THE year 2024 happens to be the year of elections. For the first time in history this year will witness more elections than ever before in five of the most populated countries of the world that is India, Pakistan, Bang-ladesh, USA and Indonesia all together these five countries have a population of over two billion with about fifty percent of their population eligible to vote. This year is definitely the year of elections when a large majority of the World’s population will go to the polls to elect their future government. Out of these five countries three are Muslim majority countries and ironically out of the 57 Muslim nations not a single one has true democracy or democratic institutions. So far the people of Indonesia. Pakistan and Bangladesh have already voted and Sri Lanka and the USA have yet to go to the polls. Polling day in Pakistan was 8th of Feb-ruary and it resulted in a hung parliament and a fractured mandate.
No single party got enough seats to form a govt. at the Federal level but the PMLN won in Punjab, the PPP was successful in Sindh and the PTI swept the polls in KPK sadly speaking no single party has a vote bank in all the provinces and all of them have been reduced to the status of provincial parties only. True to traditions the elections in 2024 once again ignited a huge storm of allegations of fraud and rigging. One of the important attributes of a well-functioning democratic system is to accept the result of election and this has never happened in Pakistan. International media joined the chorus of domestic voices to condemn the elections and major newspapers like the Guardian and the Economist and the Time magazine wrote some scathing criticism of the election process and countries like the USA, UK and the EU urged the Pakistan authorities to investigate the charges of rigging and vote manipulation.
People of Bangladesh went to the polls on 7th January to elect members of the Jatiya Sang sad or their na-tional assembly. Bangladesh one of the most populated Muslim country of the world has had its share of military dictatorships in the past. Clear winner in this election was Sheikh Hasina the leader of the Awami League and the incumbent Prime Minister who happens to be the daughter of the father of the nation Sheikh Mujib Ur Rahman and this will be her fourth term in office. True to traditions in all Muslim countries Sheikh Hasina cracked down on all the opposition parties just before the elections and all those in opposition to her were put in prison. According to independent analysts Sheikh Hasina has destroyed democracy in Bangla-desh and established her dictatorship. The Awami league won 223 seats in the assembly that has 300 elected members and 50 seats are reserved for women. Indonesia the biggest Muslim country in the world held elec-tions on 14th February to elect the president, vice president and the Peoples’ consultative assembly made up of the House of Representatives, the Senate and members of the Local Legislative Bodies. The ruling presi-dent JokoWidodo could not compete because legally he cannot be president for a third term. Jibran Raka-buming the son of the President ran for the slot of Vice President after the age limit was reduced to 36 by a constitutional amendment. It now appears that the son of the President will be the next president laying the foundations of a dynastic rule. Indonesia like all Muslim nations has suffered the curse of dictators in the form of Ahmed Sukarno and General Suhar to in the past and it appears that even now the military is the power behind the throne and democracy is just a façade.
In May 2024 India the so- called biggest democracy in the world will go to the polls to elect the next parliament and the govt. It is now predicted that the serving Prime Minister Narendra Modi is most likely to win another term as the leader of the BJP. The next term of PM Modi will run up to 2029 making him the longest serving Prime Minister out ranking the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru who served from 1947 to 1964.Presidential elections are scheduled to be held in Sri Lanka sometime between September and Octo-ber 2024, according to the Constitution of Sri Lanka. Voters will elect a president for a term of five years. Incumbent president Ranil Wickremesinghe is eligible to run for re-election.
Finally the only super power in the world the champion of democracy and freedom of speech the USA will hold elections to elect the next president in November. One of the candidates in this election will be the maverick and greatly maligned Donald Trump who has already put in one term as president from 2017 to 2021. He suffered an ignoble defeat at the hands of Joe Biden but refused to accept defeat in a dignified manner and as American traditions. He ignited a big debate in the country when he alleged that the elections were rigged in favor of Joe Biden. He accused the “Deep State” or the American Bureaucracy that has acted to safeguard its own interest ignoring the national interest completely. Donald Trump has convinced his fol-lowers that if he runs again, as seems very likely, the world would be looking at which direction the Ameri-can democratic system will take. As Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize winning economist who writes weekly column for The New York Times, wrote on February 14: “It now seems entirely possible that within the next year, the American democracy could be irretrievably altered. And the final blow won’t be the rise of extrem-ism – that rise certainly created the preconditions for disaster for some time now. No what may turn out to be is the handwringing over Biden’s age has overshadowed the real stakes in the 2024 election.”
The chances of the return of Donald Trump is bad news for America and the world If he gets another term he will behave like an agent of doom and gloom with no respect for the truth and law. There will be a spike in violence and racism in the USA. Americans in this election will have a tough choice as they will be deciding between the devil and the deep sea. One can only hope that the American voters will make a sensi-ble and decent choice.
—The writer is Professor of History, based in Islamabad.
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