The verb to vote will be conjugated by about 4 billion people in 2024. While in Russia (with Vladimir Putin) and in El Salvador (with Nayib Bukele) the winner of the presidential elections seems defined, In the United States and Venezuela it is not even clear if the favorites – Donald Trump and María Corina Machado – will be able to participate.
Added to these are two especially popular events. India, which as of last year is the most populous country in the world with 1.44 billion inhabitants.
Of them, 945 million – an absolute world record – are called to renew Parliament on a date to be defined between April and May. And, in the Old Continent, between June 6 and 9, 400 million voters from 27 countries will be summoned to elect the 720 members of the Parliament of the European Union (EU).
In the European bloc, although polls agree that the center-right alliance of European Popular Parties will retain first place with some 180 seats, and that socialists and social democrats of the Progressive Alliance will follow with 145, the progress of the most radical right of Identity and Democracy, which is estimated to be close to 100 seats.
Meanwhile, the right-wing Renew, which promotes deep reform of the EU, It could be done with 80, and on the other hand the greens would fall to less than 50 seats. In short, a turn to the right.
In the case of India, the ruling National Democratic Alliance party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a clear favorite.. His nationalist and authoritarian radicalism, based on Hindu ethnic populism, has earned him the support of broad layers of the population affected by traditionalism.
Polls give Modi's alliance between 295 and 335 seats in the 543 Parliament, while the opposition coalition led by the former ruling Congress Party would obtain between 165 and 205. Modi would thus revalidate his large majorities and many fear that he would accentuate repressive religious nationalism.
In a recent report, Amnesty International said the Modi government “selectively and fiercely repressed religious minorities.” especially Muslim women, although the persecution extends to Christian groups.
Internationally, Modi plays a key role as a counterweight to the power of China, his neighbor, in Asian geopolitics. And although he has not openly confronted Putin over the invasion of Ukraine, he has questioned it. “This is not the time for war,” Modi told a summit last year.
However, Modi's manner has similarities with that of the Russian leader. In September, the Canadian Prime MinisterJustin Trudeau assured his country's Parliament that “agents of the Government of India” were responsible for the murder of Singh Nijjar in Canadian territory.leader of the Sikh community, a minority persecuted by Modi.
Trump, all or nothing
If forecasts for the US elections were based on nothing more than polls, two things would be clears. The first, that both Democratic President Joe Biden and his predecessor, Republican Donald Trump, have won their respective primaries in the first half of the year. -both lead voting intentions in the polls by more than 60 percent-. And the second thing is that in the presidential elections on November 5, Trump is the favorite to defeat Biden.
According to the weighted average of polls published by the Real Clear Politics platform, Trump would win with 46.8 percent, against 44.5 percent for Biden. But before the vote, Trump faces a judicial obstacle course in half a dozen complicated proceedings, two civil and four criminal.
In fact, the first civil case has already produced a conviction: Trump must pay $5 million to the writer Jean Carroll, who accused him of raping her in 1996. The journalist is now suing Trump for $10 million in damages, saying the Republican defamed her by denying the rape accusation.
In the second civil case, Trump, his adult children and his business organization are tried for fraudulently manipulating their balance sheets to obtain bank loans. If they lose, they will have to repay up to $250 million.
On the criminal front, the former president is accused of 34 counts of accounting falsification to cover up payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels so that he would not tell the story of their relationship. He is also prosecuted for having taken confidential intelligence documents, which he kept in his home in Florida, an accusation that would lead to a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
The two most delicate processes have to do with the maneuvers that Trump attempted after losing the elections to Biden in November 2020. In the first case, he is accused of pressuring Georgia state officials to change the result that had favored Biden.
Three lawyers and a lender who confessed their participation in that conspiracy, pleaded guilty and agreed to collaborate with the Prosecutor's Office to clarify Trump's role. The former president faces a possible sentence of between 5 and 20 years in prison.
The other case has to do with what Trump did during the violent assault by his followers on the Capitol, on January 6, 2021.which sought to prevent congressmen from certifying, as they should, Biden's victory.
The Prosecutor's Office accuses the former president of conspiring to subvert the democratic order, and apart from the events at the Capitol, has added to the process other attempts by Trump to change the result in several states.. The trial is set for March 4, at the start of the primary process in which Trump's participation is at risk.
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled a few days ago to prevent the former president's name from being on the ballot for the Republican primaries on March 5, In this state. The court relied on a clause in the 14th amendment of the Constitution, which prevents anyone who has been involved in an insurrection from standing for election to public office.
Trump's lawyers have already appealed the decision to the Supreme Court of Justice, that will have to decide in this case and in similar processes in other states, as well as resolve appeals from the parties in the different processes against the former president.
Although in the Supreme Court there is a conservative majority of six votes to three, With three justices nominated by Trump, the high court faces a credibility crisis due to unethical behavior by some of its members. There is no shortage of analysts who speculate that the judges could seek to wash their image with a blow to Trump.
And Biden? At 81 years old, the president himself acknowledged at the beginning of December that: “If Trump hadn't run, I'm not sure I would have run.” This being the case, many are betting that if Trump is disqualified, not only will the Republican candidacy have to be shuffled again, but also the Democratic one.
And in Latin America?
There will be more than 70 elections in the world in 2024, with around 50 in which the position of president or prime minister will be at stake. But there is one in particular whose result is a foregone conclusion: the Russian presidential election in March. After killing, imprisoning or exiling almost all opposition leaders, the regime is assured of the continuity of the current occupant of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin.
On the other side of the world, another authoritarian leader is also quite assured of re-election: Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.. With his popularity above 75 percent thanks to his policy of all-out war against criminal gangs, and a bold management of his political communication, a few weeks before the February 4 vote, Bukele leads the polls with figures ranging from 61 to 79 percent, while his opponents barely score two or three points.
In Mexico, academic Claudia Sheinbaum, 61, until recently head of government of Mexico City, has a big advantage. Sheinbaum aspires to win the June 2 elections, and thus give continuity to the left-wing nationalist project of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Being the first time that Mexico elects a woman as leader, Sheinbaum doubles the percentage of preferences of her main contender, engineer Xóchitl Gálvez, 60, elected by an opposition alliance. Sheinbaum marks between 46 and 61 percent of voting intentions in different surveys, against a range of between 24 and 30 percent for Gálvez.
But while Bukele and Sheinbaum are heading towards victory, The favorite for the elections in Venezuela, Maria Corina Machado, is not guaranteed to be able to participate. Days before Christmas, he presented an appeal to the Supreme Court to review the 15-year disqualification that the Comptroller's Office imposed on him, in a process full of arbitrariness.
Machado leads Maduro 50 percent to 12 percent, according to a Meganalisis survey. very similar to others disclosed in recent months. Apart from the appeal to the Supreme Court, the candidate hopes that international pressure in favor of her authorization will take effect.
The United States plays a key role after having freed the Colombian-Venezuelan Álex Saab, an agent of Caracas, in exchange for the freedom of around thirty Americans and Venezuelans detained in Venezuela, and – according to some sources – also in exchange for the regime's guarantee of allowing Machado to be a candidate.
But, Maduro finds it difficult to take that step. As the consultant Giulio Cellini Ramos explains, in an Infobae article: “Enabling Machado and letting her participate in the election is the equivalent of Maduro signing his resignation.”
Others think differently. Political scientist Piero Trepiccione maintains that, due to international pressure, she will be enabled, but insists that this does not mean that she will win: “Machado triples Maduro's voting intention today, but Chavismo has other political tools (…) to try to fragment the opposition vote.”
Hard to know for now. It is one more of the many questions raised by the world's hectic electoral calendar in 2024.
MAURICIO VARGAS
SENIOR ANALYST
TIME
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