Votes of confidence

From India to Venezuela and Senegal to the US, more people voted this year than ever before, with over 80 elections across the world. With rising authoritarianism and citizen-led resistance revealing its vulnerabilities and resilience in the face of unprecedented challenges, has democracy reached its breaking or turning point?

- Jonathan Yerushalmy and Oliver Holmes

IN JANUARY, as this bumper year of elections got under way, breathless editorials and reheated hot takes made it clear the stakes could not be higher. Time Magazine pronounced it a "Make-orBreak year for democracy", while others declared it "Democracy's biggest test" and asked whether the very concept could make it to December intact.

In 2024, billions of people voted across more than 80 countries, including some of the most populous, most authoritarian and most fragile. Russians voted in polls that were characterised by their repression, while in Senegal, an attempt to delay elections led to the incumbent's downfall. El Salvador's president found an election-winning formula through his fierce crackdown on gangs, while a brief experiment with democracy was seemingly snuffed out in Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab spring.

Throughout it all, the relative strength or weakness of global democracy hung in the balance, with the presidential election in the United States sitting at the end of the year like a giant question mark.

SO, HOW DID DEMOCRACY FARE IN 2024?

Even before the year began, warning lights were flashing around the world. Between 2020 and 2024 a fifth of all election results faced a challenge, research from International IDEA found. In the same period, one in five elections saw the losing candidates publicly reject the outcome while opposition parties boycotted one in 10 elections. Combined, these factors were said to pose a serious challenge, as voters questioned the very viability of the electoral process and participation declined.

The UK's 2024 general election saw near-historic swings to the Labour party as the Conservative party's majority was shattered by years of scandal and dysfunction. It was also marked by record levels of apathy. Just over half of British adults voted, making it by some measures the lowest turnout by share of population since universal suffrage.