By Nitya Chakraborty
The year 2023 has ended with two big wars and a few local conflicts including one in Myanmar bordering India. While the world was looking for the end of war in Ukraine during 2023, a new war with much severe death toll began in Gaza strip of Palestine in October 2023 giving all the indications at the beginning of New Year that both the wars may continue indefinitely with no real efforts being made by the big powers to bring about a permanent ceasefire.
2024 is going to be the year in which elections will be held in 70 countries including United States, Taiwan, United Kingdom, India, Russia, Mexico, Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Further, elections to European Parliament in the middle of this year will have crucial significance. Europe is already witnessing a shift towards more conservative policies and a consolidation of right wing views on action against the immigrants. Earlier liberalism of the dominant parties are being challenged by the parties of far right. The anti immigrant mood of the local population have made the centre right parties lose political base to the fringe elements.
This shift to the right in Europe which is expected to be reflected in the results of the European Parliament during the year will coincide with the last leg of the campaign in the Presidential elections in the USA due on November 5 this year. In all probability, Donald Trump will be the Republican Party candidate despite all the court ruling in the states. Trump's latest rating is far above the Democratic Party candidate President Joe Biden . Trump is fighting on the basis of his MAGA (Make America Great Again) programme and he is getting big response from the youth as also working people. The former President has taken a more far right position in this 2024 campaign as against the earlier one. This has made President Biden's task more challenging.
President Biden during the first term in his office has made substantial reforms in favour of the US labour. Minimum wages have been hiked. The US administration stood in support of the unions in their strike actions in the big auto industry. The unions made significant gains following agreement. Similarly, the striking writers and actors guilds also got support from the Biden regime. This has made President Biden more acceptable to the powerful trade union body AFL-CIO in US and its support to the Democratic Party nominee is a big boost for President Biden before the November polls. But this trade union support is not adequate to bridge the gap in middle America which Trump is exploiting through his anti-immigration campaign.
US political analysts believe that the political fallout of the brutal Israeli offensive in Gaza or the stalemate on the Ukraine front also depends on the presidential race in the United States. The cracks in transatlantic unity and the increasingly direct accusations of double standards in the West's loyalties are not unrelated to what happens in the United States on November 5 2024. A return of Donald Trump to the White House would bring a drastic shift in the power relations and Washington's position in each of these conflicts, from weapons' supplies to the Ukrainian government or the support for Israel, to confrontation with Russia and China.
2023 has been one of the most conflictive years in the world since the end of World War II. In just twelve months, political violence has increased by 27%. It grew in intensity and frequency. The war in Gaza brought 2023 to a close, with over 18000 dead accounted for so far, warnings from the United Nations of the risk of humanitarian collapse and genocide of the Palestinian population trapped in the Strip, and the standoff between the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the UN secretary general, António Guterres, to try to secure a ceasefire. In this ongoing crisis of the liberal order and amid discussion over the validity of international law, Israel has dealt a severe blow to the credibility of the United Nations.
More than 4 billion people will go to the polls in 76 countries, which amounts to nearly 51% of the world's population. While most of the people in these countries will vote in full or flawed democracies, one in four voters will take part in ballots in hybrid and/or authoritarian regimes. In countries such as Russia, Tunisia, Algeria, Belarus, Rwanda or Iran. The leaderships will use these elections to try to tighten their grip on power and gain legitimacy in the eyes of their citizens, while the other half of the electorate will exercise their right to vote in countries that have undergone democratic erosion or displayed illiberal tendencies like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The future of the European Union is at stake in the June 2024 elections. Apart from the elections to the European Parliament, which will be held from June 6th to 9th, 2024, 12 member states are also going to the polls. The general elections in Belgium, Portugal or Austria will be a latest assessment of the strength of the far right, which is shaping up as one of the winners in the elections to the European Parliament. Since the last elections in 2019-, the European Parliament has been doing away with generally accepted pro liberal and humanitarian policies. There is every possibility of the emergence of a far illiberal European Parliament after June 2024 elections.
In the United Kingdom, after a long gap, the Labour Party is in a position to come to power in the coming general elections due in December this year or January next year.. The Tory prime minister Rishi Sunak is desperately trying to unite the fractured Conservative Party but his rival the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is still placed in an advantageous position in the latest opinion polls. The irony is that Starmer has isolated all leftwing members of the Party including former leader Jeremy Corbyn and has freed the programme from its earlier socialist content. Starmer supporters feel that this is the right way to seek the support of the electorate who were fed up with socialist jargons of Corbyn in the earlier elections.
In Africa., there will be elections in 16 countries but the most important is in South Africa where for the first time since it came to power in 1994, the ruling African National Congress will have a tough challenge from the opposition. Former president Jacob Zuma is opposing the ANC and is supposed to extend cooperation to the opposition. South African Communist Party which is a partner of the ruling coalition, has worked out a programme and submitted it to the ANC leadership. In South America, elections will be held in Mexico after the left wing coalition Morena under President Luis Obrador completes the term successfully. Obrador will not stand this time but Morena coalition is expected to win. However, Venezuela under President Maduro will be facing a big challenge in the coming elections. Even the Venezuelan Communist Party which supported the government for long, is critical of its functioning…
Overall, the outlook for 2024 is not very positive for the democratic, liberal and left forces. In Europe, in only three countries, the Left has remained strong whether in power or not. In Spain, the Socialist Communist coalition is implementing a number of pro people programmes. The Communist Deputy Prime Minister Olanda Dias is doing big reforms in favour of workers. In Portugal, both the Socialist Party and the Communist Party have retained their bases. In Greece, though, Syriza coalition has lost, the Communist Party has improved its position in the last elections. But the situation is dismal for the Left forces in Germany and France. For the democrats and the Left, more consolidation of the anti right forces is the need of the hour. The international peace movement has to be galvanized to unify the anti war forces. For the Democrats and Left wing parties, the year 2024 will need more joint actions to meet the onslaught of the far right.
(IPA Service)
