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-or-break 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 US sitting at the end of the year like a giant question mark.
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