Opinion | In global year of elections, democracy looks more resilient

We’ve been warning on these pages for years about the growing danger of the rise of authoritarianism and democracy in retreat around the world. By some measures, political freedom has been shrinking, while the number of people living under authoritarian governments or military regimes has increased. On Sunday, the people of Venezuela go to the polls in an election that is far from free or fair yet might still give voters a chance to show their disapproval of a regime that is corrupt, dictatorial and unpopular.

If so, it would be in keeping with the encouraging trend line of this “year of elections,” as 2024 has been dubbed, in recognition of the fact that nations encompassing half the globe’s population will go to the polls. So far, the results suggest that democracy, while under challenge, is nowhere near defeated. A record number of people were able to cast ballots. And various surveys show democracy remains by far most people’s preferred form of government — including, or especially, in places where it’s lacking.

A 24-country survey conducted last year by the Pew Research Center found overwhelming majorities supported democracy, calling it a “good” or “very good” system. Overwhelming majorities objected to one-person rule (71 percent) and military regimes (83 percent). In Africa, the world’s fastest-growing region with the youngest population, a survey by Afrobarometer conducted between 2021 and 2023 showed two-thirds of people preferred democracy over any other form of government — while faulting their leaders for failing to deliver it. Asian Barometer found similar sentiments among East Asians, including those living in one-party states.

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To be sure, violence has marred many elections. Mexico saw more than 300 recorded incidents of violence targeting candidates or their supporters. India saw a surge of ethnic violence; South Africa, a wave of local-level assassinations. Candidates were attacked while campaigning in France’s parliamentary elections. The United States endured an assassination attempt against former president Donald Trump.

Political violence is contrary to values of open debate and the peaceful transfer of power that underpin democracy. Authorities everywhere have a responsibility to make sure citizens can exercise their right to vote and candidates can campaign, freely and without intimidation.

Many elections this year, already held or scheduled, were not free and fair — but democratic facades, engineered so that autocrats could keep power with a false veneer of popular support — Russia and Belarus immediately come to mind. Even so, hypocrisy is the compliment vice pays to virtue. And the fact that autocracies feel constrained to hold pretend elections shows, in a backhanded but clear way, that popular consent is the only internationally accepted source of political legitimacy.

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In contests where incumbents did not manipulate the results, or suppress the opposition, elections produced some surprises. Voters held incumbents to account for their actions. Given a choice, voters showed they wanted more freedom, not less. Case in point: India, the world’s largest democracy, the country’s 640 million voters defied predictions of a landslide for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, stripping his Bharatiya Janata Party of its absolute majority in Parliament. This was at least partly in reaction to Mr. Modi’s repression of civil society and persecution of the country’s Muslim minority. In April, Turks strongly rebuked President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in local elections. Iran’s tightly controlled presidential election this summer posed no threat to the theocrats who actually rule. Turnout fell to record lows. Still, those who did vote registered what discontent with the status quo they could: a candidate promising a more open internet and more freedom of dress for women, Masoud Pezeshkian, defeated an ultraconservative rival.

Africa saw two major changes with potentially wide impact on the continent. In Senegal, President Macky Sall delayed the vote and hoped to engineer an election victory for his handpicked successor, Amadou Ba; instead, voters chose opposition candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye, only recently freed from prison, as the country’s new president. This was a win for democracy in a region recently known for coups and military-led governments. And in South Africa, voters fed up with widespread corruption, unemployment, crime and a lack of reliable services such as electricity and water denied the ruling African National Congress a majority, forcing it to share power with other parties for the first time in the country’s 30-year post-apartheid history.

In Mexico and Indonesia, term-limited presidents were able to pass power on to anointed successors in elections generally considered free and fair. Local circumstances differ. But Indonesian President Joko Widodo and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador had both won popularity for being seen by their supporters as effective at delivering basic services and — rightly or wrongly — as change agents championing the poor over the elite.

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Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party held on to the presidency with the election of Lai Ching-te. Taiwanese voters resisted Communist China’s massive campaign to intimidate them and spread political disinformation. Other democracies threatened by such tactics can take heart — and take note.

Democracy worldwide remains under challenge from rising illiberalism and authoritarianism. But the story halfway through this year is one of resiliency. Democracy is not a perfect system, but millions of people around the world, doggedly — and wisely — prefer it to the alternatives.

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