a global Battle of political systems is
underway liberal democracy once seemed
Unstoppable across Europe this war will
fall for it cannot withstand faith it
cannot withstand truth but now
authoritarianism is on the
rise and even in places where people
choose their leaders through the hard
one right to vote many seem drawn toward
candidates with dubious Democratic
credentials he says you're not going to
be a dictator are you I said no no no
other than day
one in 2024 democracy will be tested
like never before pretty much half of
the population of the world is voting in
one form of election or another this
year it's the biggest electoral exercise
in history with pivotal votes in major
Powers elections in India span about 4
weeks roughly because the country is so
huge we have 450 million people
Europeans in 27 countries that every 5
years elect uh members of the European
Parliament 2024 is going to be um our
30th anniversary of obtaining uh
democracy in South Africa this election
has consequences for all of Latin
America if Donald Trump takes over again
it's very likely that he will destroy
the UN United States as as we know it so
will this be the year democracy gets a
vote of confidence or eats itself alive
I'm DW correspondent Rosie burchard I'm
going to take you from here in Brussels
on a world tour of some of this year's
most consequential elections to find out
I'll be speaking to DW experts on five
continents to bring you up to speed on
this bumper electoral year where the
fate of democracy itself seems to hang
in the
balance people head to the polls this
year in dozens of countries we'll be
focusing on some of the biggest and most
important in Asia Africa Europe and the
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Americas not all places where people can
vote are necessarily democracies where
all the states power is rooted in the
people in systems classed as most
democratic power is deliberately shared
between different parts of the state
those different parts have the capacity
and the duty to check each other to make
sure everyone keeps to the rules courts
to protect all individuals rights and
make sure the state acts within the law
an opposition free to scrutinize and
challenge government policies
journalists free to investigate and
Report without fear and citizens free to
protest gather and voice
descent this makes real democracy more
than an electoral popularity contest
none of the democracies will look at
fulfill all these conditions perfectly
but the more those institutions are
eroded the less power belongs to the
people and the closer a state moves to
autocracy
2024's election Bonanza kicked off in
January in Taiwan the self-ruled
territory which China sees as its
own China wants to take control of
Taiwan it says that Taiwan is part of
China its government is not
legitimate and that becomes essentially
a kind of a battle of stamina a battle
of wills like who can hold on the
longest I'm Richard Walker I'm DW's
Chief International editor I've been
covering a lot of the big geopolitical
questions that we're facing now you know
the contest between China and the United
States the place that India has in the
role where Russia uh fits in the
mix Taiwanese voters chose a president
William Lie from the party seen as most
anti-chinese but this time the party
held onto Power by a narrower margin so
a bit of a split result on the one hand
continuity of a kind of robust line uh
towards China on the other hand a
significant chunk of majority of the
electorates saying it's time to try to
get on better with the Chinese so
Richard what did this election tell us
about the health of Taiwanese democracy
it's a remarkable sign of the resilience
of this system that it's kept going
under all of that enormous Chinese
pressure but they still go about these
elections in a clean and Fair Way um so
I think that that is also you know one
of the ways in which Taiwan is just a
sort of a living rebuke to the Chinese
system the Chinese say oh you know
democracy is a western invention well
this is very much not a Western Place um
and democracy is absolutely Alive and
Kicking
here but the story is not so simple
elsewhere in Asia which is home to the
world's biggest
democracy I think this next election uh
will be extremely important for the
future of India because we are hearing a
lot about um Democratic Norms being
undermined we are seeing um minorities
under
threat I'm uh am Chima and I was born
and brought up in India a few years ago
de uh asked me to set up the bureau in
Delhi U and head this Bureau and that's
what I'm doing for the last few years
I'm heading DW's Bureau in Delhi
India's parliamentary elections are set
to take place throughout April and May
it takes that long because it's a huge
undertaking and it's baffling from
anyone from the outside to see how that
works they have to ensure that every
body has the ability to cast their
ballot and that means often in the you
know going to remote places you know
they send ballot boxes on camels in
remote areas of the desert they use
mules and donkeys and take them into the
Himalayas and remote hamlets so Indians
actually also love voting for the past
decade this man has led the country
Narendra Modi and this year he's
expected to win an unprecedented third
term everybody thinks that the party of
the incumbent prime minister Narendra
Modi will win and that party is the bhia
J party or the BJP and and this is due
to a combination of factors um the
opposition is hugely fragmented there
are more than 2,000 political parties in
India yet Modi seems to have won the
hearts and minds of millions and I think
one of the biggest things that um makes
him very appealing is because India has
a young population he Taps into this
aspirational class of young Indians
there are lots of other areas where the
BJP has delivered big time in terms of
infrastructure even now because this is
an election year I mean every day
there's a new
scheme in recent years analysts have
begun raising questions about what they
call modi's majoritarian style of
governance what they mean is pandering
to the aspirations of the majority
Community now that is the Hindu
community in India the Hindus are an
overwhelming majority in India but when
India got independence the Constitution
they adopted was a secular constitution
in which everybody is taken into account
not just the majority Community but the
minorities were also protected many of
the people from the minorities feel that
they are they feel under threat and
particularly those who feel under threat
uh are India's largest minority and
that's the
Muslims Modi himself denies oppressing
minority
we
are home to all faiths in the world and
we celebrate all of
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that in
India
diversity is a natural way of
life and though the country's Democratic
setup should in theory protect minority
rights there is obviously a lot of
concern about the major institutions
Which underpin democracy like the Jud
Judiciary right uh like like the
election commission like um you know um
key bureaucratic positions all of those
um they are a lot of accusations that
the BJP has put in people who are um you
know close to their way of thinking some
in the media claim authorities are
trying to intimidate the Press every
time there's some kind of they don't
like what somebody's written the law
enforcement agencies are sent in to
conduct a tax rate and that is also to
silence critics among the media but
modi's geopolitical star has been rising
in the west with leaders in Washington
Paris Berlin and many other places
rolling out the red carpet for him they
seem largely unconcerned about
allegations of democratic backsliding in
India they really see India as
absolutely crucial counterweight to
China and so that I think Western
governments are prepared to give India
um quite a bit of freedom I think it
would take a lot more for Western
governments to really seriously raise
very vocal
concerns Delhi has not only managed to
deepen ties with liberal democracies
it's also kept up cozy relations with
autocratic Russia through the bricks
Alliance that's become much more
politically controversial since moscow's
fullscale invasion of Ukraine in
February
2022 but India isn't the only country
trying to juggle friendships with
Democratic and non-democratic Powers
fellow bricks member South Africa has
been treading a similar path they and
others share a certain skepticism to war
Western positioning when countries like
India or South Africa or other countries
in the global South um look at Western
countries talking about Democratic
Values um they see pretty much a bunch
of Hypocrites um they see countries that
have um built their wealth on histories
of colonialism in the case of Europe uh
or the repression of of uh indigenous
populations this Rings extreme
Hollow living in South Africa at the
moment it feels a little bit like we're
on the precipice of something really big
my name is Diane Hawker and I am the
South Africa correspondent for deut um I
cover news in South Africa and the
southern Africa region so looking at
countries like lutu Botswana um
swasiland Namibia but for the most part
I'm focused on South
Africa South Africans will vote between
May and August in an election that's
expected to be the most competitive
since the end of the racist aparti
system 30 years ago we are going forward
I do actually still remember the the
1994 election I was about 10 years old
um and the thing that I remember about
it most clearly was that um like my
grandmother had never voted as a black
South African and she was already you
know over 70 years old and this was the
first time that she was ever going to be
able to actually um use that right to
really speak for herself in the country
of her birth since then the African
National Congress thec has dominated
South Africa's
Parliament polls suggest current
president siril ramapo's party will
again get the most votes this year but
with a smaller than ever majority a a
lot of of of of older voters do still
have um that connection to thec as a
Liberation movement as a movement that
for the first time offered um you know
black citizens housing that was able to
to to provide better education but what
I think that young voters will say is
that there's more to be done and there
are questions about whether thec is the
party that can do that more
South Africa has one of the youngest
populations in the
G20 many of whom are frustrated by high
unemployment allegations of corruption
and the regular loadshedding power cuts
which disrupt daily life for many South
Africans including Dian election where
we have independent candidates oh sorry
load
shedding my light just changed I didn't
actually realize how power was going off
at 2:00
CL voter turnout has been falling for
decades with some analysts blaming
disillusionment with pretoria's
Democratic
dream but now a push to rejuvenate South
African democracy is underway for the
first time independent candidates will
be able to stand in national elections
and several new parties will be on the
ballot these new parties don't all have
a link to the struggle movement they're
not legacy parties in any way they are a
lot of them led by younger people um and
that may bring more um people to the
voting
stations if we're not able to bring more
people into the Democratic process that
you will have an even larger group of
people becoming disenfranchised and
unhappy with the idea of democracy it's
been a shaky time for African politics
with a serious of coups in recent years
if South Africa starts to slip away from
democracy it would be a very poor sign
to send to the rest of the region um it
would be something that people you know
that have been watching us closely they
kind of see us as a Beacon of
Hope thousands of kilometers away change
is already a foot in another Regional
heavyweight Latin America has a very sad
history of governments especially
leftist governments that have come to
power that have shown that uh they can
do a different type of government for
the people and then refuse to leave
we're about to see if Mexico is going on
the same path my name is jaier gas I
work with the W's Latin America programs
I'm a news anchor atw news in Spanish
and I have been correspondent for Latin
America covering all the issues in the
continent Mexico will almost certainly
be governed by one of these two women
after this June's elections in a first
both the incumbent Morena party and the
more conservative opposition have put
forward women presidential
candidates we'll see how this plays out
though because um despite the fact that
it's a very good um aspect of
representation to have a woman in power
for sure Latin America has unfortunately
had uh a story or a history of making it
difficult for women in power because of
the misogyny that unfortunately is still
present in the
continent polls suggest Claudia shinbo
from the ruling party will win she's
seen as the Protegé of Mexico's outgoing
president Andres Manuel Lopez orador who
swept a power in 2018 on a populist
leftist ticket Claudia sh bom is
considered uh just a continuation of
and's policies some of those have proved
popular like a drive to reduce poverty
and promote a more inclusive political
discourse but the outgoing leader has
also been accused of trying to weaken
Mexico's Democratic
institutions two of the most uh
important and controversial measures
that and lope tried to put into place
were a reform of the Judiciary System um
and a reform of the uh electoral
Watchdog now critics of say that those
two measures were nothing short of um
trying to grab onto power and to ensure
that uh the executive controls all of
the Mexican Government Claudia shinbo
defended cuts to the Electoral Watchdog
to last
year
but critics are also concerned about the
power the current government has given
to the military which now manages parts
of Civilian infrastructure including
some train lines and airports the
argument of the government is it is
necessary because the military is better
organized is less prone to corruption
but of course many see an effort to have
the military on his side in case things
at some point don't go his way public
protest and the courts have so far
curbed the scale and scope of reforms
but Mexico has slipped in global
Democratic rankings the institutions in
Mexico have held up so far but the
problem is critics say this will
probably be in danger if there is
another term and if the current
government gets strengthened in the next
election because then they will succeed
in uh changing the things that they
actually could not change in this
current term and then then we might see
an authoritarian regime in Mexico this
could have other
consequences so if the Mexican democracy
fails it's going to be the drug dealers
that are going to take control but if
institutions continue to stay strong and
to actually perform and do what they
have to do um I think uh the Mexicans
might have uh a strong
democracy even the most robust
institutions can come under pressure
when voters feel cheated by the system
that's a dilemma facing the world's
biggest multilateral democratic system
the 27 member European
Union the key question in this election
is how strong the far right group is
going to be in the European Parliament
will there be able to block legislations
will they be able to significantly uh
influence the work of the chamber will
they make any consensus impossible
European Parliament elections will take
place over 3 days in June with hundreds
of millions of people eligible to cast
votes the outcome will Herald an even
bigger Changing of the Guard here in
Brussels when based on the results EU
member states assign the top jobs at the
European commission the European Council
and elsewhere and it's all going to play
out right here in Brussels at the
European Parliament let's go
in so my name is Al SRA F I'm DW's
Brussels bureau chief but it's not my
first student abroad I was based in
Moscow many years ago also on behalf of
DW covered various crisis and Wars the
European Parliament is defined by
pluralism negotiations and consensus no
single political block has an absolute
majority of the more than 700 members
the biggest Powers will almost
definitely remain the center right and
Center left but the far right identity
and democracy group is projected to make
gains it was formed in 2019 to unite
populist right-wing euroskeptic parties
like Marine Le Pen's National Rally from
France or the Liga from
Italy accusations that the EU has failed
to manage migration have fueled the rise
of the far right across Europe and
that's making mainstream parties more
open to populist policies as they try to
claw back votes from the fringes and
this means the farri could push their
agenda further into European policy
there is uh this growing dissatisfaction
with u Brussels with uh actions of the
national governments but of course it's
much easier for the far right to exploit
our fears they just um go for the easy
solutions uh they say okay you know
we're going to build walls at the border
uh at the external borders of the
European Union nobody will be able to
come that's ridiculous you you cannot do
it and it's also against the
law but the populists may not get it all
their
way these people are pro- Democrats
rallying in Germany in January hundreds
of thousands across the country
demonstrated against a farri party after
reports its members met with neo-nazis
to plot Mass expulsion of
migrants the demonstrations ignited a
debate about if and when it's
appropriate to exclude the extreme right
entirely to protect democracy from
potentially self-destructive choices
it's all a sign that their rise is far
from
inevitable but one shift in Europe's
political makeup is guaranteed in July
it's hungary's turn for the six-month
rotating presidency of the EU Council
and that power over the Block's
policymaking
agenda Hungarian prime minister Victor
Orban is known to keep up friendly ties
with Moscow he has been slammed by some
as Putin's agent uh and he has
repeatedly blocked or delayed sanctions
against Russia he has hampered the flaw
of financial aid to Ukraine so there are
concerns and worries uh that having him
at the helm of EU eu's rotate or the
eu's rotating presidency will make it
much more difficult for the whole of the
EU to continue with its support uh to
Ukraine and that could be a disadvantage
in what might be a long War Vladimir
Putin is hoping that he can just keep
fighting and keep grinding on in Ukraine
for so long that the Democratic systems
of the West start to start to um waver
in their support for Ukraine then of
course the democracies of the West
particularly the Europeans in the United
States having to keep things together in
pluralistic multi-party systems um and
this is going to be really a a very very
important test I think for the endurance
for the stamina of these political
systems uh up against each other a test
which could still get a whole lot harder
would Trump be a much bigger problem
than Victor Orban
yes
this election is really as crucial as it
gets and it might change the order of
the world we know since the end of uh
the World War
II I'm Enis P I'm the bureau chief here
in Washington since three and a half
years but I've been here before so this
actually is really my third election I'm
covering before coming here to
Washington again I was the editor and
chief for 3 years uh at dutche Val so
I've been
around this November American voters
will decide on their future president in
the last major vote of
2024 they're likely to face a choice
between the same two old white men as
last time former president Donald Trump
is expected to run against incumbent Joe
Biden in this race it's bound to be
tight yet the results will have
significant consequences for some of the
global
biggest
institutions if Donald Trump gets
elected or if his Maga people uh will
win the two Chambers um it's very likely
that the funding of uh Ukraine to defend
itself will be cut uh dramatically so
the world has to be prepared
that NATO will be dramatically weakened
um Donald Trump hates the un uh he
ridicules the UN um it's also very
likely that he will be less less
supportive uh of uh the United Nations
Donald Trump will leave the Paris
climate Accord right away as he did when
he was in office last time he's a he's a
so-called climate denier Trump says he
doesn't understand at home Biden is
framing the choice between him and Trump
as a vote for or against American
democracy democracy is on the ballot
your freedom is on the
ballot Trump's past includes attacks on
the Judiciary man he is a nasty judge
he's a trump hating guy on the media
that's enough put down the mic on the
rule of law where I could stand in the
middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot
somebody and I wouldn't lose any voters
okay he rejected the results of the
election he lost in 2020 this is a fraud
on the American public this is an
embarrassment to our country
we were getting ready to win this
election frankly we did win this
election which led to this Riot on
January 6th
2021 and he's promised more should he
win the White House again he says you're
not going to be a dictator are you I
said no no no other than day one we're
closing the border and we're drilling
drilling
drilling polls suggest many Americans
are disappointed by the points they're
likely to face again this
year it's a nation divided we only have
two parties that's one reason why
everything always is so polarized now on
top with social media and how they work
and how people get their information
they're kind of only listening to what
they want to hear they're only listening
to news outlets to their Facebook groups
which kind of reaffirm their their
opinion that makes the divisiveness even
stronger social media may have
democratized information and opinion by
allowing everyone a potentially Global
platform but it has massively
complicated elections in all democracies
creating a web of opinion sharing with
no framework of rules or even agreed
facts it offers huge potential for
disinformation and for foreign
interference to sway large populations
when you have the combination of an open
Society with such a wideopen system of
communication that can reach pretty much
everybody and everybody can reach
everybody else I think the impact of
this on Democracy is still not
understood it's another threat to
democracy that's coming from within the
system in this case from within the
palms of our hands and when us voters
decide on their country's future this
November people in the rest of the world
can only watch and wait and scroll on
from afar the United States is certainly
not a blame is free democracy far from
it um but still it is the country in the
world that stands stands for democracy
more than any other and if there is you
know under a potential second term of
Donald Trump you know a a a backsliding
on the scale that that some uh have been
warning about then that would be a
really devastating um signal to the
world that um democracy um is brittle
this is I think the huge worry that
people have about the United States at
the moment um the US democracy is kind
of turning in on itself and devouring
itself there's no doubt about it the
sense of inevitability and progress that
once underpinned all talk of
democratization is gone in 2024
democracy stands on Shaky Ground but
after speaking to colleagues around the
world I'm struck by the faith they still
have in in the people in the voters
they're speaking to every day as a South
African I I I I I am still optimistic I
do think that our Democratic
institutions go beyond just political
parties it is not easy to mess with the
Mexican democracy because Mexicans have
shown that they will be there to defend
it I certainly hope it is just a phase
and that things will turn around and as
for the future of India I'm cautiously
optimistic but that doesn't mean there's
no cause for concern as this big
inflection point in history looms I
believe that this country still has a
lot of power and energy to reinvent
itself again it overcame so many
crisises in the
last but the system has to work if the
system is broken then the best people
will have a hard time to bring it back
to what it was but of course we're the
lucky ones who get to play our part in
democracy we report freely from places
where people to varying extents get a
say over how their lives are governed
defending those Democratic systems seems
obvious if not easy when the threat
comes from across a border we're seeing
that fight going on in Ukraine right now
when there's an external threat a
country can rally round and unite
against it you know that's what you see
in Wartime um that's what you see in the
cold war that the United States saw
Russia as this great threat and kind of
United um uh against it but but when
threats to democracy are internal I
think that that there is a an inherent
complacency that people have about it
and it's easy to feel complacent or even
frustrated with a system which can seem
slow and inefficient democracy is on is
of all forms of govern government it is
um certainly the most tiresome
uh and uh you need to you know build
majorities you need to bridge divisions
and to convince people of your ideas and
if you are not successful they're going
to vote you out and we also sometimes um
you know tend to forget that uh we are
so used to democracy that we don't even
know what it actually means to to um
live under um authoritarian regime or um
under a dictatorship with no personal
rights and history from Germany and
Beyond shows us just how quickly
democracy can be destroyed and how that
destruction can even start with an
election when this bumper electoral year
is over the world will have answers
about who will govern and who will be in
the room when this decade's big
decisions are made but it's set to open
new questions about democracy's
resilience and its capacity to
self-correct if Democratic votes usher
in more anti-democratic forces and
democracy votes against
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itself