Bangladeshi general elections were held in the first week of January 2024 under the auspices of the Bangladesh Election Commission. Notably, all major opposition parties were opposing the General Elections. Massive rallies have led to mass arrests of opposition leaders. As expected, Sheikh Hasina secured her fifth term as Bangladeshi prime minister in an election whose outcome was decided the moment its schedule was announced in early November 2023 when the main opposition boycotted the poll.
The surprise was who came second. Instead of any political party, independent candidates secured a total of 63 seats, the second highest after Hasina’s Awami League (AL), which won 222, creating a problem of finding a parliamentary opposition. The current opposition, the Jatiya Party, managed to secure just 11 of the 300 parliamentary seats. And almost all the winning independent contenders were people who had been rejected by the AL but were asked by the party leadership to stand as “dummy candidates” to give the election a competitive veneer in front of the world.
Pakistan’s voters will elect a leader on February 08th, tasked with managing one of the country’s worst-ever economic crises, an escalating terrorism problem that has recently kindled tensions with Afghanistan and Iran, and a long-standing border impasse with India. But with former Prime Minister Imran Khan barred from participating and the alleged manoeuvring behind the scenes, international observers say the elections will likely be neither free nor fair. Three major candidates have announced plans to run in the parliamentary elections in the hopes of leading the next governing coalition as prime minister. However, only two are eligible for election.
Nawaz Sharif, the front-runner, is a three-time former prime minister who recently returned from exile in the United Kingdom, where he fled in 2019 after being charged with corruption. Sharif is running on the ticket of a party he founded, the centre-right Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the son and grandson of former Pakistani prime ministers, Bhutto is the candidate for the center-left Pakistan People’s Party.
Imran Khan is by far the most popular politician in Pakistan and was the last elected prime minister, but he will not be on the February ballot. His term ended with a vote of no confidence after he lost the support in 2022 and he was arrested and sentenced to prison on alleged corruption charges, a move that his supporters say is politically motivated.
This Muslim-majority country of 241 million is about to vote in a civilian parliament for the third time in a row.
This Muslim-majority country of 241 million is about to vote in a civilian parliament for the third time in a row. It is a first for a state where no prime minister has ever finished their term and, with a long history of military rule and dictatorship, it should be a moment to celebrate. No election in the country’s history has been without its controversies, but this one seems to be racking up more than most – not least the fact one former prime minister sits behind bars, literally unable to stand properly as he escaped assignation attempt, while another re-emerges from self-imposed exile, as his criminal convictions swept away. Thus, Pakistan is in unprecedented times. Annoyance, disenchantment, and optimism are all entangled.
Likewise, Indonesia votes in February, with Prabowo Subianto, a Suharto-era lieutenant general once denied a visa by the US for alleged human rights abuses, in the lead. In June he proposed a peace plan for Ukraine that would leave occupying Russian forces in place.
In the absence of opposition and incumbent Russian President Vladimir Putin declaring his candidature for a sixth term, it looks like the people of Russia have been left without any other choice as always. Main opposition leader and Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has been imprisoned, and as per his latest whereabouts, he is serving sentences in an Arctic penal colony totalling more than 30 years on charges including extremism. Ostensibly, it seems that it is impossible to prevent Putin, in power as Premier or President since 1999, from extending his rule by six more years, putting him on course to overtake Stalin and become Russia’s longest-serving ruler since the 18th century.
In the Subcontinent, the world’s eyes are on the 2024 Indian Lok Sabha Elections, wherein the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will battle it out with the Opposition INDIA bloc that includes Mallikarjun Kharge-led Congress, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Trinamool Congress (TMC) among others. If the recently concluded State Legislative Assemblies were any precursor to the Lok Sabha Elections, it only made the 2024 elections more interesting, as India seems to have divided their choices, wherein the saffron party is now a ruling majority in Indo-Gangetic Plain, barring Bihar, and west Bengal. However, the BJP has been butted out from southern states in India, like Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana.
India’s election, between April and May 2024, will be the world’s largest as more than 900 million people are registered to vote in India, out of a population of 1.4 billion. Current Prime Minister Narendra Modi hopes to be re-elected for a third consecutive five-year term. India is the world’s largest democracy and also an increasingly important geopolitical actor globally. There are chances rather grim that Modi’s hopes of a third term could be frustrated by a new, 28-party opposition coalition called INDIA – Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance. Another seismic prospect, in terms of potential political earthquakes, is South Africa’s general election. At the time of writing, the date has not been set, but it must be held within 90 days of the end of the Parliamentary session in May 2024.
For the first time since Nelson Mandela walked to freedom and the apartheid era ended 30 years ago in 1994, the African National Congress (ANC) could lose its overall majority, undercut by challengers such as the Democratic Alliance. Odds are the ANC, in possible coalition with the leftist Economic Freedom Fighters, will cling to power. But the party looks set to be punished by voters for years of shameless corruption, leadership scandals, high rates of crime and unemployment, and its inability, literally, to keep the lights on – daily power cuts of up to six hours have become routine. A low turnout could seal the ANC’s fate. According to the Electoral Commission of South Africa, more than 26 million South Africans are registered to vote.
Disillusion with democracy is a much-discussed issue across all of Africa, the world’s fastest-growing continent it is elsewhere. International Crisis Group noted that seven African leaders were toppled by their own militaries between August 2020 and November 2023. These were among 13 successful coups in Africa since 2000, mainly in a “belt of instability” stretching from Niger to Sudan. Not all the leaders overthrown were popularly elected. While all coups are essentially anti-democratic in nature, they have multiple causes. These include abuse of power, economic woes, corruption, Islamist insurgencies, rigged elections and personal rivalries. But it is clear that, far from being unwelcome, some recent coups, such as that in Mali in 2021, enjoyed substantial public support.
Violent regime change was better, it seems, than no regime change at all. Most Africans still have faith in democracy [yet] they have been desperate to rid themselves of regimes that purport to be democratic but often fail to deliver on democracy’s most basic promises. This conclusion surely has universal relevance. Meanwhile, the democracy show rolls on. Algeria, Tunisia, Ghana, Rwanda, Namibia, Mozambique, Senegal, Togo and South Sudan are among the African countries holding elections in 2024
Continued
The writer works at a public policy think tank. He can be reached at saudzafar5@gmail.com
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