15.11.24 Analytics

Ambivalent Supercycle: Elections in more than 60 countries demonstrate that electoral democracy is not failing, unlike liberal democracy


As of now, the results of 76 national elections in more than 60 countries have been tallied. Although 10 more such elections are still to come before the end of the year, the main trends of the 2024 electoral supercycle have become quite clear.

The average voter turnout in this supercycle has shown a significant increase, reversing a decade-long trend of decline. Voter engagement was high, and political competition was intense.

Autocratic regimes mostly demonstrated resilience; however, in over 20% of cases, they suffered electoral defeats, which they managed to overcome through forceful methods. In more than half of the cases, opposition forces either won or significantly improved their positions. In democratic and semi-democratic countries, voters showed a strong desire for change, leading to the defeat of ruling coalitions that had controlled executive power for decades, as seen in Botswana, South Africa, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

All of this suggests that the 2024 supercycle cannot be characterised as a continuation of the democratic recession observed globally over the past decade. While the foundations of democracy appear intact in 2024, the foundations of liberal democracy seem noticeably shaken.

The success of right-wing populists and far-right parties stands out as one of the most striking features of the supercycle in the democratic countries of the West. However, in Europe, with few exceptions, these groups did not secure majorities or take control of the executive branch. Nevertheless, the coalitions that retained power appear fragile and unstable, and therefore their victories can only be described as tentative.

Meanwhile, more complete data from the US elections showed that Donald Trump's triumphant victory was driven less by additional votes he gained compared to 2020 and more by the demobilisation of the Democratic electorate. Kamala Harris received 8.1 million fewer votes than Joe Biden did in 2020. This serves as a lesson for centrist and liberal parties in Europe: the primary threat to their positions lies not in the rise of far-right sentiments but in the demobilisation of the ‘centre’.

Two democracies and the spectre of recession

The outcome of the US presidential election marks a turning point for preliminary assessments of the 2024 electoral supercycle. Since the start of 2024, the world has witnessed 75 national-level elections in 63 countries, along with the European Parliament elections. According to The Economist, these elections encompassed regions with a combined population of approximately 3.4 billion people. Legislatures (or parts of them) were elected in 47 cases, and presidents were elected in 29. With over ten more elections scheduled before the end of the year, this grand parade of voters has unfolded during a period of ‘democratic recession’, a trend ongoing for nearly a decade. As a result, politicians and analysts have approached these elections with significant apprehension (→ Re:Russia: Supercycle Stress). However, their primary concern was not so much the advance of autocracy as the sentiment encapsulated in the phrase, ‘Many elections will be democratic, but that does not mean that you will like the results’.

To understand the preliminary results of the electoral supercycle, it is essential to distinguish between what they reveal about the state of democracy as a system and about the state of liberal democracy. Regarding the former, democracy – defined as the willingness and ability of populations to express preferences, change governments, and insist on their will, even against partially controlled media and political mainstreams – does not seem to be in dire straits. The Economist deemed elections in 42 countries, or two-thirds of the cases, sufficiently democratic and robust. However, the fate of liberal democracy is far more concerning, as it suffered defeats or came under attack in most cases.

The 2024 elections were characterised by remarkably high voter turnout. In authoritarian states, this often reflected growing undemocratic practices and the performative nature of electoral processes. However, high turnout figures were also evident in democracies, where they reflected the intensity of political competition – 67% in France and South Korea, 76% in Austria – as well as in semi-democracies like Mongolia, which saw a turnout of 70%. This represents a significant reversal of the global trend of declining voter participation over the past decade, according to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA). In 2024, average turnout rebounded to 62%, signalling either a reversal of the trend or a temporary deviation from it.

Another notable result highlighted by The Economist is that disinformation campaigns aimed at disrupting elections or undermining confidence in their outcomes, contrary to the significant concerns voiced earlier this year, appear to have had limited success. While propaganda efforts, often supported from abroad, may have influenced voter sentiment and contributed to some radicalization of right-wing attitudes, this only occurred in contexts where the ground was already fertile for such narratives. The most significant external influence seems to have been on elections in Moldova.

In general, however, we can say that the electoral super-cycle took place in a state of heightened political struggle in a large number of countries. We identify three key trends that characterised it and were reflected in a significant number of electoral campaigns.

The first trend is that of ‘sustainability of autocracies’: a cluster of cases where authoritarian regimes confirmed or strengthened their positions in elections. There were about 20 such elections. The second trend is ‘opposition successes’. This is a set of cases where opposition forces either came to power or significantly improved their electoral results. These included victories in democratic states where long-dominant ruling parties were defeated, as well as gains in hybrid regimes, semi-democracies, and even autocracies. In some cases, these efforts led to changes in executive power, while in others, they primarily signalled voters’ push to challenge the status quo. This trend also encompasses approximately 20 instances. The third trend combines elections in which right-wing populists, nationalists or far-right forces won or significantly strengthened their electoral positions. While this trend overlaps with the opposition’s broader challenges to dominant political forces, it is distinct in its ideological nature, representing an attack on the progressive, liberal-democratic mainstream. We counted approximately 15 such election campaigns.

Power and opposition: power practices and a taste for change

Of the countries holding elections in 2024, 16 (a quarter of the total) are categorised as full autocracies by the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index (EIU). In most of these nations, authoritarian leaders – half of whom have been in power for over 20 years (Kagame, Lukashenko, Putin, Assad, Aliyev, and Assoumani) – solidified their rule, often claiming even larger vote shares than in previous elections. Paul Kagame set a new record in Rwanda with a reported 99% of the vote, while Vladimir Putin claimed 88%. However, in four autocracies, the opposition either mounted resistance or achieved electoral success. In the Comoros, opposition supporters boycotted the elections and later took to the streets in protest, only to be violently suppressed by the military. In Kuwait, Pakistan, and Venezuela, opposition forces effectively won or came close to winning the elections but were unable to capitalise on their victories as the regimes retained control over coercive institutions. Nonetheless, in these latter three cases, the resilience of autocratic regimes was called into question, and the electoral success of the opposition was evident.

Among the 19 hybrid regimes identified by the EIU Democracy Index in the 63 countries of the electoral supercycle, authoritarian governments managed to maintain their positions in at least five cases. However, in Bangladesh, protests following the elections led to the government’s collapse within months. In contrast, opposition victories occurred in two hybrid regimes, most notably in Senegal, where a duumvirate of two opposition leaders won the presidential election shortly after their release from prison. Opposition successes were also impressive in flawed and full democracies. Here, the opposition defeated political forces that had been in power for a long time (sometimes decades). These include Botswana, where the ruling coalition was defeated for the first time in 60 years, and South Africa, where the African National Congress lost its majority in parliament for the first time since the first democratic elections in 1994, as well as Japan and the United Kingdom, where the ruling parties lost power for the first time in a decade and a half. Similar ‘game-changing’ outcomes includes the opposition's victory in parliamentary and presidential elections in Panama and in parliamentary elections in South Korea; in the latter, the opposition dealt a crushing defeat on President Yoon Seok Yeol's ruling conservative People Power Party amid allegations of corruption. In India, the opposition seriously challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.

These cases demonstrate both the effectiveness of electoral procedures not only in predominantly democratic countries but also in semi-authoritarian regimes, as well as voters' widespread desire for change and a departure from the status quo. Thus, the 2024 electoral supercycle does not appear to continue the authoritarian trend of the past decade. Instead, it highlights increased opposition activity in democratic and semi-democratic states, while showcasing the reliance on coercive stability in the autocratic segment of the political spectrum.

Between victory and defeat: right-wing populism and liberal Europe

The rise of right-wing populists and the far-right is a trend predominantly observed in the most democratic countries, primarily within the ‘collective West’. This rise has a common characteristic: almost universally it is built on a critique of the progressive and liberal-democratic mainstream.

In Europe, the success of the right has been evident both in the European Parliament elections (→ Re:Russia: European Balance) and, to varying degrees, in almost all national elections. In Belgium, the conservative New Flemish Alliance maintained its position as the largest party in parliament, while the far-right Vlaams Belang secured second place. In France, Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally won the first round of parliamentary elections but failed to gain a majority due to an unprecedented coalition of other political forces, which paralysed the legislative assembly.The Austrian Freedom Party won the largest number of votes in the election, the largest electoral victory for the far-right since World War II. Peter Pellegrini, an ally of pro-Russian Prime Minister Robert Fitzo, was elected President of Slovakia. The populist Czech ANO and Portuguese Chega noticeably increased their presence in national parliaments. The Lithuanian Zarya Neman, not only entered parliament for the first time, but also found itself in the ruling coalition despite the anti-Semitic statements of its leader Remigijus Zemaitaitis.

Despite these gains, far-right and right-wing populists have not managed to take control of executive power anywhere in Europe. This is no coincidence. The primary impact of Europe's ‘rightward shift’ lies not in their majorities but in their growing electoral strength, which is grounded in harsh criticism of centrist and liberal parties and policies. At the same time, however, executive coalitions formed to counter right-wing rhetoric are often highly fragile: Germany's governing coalition, for example, could not withstand the conflicts tearing it apart and called snap elections for February 2025, while France took more than two months to form a government after parliamentary elections in July. These unstable coalitions exacerbate voter cynicism and boost the popularity of both far-right and far-left parties, as seen recently in Germany. Therefore, it would be inaccurate to say that Europe ‘withstood’ the far-right surge in 2024; rather, it has gained only a temporary reprieve.

A more detailed analysis of the US presidential election results shows that Trump's impressive victory was achieved through a combination of two factors — an increase of about 1.7 million voters for Trump compared to 2020, and the demobilisation of the Democratic electorate: 8.1 million fewer voters voted for Kamala Harris than for Biden in 2020 (according to The Associated Press as of the morning of 15 November). In other words, Trump’s ability to attract new supporters from the ‘sleeping electorate’ is much less significant than the factor of declining confidence in the Democratic candidate among potential supporters.

In some respects, European centrists in 2024 find themselves in a position similar to that of the US Democratic Party in 2020. At that time, Joe Biden's victory over Trump seemed far more significant and secure than it actually was.