The right is growing in a European Union that is struggling to redefine itself
When the year started, it did so with a global horizon largely marked by the elections and, throughout these twelve months, the polls have brought returns such as that of the tycoon Donald Trump in the United States, the lack of transparency in processes such as those of Venezuela or Russia and the fear of interference by the latter country in other contexts, especially in Europe.
Around half of the population was already clear on January 1 that they would go to vote at some point in 2024, as happened, for example, to American citizens, who had November 5 marked on the calendar. After a campaign marked by the unexpected resignation of the theoretical Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, Trump signed his return to the White House with a solid victory against Vice President Kamala Harris.
On January 20, she will take office and Washington’s partners are already waiting for the turn that Trump has announced in key policies, also in the international arena. One of the blocks that does not hide its misgivings is the European Union, 27 countries that also went to vote at the beginning of June to renew the European Parliament.
The victory of the conservatives allowed the German Ursula Von der Leyen to repeat for five more years as president of the European Commission, in a power trio that she shares with the socialist António Costa, president of the Council, and the also ‘popular’ Roberta Metsola, at the head of the European Parliament.
The European elections served to confirm the consolidation of far-right parties and positions, as demonstrated by the fact that, for the first time, a member of this political family holds a vice-presidency of the Community Executive, boosted by the success of the Italian Giorgia Meloni.
The EU has also seen its two largest economies, Germany and France, undergo their own particular “via crucis” towards the polls – in the case of Germany, there will be elections in February 2025. French President Emmanuel Macron brought forward parliamentary elections to June and July to try to gain stability and has found himself faced with even more complex arithmetic in the National Assembly.
Michel Barnier’s experiment as prime minister, without a solid majority in his favour, ended abruptly with a vote of no confidence, an unprecedented milestone in more than half a century. Whatever happens now with the centrist François Bayrou, France will not be able to vote again until at least July 2025.
In Portugal, the conservatives have returned to power; in Austria an unprecedented tripartite alliance led by Chancellor Karl Nehammer overshadowed the electoral victory of the far right; and in Ireland the numbers anticipate the reissue of the agreement between Fianna Fáil and Finn Gael to continue sharing power.
Belgium is also in full negotiations – and it has been more than six months – and Bulgaria continues to add elections due to the lack of a solid majority in Parliament – they have voted seven times since April 2021.
THE RUSSIAN SHADOW
Within the EU, the case of Romania has been followed with special concern, which in just a few weeks held parliamentary and presidential elections. The victory against the odds of the ultra-nationalist Calin Georgescu set off all the alarms, especially after the Intelligence services made public their suspicions about Russian interference. The Constitutional Court has ordered the entire process to be repeated.
The shadow of Moscow has also been present in Moldova, which still has Maia Sandu as president, and in Georgia, where the official Georgian Dream has been consolidated amid accusations of fraud and citizen protests. The shared fear is that these attempts by Russia to influence Eastern Europe will increase in the coming years, given that there are no changes in sight in the Kremlin.
In fact, the presidential elections held in March in Russia were more of a bureaucratic formality for Vladimir Putin than a real political dispute: there were no minimally relevant opposition rivals and the Government controls all institutions. Thanks to the latest constitutional reform, Putin has a free hand to continue until 2036 if he so wishes.
Also within Europe, 2024 has been an election year in the United Kingdom. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak brought forward the date in view of his growing weakness and ceded Downing Street to Keir Starmer, who has returned the Labour Party to the Government 14 years after the end of the previous period.
BETWEEN CONTINUITY AND CONTROVERSY
In Latin America, the presidents of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, and the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader, have revalidated their respective positions without problems, while in Mexico the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) has changed the face of Andrés Manuel López Obrador for that of Claudia Sheinbaum, the first woman to reach the Presidency of this country.
The renewal has reached Panama, with José Raúl Mulino, and Uruguay, where Yamandú Orsi has recovered the presidential scepter for the left –he will take office on March 1–.
However, the future of Venezuela remains up in the air. The opposition and a large part of the international community question the victory that the Chavista bodies attribute to Nicolás Maduro, president since 2013, to the extent that there are no official minutes that support it.
The opposition parties have presented samples of these minutes, which insist that the real winner was the former diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia. From his exile in Spain, González insists that he wants to return to Venezuela and take office on January 10.
ASIA AND AFRICA
On the Asian front, for its part, Japan has had a turbulent year marked by the resignation in August of the then Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, and an early election that has left the ruling Liberal Democratic Party weaker, now with Shigeru Ishiba as its standard-bearer at the head of the Government.
In Taiwan, the official William Lai obtained the Presidency, which has meant for the island the continuity of previous policies and which imply, among other things, marking distance from Beijing and its sovereign aspirations.
Bangladesh ends the year in a very different way to how it began, and all this despite the fact that in January the veteran Sheikh Hasina revalidated the position in parliamentary elections that gave way in a matter of months to unprecedented demonstrations. Hasina resigned after 15 years in power and Bangladesh is now headed by Nobel Prize winner Mohamed Yunus.
Pakistan elected Shehbaz Sharif as prime minister in the February general election, while in a turbulent Middle East, Egypt’s Abdelfatá al Sisi began a new term and Iran elected the moderate Masud Pezeshkian as its new president, in elections forced by the death of Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter accident.
The election year in Africa has meant the beginning of a new term for Algeria’s Abdelmayid Tebune or Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, in the latter case after obtaining 99 percent of the votes, according to official data. In Chad, Mahamat Déby has gone from leading the transition after the sudden death of his father to achieving the endorsement of the polls.
Namibia has had a woman president for the first time since December, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, and in Senegal the political division has become evident with the fight between Bassirou Diomaye Faye, winner of the presidential elections in March, and Ousmane Sonko, appointed prime minister and whose party won the legislative elections in November.
In Mozambique, the year ends with protests with dozens of deaths, after the authorities declared the official Daniel Chapo the winner of the presidential elections and the opposition, led by Venancio Mondlane, contradicted these results.
