The global elections Washington should be watching in 2024

2024 is set to put democracy through its most sweeping test yet.

Dubbed the biggest election year in history, more than 60 countries representing half the world population — some 4 billion people — will hold regional, legislative and presidential elections that look set to shake up political institutions and ramp up geopolitical tensions.

As the United States looks inward, bracing for a likely showdown between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, other countries are also preparing for possible incumbent oustings, raucous public protests and populist movements with the potential to destabilize larger regions.

"We will know whether democracy lives or dies by the end of 2024," said Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa, founder of the investigative news site Rappler in the Philippines and author of "How to Stand Up to a Dictator."

In Europe, establishment parties are bracing for a potential surge from the far right within the European Parliament, including Euroskeptic groups that aim to undermine the EU institutions meant to maintain peace across the continent’s 27-member bloc.

In Asia, Taiwan’s election could escalate tensions in the Indo-Pacific, threatening to drag in Washington and other allies as Taipei and Beijing increasingly butt heads over the disputed island. And in Africa, elections in Senegal, South Africa, Mali and Chad could shape the trajectory of multilateral institutions across the continent.

In North America, the U.S. isn’t alone in facing aclosely watched presidential race: Mexico is holding a vote that could impact cooperation on critical trade and fraught border security issues with its northern neighbor.

Tony Banbury, president of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems think tank, which tracks global votes, said while ”authoritarians are deploying a sophisticated playbook to gain and hold on to power,” he also sees “democratic forces are fighting back.”

The bumper crop of elections also raises questions about new technologies and misinformation online, putting a strain on cybersecurity and social media efforts to mitigate risks of manipulation.

“2024 will be an election year unlike any other and this will bring unprecedented challenges to online platforms who will be working to protect the integrity of elections online,” said Katie Harbath, who has advised Republican campaigns on digital strategy and previously worked as director of public policy at Facebook. “Not only will they have a lot of countries to cover — all with different languages, cultures and regulations — but new tools such as AI that they need to write new rules for.”

U.S. headlines will be dominated by the domestic showdown. Here's a look at other key elections to watch around the world.

Washington’s Asian ally: Taiwan

Taiwanese voters will head to the polls in 2024’s first major election to choose a new president on Jan. 13 amid deepening fears that China might invade the island, which Biden has repeatedly said Washington would help fend off.

The frontrunner is Lai Ching-te, the current vice president from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party. Lai chose Taiwanese envoy to the U.S. Hsiao Bi-khim — also a close confidant of incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen — as his running mate. This sends a signal to Washington that with Hsiao at his side, Lai will continue Tsai’s measured policy toward Beijing and be mindful of U.S. concerns.

Lai will face Hou Yu-ih, the standard-bearer for the Kuomintang party, which ruled Taiwan from the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949 through 2000. The Kuomintang is more friendly to Beijing and explicitly advocates for “reunification” as a key plank of its party platform. Hou and his running mate, Jaw Shaw-kong, are warning that electing Lai and Hsiao would result in a war between China and Taiwan, which Beijing considers part of its territory despite the fact the Chinese Communist Party has never ruled the island.

Also running is centrist Ko Wen-je. Billionaire CEO of major tech supplier Foxconn, Terry Gou, ran as an independent, but dropped out of the race in November.

Beijing despises Lai and Hsiao and has placed them and their families on (unenforceable) sanction lists for their pro-independence sympathies. China’s optimal election result is a Kuomingtang victory that would open the door to renewing and expanding cross-Strait economic links aimed at pulling the self-governing island closer into China’s orbit of influence.

Washington follows a “One China Policy” hinged on the peaceful resolution of Taiwan’s status and opposes any move to change the cross-Strait status quo by force as Beijing has threatened, a policy that includes providing Taiwan defensive weaponry. Biden has stated multiple times that the U.S. would militarily intervene in a conflict between Taipei and Beijing, roiling already frayed ties with China.

Africa’s democracy-defining elections

Elections are set to be held across over a dozen countries in Africa, including in leading members of continental peace-keeping and economic organizations, as well as in countries where militaries overthrew democratically elected governments in coups in recent years.

The outcomes of these elections will impact the brewing battle among foreign countries for influence on the continent, with the United States and Western allies vying to act as a counterweight to Russian and Chinese investment and security partnerships. It will also affect the trajectory of democratization and test the ability of multilateral organizations on the continent to protect civilian rule and discourage military coups.

The governing parties of Senegal and South Africa are hoping to keep a grip on power, but face tough fights from opposition groups. Both are forceful voices in the African Union and Senegal is one of the leading countries in the Economic Community of West African States, organizations which hold considerable sway on regional priorities like trade integration, security policy and human rights. Senegal and South Africa hold weight on the continent as more economically prosperous and politically stable countries, helping to shape continental trade and political integration.

South Africa’s election will also be economically significant — the ruling ANC party has embraced trade and investment ties with China and Russia as part of the BRICS alliance (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). The South African economy has also lagged under ANC mismanagement, exacerbating inequality and stagnation in one of the continent’s wealthiest countries.

Mali and Chad — which have each been under military rule since coups over the past three years — have both said they would hold presidential elections in 2024. Mali’s junta initially set February for its ballot, but postponed it, while dates for elections in Chad have yet to be announced.

If these elections occur, which is far from certain, that could encourage other African countries that have also experienced recent coups to move back toward democratic rule, including Niger, Gabon and Sudan. If they don’t, it will set back the yearslong efforts from ECOWAS and the African Union to restore civilian rule in those countries and undercut the legitimacy of the two organizations.

Protests expected: Belarus, Russia, Iran

Analysts don’t expect legislative elections in Belarus and Iran, or a presidential ballot in Russia, to immediately change policy in those countries, but protests are likely to emerge around these votes that could prove disruptive and hard to control.

Such unrest could distract each government from their involvement in major international conflicts — for Iran, in the Middle East, for Russia and Belarus, in Ukraine. It could also further heighten tensions with Western countries, which have imposed sanctions over each country's treatment of dissenters in recent years.

When Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko declared victory in the widely contested 2020 presidential election, winning a sixth term in office, it prompted the biggest anti-government demonstrations the country had seen since the fall of the Soviet Union, spanning months. The opposition refuted the results, backed by international allies like the United States and EU. Four years later, concerns about Lukashenko’s authoritarianism have not abated, raising worries among critics that he could try to further consolidate power in the upcoming parliamentary vote in February, ahead of the next presidential ballot in 2025.

Meanwhile, Lukashenko’s close ally Russian President Vladimir Putin is up for reelection himself on March 15, in a vote he’s widely expected to win after more than 20 years in power. Like Lukashenko, Putin is also expected to face protests. But one of his most vocal critics, opposition leader Alexei Navalny, is currently imprisoned and has had breaks in contact with his allies, hampering the ability of Putin’s detractors to organize.

Iran’s election to fill seats in the Majlis on March 1 will be the country’s first vote since mass demonstrations in 2022 gripped the Islamic Republic following the death of a young woman who had been detained for allegedly not following state rules on proper dress. Disputed election results have fanned the flames of dissent in Iran in the past, including the 2009 Green Movement protests, considered at the time the biggest demonstrations since the 1979 revolution.

Subcontinent strained: Pakistan and India

Both Pakistan and India are heading into contentious elections in which the winners could reshape international relations, altering dynamics in the strategic Indo-Pacific region, where, like Africa, the U.S. and its allies hope to bolster ties as a bulwark against Chinese and Russian influence.

India is set to hold general elections between April and May, in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party is expected to hold on to its majority, if not gain seats, in the Lok Sabha. But India’s opposition parties accuse Modi of undermining the country’s democratic institutions, jailing and intimidating journalists and using state investigative agencies to target political opponents. They also accuse the BJP of sanctioning and condoning violence against India’s Muslim minority and promoting Hindutva, a school of Hindu nationalist thought that wants to cement Hindu hegemony in India.

Modi and his allies have said the Indian government’s actions against journalists and activists are needed to combat “terrorism” by Islamist and Maoist groups.

Pakistan, meanwhile, is still grappling with the aftermath of populist Prime Minister Imran Khan’s ousting. Khan, a famed cricket player, was first elected in 2018 and promoted better ties with India and China. He was removed from office in April 2022 after failing a no-confidence motion and was arrested in May 2023 on corruption charges, which sparked widespread protests at the time and continues to roil the South Asian country. Pakistan’s Parliament was dissolved last August ahead of anticipated elections in November. However, a dispute over the boundaries of some electoral constituencies prompted Pakistan’s electoral commission to delay the general election until February 2024.

Strict new social media laws will be a factor in both countries’ campaigns after they each moved to rein in platforms in recent years under the auspices of combating disinformation, raising fears of censorship from some opposition forces.

Continent-shaker: European Parliament

The European Parliament election is the second-largest vote by population in 2024, behind India. Traditional parties are nervous that a possible rise on the European far right could coincide with a Trump comeback. That scenario could again rankle transatlantic ties that have just started to repair under Biden, complicating coordination with the continent’s closest ally as the European Union continues to face the Russia-Ukraine war on its doorstep.

The shock success of populist, Euroskeptic leader Geert Wilders in The Netherlands was the most recent sign of tides turning, with polls pointing to major gains for far-right parties under the European Parliament’s Identity and Democracy group in the June vote. The European far-right has campaigned less on the anti-Islam, anti-migrant rhetoric that defined its early rise in the 2000s and 2010s, shifting its approach to domestic issues like housing and economic inequality in countries like Italy, Portugal, France, Germany and the Netherlands, helping them to make steady, and surprising, electoral gains.

While Identity and Democracy parties aren’t expected to win the most seats in the Parliament vote, they’re currently running in third place — up from their current sixth — according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls. This could give them fuel to push for prominent Parliament committee leadership posts, which they were blocked from taking after the prior 2019 election.

It’s unlikely that most important positions will actually end up in the hands of the far-right. Italy’s far-right leader Giorgia Meloni, though, will be seeking an influential commissioner.

A number of these parties’ leaders, including Wilders, have also expressed skepticism to continued Ukraine aid, presenting a potential clash with allies like the U.S. as the war against Russia drags on.

The neighbor: Mexico

Mexico is heading to the polls on June 2, in a presidential election that could have major consequences for collaboration with Washington on border issues, trade and broader policy toward the rest of Latin America.

Incumbent President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is term-limited, but he’s looking to extend the hold on power of the populist, left-wing Morena party he founded. Under López Obrador, Mexico has regularly played hardball with the Trump and Biden administrations on border security and trade.

Morena’s candidate and the current election frontrunner is former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, a scientist by training and close follower of López Obrador’s brand of economic populism. She’s expected to continue the current government’s social assistance programs to help Mexico’s impoverished urban communities, while pursuing a similarly assertive foreign policy. Sheinbaum has not shied away from courting Chinese and Russian investment in Mexico, both as a presidential candidate and as mayor, and has said Mexico should not have a “relationship of submission” with the U.S.

A change in Mexico’s Constitution in 2021 under López Obrador that allows presidents to be removed from office halfway through their term by a national popular vote has also come under greater scrutiny lately. Critics warn that López Obrador could use this to control the direction of successive Morena governments, dangling the threat of removal and leveraging his popularity with Mexican voters if future presidents stray from his ideological vision. López Obrador and his supporters, including Sheinbaum, have defended the provision, saying it allows for greater democratic oversight of political leaders.

Opposition parties are rallying together behind independent Senator Xóchitl Gálvez, who’s gunning to be Mexico’s first female Indigenous president. Gálvez’s supporters worry that another Morena presidency will set relations with the U.S. back, pointing to the various times López Obrador snubbed meeting Biden, and cause Mexico to experience further economic stagnation. They also criticize his public attacks against Gálvez and attempts to require elections for members of Mexico’s electoral commission.

The transatlantic partner: U.K.

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak technically has until January 2025 to schedule an election, but he is likely to head to the ballot box earlier if opinion polls narrow or continued infighting within his ruling Conservative Party becomes unmanageable.

While Sunak’s main rival is a moderate who has pledged to continue the U.K.’s support for Ukraine amid its war with Russia, a change in government could affect the U.K.'s approach toward the European Union after leaving the bloc in 2020, reshape the U.K.’s defense priorities and usher in changes to migration and foreign aid policies.

The “special relationship” with the United States also could change drastically depending on who wins, potentially dooming or bolstering London’s efforts to press Washington for a major trade deal it hoped would help boost economic ties after Brexit. Personal affinity between British prime ministers and U.S. presidents has greatly impacted the relationship throughout history, something which will also depend on the winner of the U.S. election as well.

The Tories, the largest party in the House of Commons since 2010, are facing significant public discontent over the economy, scandals related to former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Covid-19 response and an ongoing crisis with the National Health Service. Divisions within the Tory ranks over migration and bad blood following the ouster of Johnson in 2022 have added to the party’s grim prospects.

Opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer is riding high with his group currently enjoying 43 percent support, according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls, compared with the Tories at 25 percent — although questions remain about how much of this is driven by genuine enthusiasm for Labour rather than discontent with the Tories.

Phelim Kine, Matt Honeycombe-Foster and Eddy Wax contributed to this report.