their cards on 29 May.
This is a critical factor, if not the critical factor.
If either party feels that the power-sharing arrangement is hurting it electorally, the incentive to stay in it diminishes considerably and the impetus for an anti-GNU – or rather an anti-“grand coalition” with the DA – concomitantly increases, while the chances of electing a moderate centralist as ANC leader in December 2027 to replace Ramaphosa diminish.
Given the state of many municipalities across the country, it is crucial to remain vigilant about political developments and ensure that citizens’ voices continue to be heard and respected in a climate of transparency and genuine democracy.