The Irish Times view on the year of elections ahead: constant vigilance will be required

It may be a truism to say that elections are the lifeblood of representative democracy. But it is also true that elections can represent an opportunity for undemocratic forces to exploit weaknesses and stresses in the system.

The fact that so many significant elections are due to take place over the coming year is highly consequential. More than 2 billion voters in more than 50 countries, from Belgium to Pakistan to Mexico, will elect new governments in 2024. Some of these elections, like Russia’s presidential contest, are better described as pseudo-events, but even Vladimir Putin’s strategic calculations for the year ahead will be affected by plans for his pre-ordained victory procession.

Many of this year’s elections offer voters a choice between profoundly different visions of the future of their societies. It is possible that the world could look very different in 12 months’ time as a result of those choices.

In the world’s largest democracy, India, Narendra Modi, after 10 years as prime minister, will be seeking a third term. If, as currently appears likely, his BJP party prevails, the country’s trajectory will almost certainly continue to be towards a more aggressive Hindu nationalism, with the potential for further sectarian conflict, and a worrying narrowing of freedoms.

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In South Africa, meanwhile, the African National Congress party is rapidly shedding support and for the first time since the end of the apartheid era faces the possibility of losing power to opposition parties.

If opinion polls are to be believed, European Parliament elections in June may see a swing towards nativist and anti-immigrant parties which, combined with a rise in support for the left, could deprive the two big centrist blocs of the dominance they have enjoyed for so long. This in turn might have an impact on the composition of the new European Commission which will be formed subsequently.

Rishi Sunak must call a UK general election by January 2025, but the near universal expectation is that he will do so before the end of this year. Equally widespread is the view that British voters will bring 14 years of Conservative rule to an end and that Labour’s Keir Starmer will be moving into 10 Downing Street. A UK election will also give Northern Ireland’s voters an opportunity to give their verdict on the performance of their parties. It is to be hoped that by the time they do so, devolved government will have returned to Stormont.

On November 5th, the US presidential election, which as of now seems set to be a re-run of the 2020 contest, will take place in what could be extraordinary conditions following a campaign in which one of the candidates has spent a lot of his time in a federal courtroom. Indeed, it is possible that by the time of election day, Donald Trump will be a convicted criminal. The prospects for the US could hardly be more alarming.

Across many of these elections, diverse though they are, a recurring theme emerges of a clash between autocratic nativism on the one hand and liberal pluralism on the other. That, fortunately, remains less true of Ireland although it would be foolish to believe the country is immune to such forces.

Here, voters will go to the polls on March 8th to vote on the deletions, amendments and additions which the Government has proposed to the Constitution’s definitions of family and of carers. What might at first have seemed a relatively straightforward proposition may be in some jeopardy, with attacks coming from both sides of the political spectrum. Just three months after the referendum, polling stations will open again for the local and European elections, with the strong possibility of a general election being called by the autumn. Declining party loyalty, an increasingly volatile electorate and the most radical constituency boundary revision in decades mean the chance of shocks and surprises is high. What is certain, though, is that for the first time in the history of the State there is a very real prospect of the formatio of a government which is not led by either of the old Civil War parties.

Democracy will always be fragile. The principles of freedom of belief and expression on which it is founded have been vulnerable in recent years to threats from demagogues and autocrats. Malign actors have been quick to seize the opportunities offered by social media and digital communication to spread disinformation, sowing division and distrust.

It is clear that, despite some welcome advances in regulation in the EU in particular, governments are still failing to hold technology companies properly to account. The fear for elections in 2024 is that a new wave of technological tools driven by artificial intelligence models like ChatGPT will be deployed to flood the information space with deepfake videos, images, audio and text that will mislead voters and poison discourse. While it remains to be seen whether these fears are borne out, unwavering vigilance will clearly be required.