Half the world is voting this year, and the incumbents are in trouble

George Martin Fell Brown, Socialist Alternative (ISA in the United States)

(This article was first published on July 8, 2024)

This November, millions of Americans will vote in a presidential election in which we will have to choose between two candidates nobody wanted. Despite all of America's formal democratic structures, most of us feel we have little say in society. And we are not alone. In 2024, 64 countries around the world will hold national elections. That's almost half the world's population. Yet this “election year” coincides with several years of democratic backsliding around the world.

With the collapse of Stalinism, the neoliberal order introduced more “democracy” than ever before, at least formally. But this also meant the consolidation of the power of the capitalist class. Now this order is in crisis. Martin Wolf, the chief economic commentator of the Financial Timeswarned last year in his book The crisis of democratic capitalism: “Our economy has destabilized our politics and vice versa. We are no longer able to combine the functioning of the market economy with a stable liberal democracy.”

As the neoliberal order gives way to a new era of disorder, the political center is crumbling. The result is increasing polarization. This polarization initially led to the growth of new left-wing formations, from Syriza in Greece to Podemos in Spain to the Bernie Sanders movement here in the United States.

However, the same capitalist crisis that enabled these new left formations also put them under enormous pressure – at a time very different from the post-war boom, when mass workers' parties pushed through significant reforms. The new left formations were tested and found wanting. The same polarization then gave way to right-wing populist figures: from Trump in the US to Modi in India to Orban in Hungary. But even these right-wing populist forces have no solution to the capitalist crisis. This offers new opportunities for left and workers' forces.

There is no simple trend consistently to the right or to the left in this election year. However, the elections taking place around the world are all a reflection of the growing capitalist crisis and the age of disorder.

Capitalist Democracy World Tour 2024

A common theme in recent elections has been the removal or weakening of incumbents. In South Africa, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) lost its majority in May for the first time since the end of apartheid. Instead, years of corruption and austerity have benefited the Democratic Alliance, the traditional party of the white ruling class, the slightly left-populist Economic Freedom Fighters and uMkhonto we Sizwe, a populist split from the ANC under Jacob Zuma.

Without an adequate left-wing alternative, far-right and right-wing populist forces can absorb widespread anti-establishment sentiment. The far right made significant gains in the European elections in June, which saw gains for Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement National in France, Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom in the Netherlands and Giorgia Meloni's Brothers in Italy. The Alternative for Germany, a party plagued by associations with the country's Nazi past, has become the second largest party in Germany. Far-right forces have also made gains in Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia. Outside Europe, Nayib Bukele's victory in El Salvador's parliamentary elections in February, which followed the election of Javier Milei in Argentina last December, shows that the dangers of the far right extend far beyond Europe.

This is only one side of the polarization against the establishment. After the European elections, French President Emmanuel Macron called for new elections. After the Rassemblement National, the New Popular Front, a coalition of predominantly left-wing parties led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, benefited most from the elections. This shows that the capitalist crisis can present both opportunities and dangers for the working class.

Where new left-wing formations emerge, they can take advantage of popular sentiment and put a stop to the growth of the right. In the June elections in Mexico, the left-wing Morena party won an overwhelming majority and Claudia Scheinbaum became North America's first female president. Morena is a loose formation with competing political currents, but its victory opens up significant opportunities for struggle and has appalled big business. The same thing happened after the elections in Senegal in March, when the newly formed left-wing PASTEF party won despite severe state repression by the US-friendly President Macky Sall.

The example of Senegal shows both opportunities for the left and the danger of democratic backsliding. Many of the elections that make up the “election year” are shows staged by authoritarian governments. Following the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the June elections in Iran are a staged show to keep the old guard in power after the mass protests that rocked the country in 2022. Similar staged affairs have occurred in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Chad. The March elections in Russia were a prime example. In Ukraine, meanwhile, the planned elections were not held this year because the country is under martial law.

For countries caught in the new Cold War between the major imperialist blocs, elections have become intra-imperialist proxy struggles. Taiwan's presidential election in January was seen as a referendum on the island's relationship with China. The election left nationalist Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te in a stalemate with a parliament run by the pro-Chinese Kuomintang. Bulgaria's parliamentary election in June saw a similar stalemate, with numerous pro-Russian and pro-European forces lacking a clear path to government. Moldova's elections in July are also exacerbating national tensions with the Russian minority in Transnistria-Gagauzia.

In some countries, the elections seemed to signal a return to normality. India's elections, held from April to June, had been expected to see a landslide victory for the right-wing populist Modi. Instead, his Bharatiya Janata Party lost its majority while more traditional capitalist parties gained. In Britain, the hated Tories have called a July election in which a landslide victory for Labour is expected. Despite Labour's history as a working-class party, Keir Starmer's current leadership is marked by uninspiring policies and witch-hunts against the left. Both countries show that even reactionary politics are unstable in times of unrest and can be swept out of office even without a credible alternative.

That's what happened in the US in 2020, when Trump was swept out of office, not out of enthusiasm for Biden, but out of sheer disgust for Trump. However, as this year's election shows, that is not enough to get rid of Trumpism. Without a serious left-wing challenge to the capitalist system, reactionary forces will find a way to return.

Marxists and elections

In capitalism, elections are generally conducted in the interests of the ruling class. State and RevolutionLenin once said, “To decide every few years through parliament which members of the ruling class are to oppress and crush the people – that is the true essence of bourgeois parliamentarism.” Marxists, however, recognize the value of participating in bourgeois elections, which Lenin saw as “preparing the proletariat for revolution.” Like it or not, elections are the time when the working class is most consistently politically active, and this should not be left to the capitalists.

A key difference between Marxism and reformism and liberalism is the way we engage in elections. There is no expectation that capitalism can be abolished through elections. Real change will come through the mass movement of the working class. But the platform of elected office can be used to build such movements. This is how Socialist Alternative, through Kshama Sawant, used our Seattle City Council office over the past decade. Failure to understand this led to the betrayals of Bernie Sanders, the Squad, and countless other new left formations around the world.

Ultimately, meaningful long-term change requires the overthrow of the capitalist system. This can only be achieved through the activity of the masses. Since the rise of neoliberalism, the organization of the working class has been massively set back and undermined. Marxists therefore face a double task: to build the revolutionary forces of Marxism and to establish the mass organizations of the working class. New left formations such as France Insoumise or Morena can serve as first steps towards rebuilding these mass organizations of the working class. But the pressure of the capitalist crisis constantly threatens to derail such movements.

The role of a revolutionary party is to meet these challenges. It must understand the complexity of the age of disorder, engage in the daily struggles of the working class and help develop a strategy to win real victories, while pointing to the objective need to end capitalism to achieve fundamental change. In this way, we can move beyond the limited “election year” that capitalism is willing to offer us and create a whole new, truly democratic, socialist world.