BANGKOK (AP) – Whether on the left or the right, regardless of how long they’ve been in power, sitting governments around the world have been drubbed this year by disgruntled voters in what has been called the “super year” for elections.
Donald Trump’s victory in the United States (US) presidential election was just the latest in a long line of losses for incumbent parties in 2024, with people in some 70 countries accounting for about half the world’s population going to the polls.
Issues driving voter discontent have varied widely, though there has been almost universal malaise since the COVID-19 pandemic as people and businesses struggle to get back on their feet while facing stubbornly high prices, cash-strapped governments and a surge in migration.
“There’s an overall sense of frustration with political elites, viewing them as out of touch, that cuts across ideological lines,” said Director of Global Attitudes research at the Pew Research Center Richard Wike.
He noted that a Pew poll of 24 countries found that the appeal of democracy itself was slipping as voters reported increasing economic distress and a sense that no political faction truly represents them.
“Lots of factors are driving this,” Wike said, “but certainly feelings about the economy and inflation are a big factor”.
Since the pandemic hit in 2020, incumbents have been removed from office in 40 of 54 elections in Western democracies, said a political scientist at Harvard University Steven Levitsky, revealing “a huge incumbent disadvantage”.
In Britain, the right-of-centre Conservatives suffered their worst result since 1832 in July’s election, which returned the centre-left Labour Party to power after 14 years.
But just across the English Channel, the far right rocked the governing parties of France and Germany, the European Union’s biggest and most powerful members, in June elections for the Parliament of the 27-nation bloc.
The results pushed French President Emmanuel Macron to call a parliamentary election in hope of stemming a far-right surge at home.
The anti-immigration National Rally party won the first round, but alliances and tactical voting knocked it down to third place in the second round, producing a fragile government atop a divided legislature.
In Asia, a group of South Korean liberal opposition parties, led by the Democratic Party, defeated the ruling conservative People Power Party in April’s parliamentary elections.
India’s Narendra Modi, meanwhile, had been widely expected to easily sweep to a third straight term in June but instead voters turned away from his Bharatiya Janata Party in droves, costing it its majority in parliament, though it was able to remain in power with the help of allies.
Likewise, Japanese voters in October punished the Liberal Democratic Party, which has governed the country nearly without interruption since 1955.
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will stay in power, but the greater-than-expected loss ended the LDP’s one-sided rule, giving the opposition a chance to achieve policy changes long opposed by the conservatives.
“If you were to ask me to explain Japan in a vacuum, that’s not too difficult,” said an adjunct assistant professor at Temple University’s Japan campus Paul Nadeau.
“Voters were punishing an incumbent party for a corruption scandal, and this gave them a chance to express a lot more frustrations that they already had.”
Globally, however, it’s harder to draw conclusions.
“This is pretty consistent across different situations, different countries, different elections – incumbents are getting a crack on the shins,” he said. “And I don’t have any good big picture explanations for why that is.”
Professor of Political Science at the University of Manchester Rob Ford said inflation has been a major driver of “the greatest wave of anti-incumbent voting ever seen” – though the reasons behind the backlash may also be “broader and more diffuse”.
“It could be something directly to do with the long-term effects of the COVID pandemic – a big wave of ill health, disrupted education, disrupted workplace experiences and so forth making people less happy everywhere, and they are taking it out on governments,” he said.
“A kind of electoral long COVID.”
In South Africa, high unemployment and inequality helped drive a dramatic loss of support for the African National Congress, which had governed for three decades since the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule.
The party once led by Nelson Mandela lost its parliamentary majority in May’s election and was forced to go into coalition with opposition parties.
In Latin America, one major country stands out for bucking the anti-incumbent wave – Mexico.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador, limited to a single term, selected Claudia Sheinbaum, a member of his party, to succeed him. Sheinbaum easily won the presidency in June’s election.
Wike noted that Mexico is one of the few countries in Pew’s survey where voters reported satisfaction with economic conditions.
Some newcomers to office have already found that the honeymoon following their victories has been short, as people have rapidly turned on them.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has seen his approval ratings plummet from a jaded electorate that wants lower prices and better public services – but is deeply skeptical of politicians’ intention and ability to deliver change.
Ford, of the University of Manchester, said it’s a problem for democracy when voters, whose task is to hold governments to account, are so quick to pass judgement.
“If voters are the electoral equivalent of a hanging judge, putting politicians to the gallows whether they be guilty or innocent, then what incentive is there for governments to try?” he asked.
Trump first came to power as a challenger in the 2016 election, and then lost as an incumbent in the 2020 election to Joe Biden. This year, he defeated Biden’s Vice President Kamala Harris, who stepped in late in the race when the president unexpectedly dropped out.
Trump’s win is one of the conservative populist movement’s highest-profile triumphs.
