Elections Illustration: Guardian Design\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Four elections on four continents within 10 days could profoundly reshape global politics, propelling the world further along its current authoritarian trajectory or marking a limited comeback for democratic norms.<\/p>\n
In all four contests, basic democratic norms are at stake at a time when autocracy is advancing worldwide at an alarming rate. According to the Sweden-based V-Dem Institute<\/a>, which uses multivariable assessment tools, the democratic freedoms enjoyed by the average global citizen are down to levels last seen in 1978 \u2013 long before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism in Europe.<\/p>\n The cluster of four pivotal elections could either halt that trend or reinforce it. In each contest, pro-democracy parties are in close races with current or aspiring autocrats. The outcomes in each case are likely to have spillover effects in their regions and beyond.<\/p>\n Brazil\u2019s president, Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva, faces the rightwing senator Fl\u00e1vio Bolsonaro in the runoff presidential elections. Photograph: Evaristo Sa\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n On Sunday, Brazil will hold runoff presidential elections with a candidate from the far right in the lead. If he wins, Fl\u00e1vio Bolsonaro<\/a> is threatening to \u201cchange the constitution\u201d, pardon his father for plotting a coup, and ease environmental restrictions, a critical issue for the Amazon rainforest.<\/p>\n On the same day, the semi-autocracy run by Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107 in Serbia for the past 12 years will face its stiffest challenge in the form of an unconventional student-led protest movement<\/a>, fielding a slate of little-known academics and technocrats running on the simple slogan \u201cSerbia or Mafia?\u201d.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, it will be the turn of Benjamin Netanyahu to face his challengers at the polls. Israel\u2019s leader for 19 of the past 30 years has overseen a prolonged period of democratic backsliding and spiralling human rights abuses<\/a>. He is wanted by the international criminal court for war crimes and crimes against humanity<\/a> in Gaza, and risk heightened legal jeopardy from an ongoing corruption trial at home if he loses. His far-right coalition is currently trailing an opposition block.<\/p>\n A digital billboard in Tel Aviv, Israel, featuring the US president, Donald Trump, and Israel\u2019s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, displays a message in Hebrew that says \u2018President Trump: Vote Netanyahu. Only with him will we complete the mission.\u2019 Photograph: Oded Balilty\/AP<\/p>\n On 3 November, at the tail end of this potentially historic 10 days, Donald Trump\u2019s imperial-style presidency is facing a rebuke from US voters in midterm elections, with at least one chamber of Congress, and possibly two, likely to fall to the Democrats. They will then however face an uphill task in seeking to rein in Trump\u2019s excesses which have seen the US plummet down the V-Dem Institute\u2019s Liberal Democracy Index<\/a>.<\/p>\n By the time the US counts its votes on Tuesday, the world could look a markedly different place. Not only are the four looming contests bunched together, they are also interwoven. Trump\u2019s Maga movement has given overt political support to Netanyahu, Vu\u010di\u0107, and Bolsonaro. Israeli-built Pegasus spyware has been found in the phones of student and pro-democracy activists in Serbia.<\/a> Bolsonaro is strongly pro-Israel and is promising to follow the US lead and move the Brazilian embassy to Jerusalem. The US has provided much of the ordnance for Netanyahu\u2019s wars. Serbia is committed to spending $2bn on Israeli defence systems and in September, the two countries opened a joint plant making surveillance and attack factory.<\/p>\n Victory for the authoritarian right in one country will bolster counterparts in others, and conversely win for pro-democratic campaigners in each contest will give hope and encouragement to their allies around the world.<\/p>\n The four elections may be closely interlinked, but the struggle between authoritarianism and democracy takes on very different forms in each country. The odds are different in each case, as are the stakes, but they are all close races.<\/p>\n Surfers gather during a demonstration in defence of democracy and in support of Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva\u2019s re-election bid at Milion\u00e1rios beach in Sao Vicente, S\u00e3o Paulo. The banner reads \u2018For democracy\u2019. Photograph: Roosevelt Cassio\/ReutersBrazil<\/p>\n Democracy index ranking 28<\/p>\n Brazil has enjoyed a democratic resurgence since Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva<\/a> took office on the first day of 2023, defeating an attempt by his far right populist predecessor to overturn the October election result. According to V-Dem\u2019s measures, it now has better democratic credentials than the UK, and far better than the US.<\/p>\n The loser in those elections four years ago, Jair Bolsonaro, an ex-soldier who served under Brazil\u2019s 21-year military dictatorship and still admires it, was sentenced to 27 years in jail for trying to stage a coup to hold on to power. Now his son, Fl\u00e1vio, is seeking to follow in his footsteps, and goes into the second round of the election on Sunday with a small but significant lead over Lula.<\/p>\n F\u00e1bio Heitor, four, poses for a photo for his mother, Francislene Fernandes, 25, wearing a shirt featuring images of presidential candidate Fl\u00e1vio Bolsonaro, during a mass vehicle-decal event in support of presidential candidate in Boa Vista, Roraima, Brazil. Photograph: Raphael Alves\/The Guardian<\/p>\n The younger Bolsonaro has not only pledged to free his father, but also to punish members of the judiciary involved in his prosecution. If he wins, he will have a supportive rightwing majority in Congress to work with and has vowed to change the constitution and \u201cre-democratise the country<\/a>\u201d. The term harks back to the transition from military rule in 1985, and for the Brazilian left, it has a chilling Orwellian ring coming from the mouth of an avowed admirer of prominent members of the junta.<\/p>\n Bolsonaro has campaign on hard-line law and order policies addressing the chronic issue of high crime. He argues for lowering the age of criminal responsibility to below 18, sending more teenagers to jail, and calling for judicial reforms, which his critics suggest he intends to mount an attack on the independence of the courts.<\/p>\n Supporters of the electoral list Student List – Students Win attend a final campaign rally at Slavija Square in Belgrade, Serbia, 22 October 2026. Photograph: Marko \u0110urica\/ReutersSerbia<\/p>\n Democracy Index rating 112<\/p>\n Over his 12 years as president, Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107 has steadily corroded the pillars of Serbia\u2019s democracy. He and his allies have taken over almost all the country\u2019s broadcast channels, with the result that he is the overwhelming presence on the nation\u2019s television screens over the course of the current election campaign. The future of the last two independent news channels is now in doubt, as they were bought during the campaign by a Portuguese investor with links to the ousted Hungarian regime of Viktor Orb\u00e1n.<\/p>\n The ruling Serbian Progressive party (SNS) has turned ministries and other state institutions into political tools to the extent that, in the words of Ra\u0161a Nedeljkov, the programme director of the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability, \u201cthe line between the state and the parties is almost deleted\u201d.<\/p>\n Until now, the opposition parties seeking to curb Vu\u010di\u0107 have been weak and divided, but Serbian politics was transformed two years ago by the collapse of a concrete canopy<\/a> on a crowd of people at a railway station in Novi Sad, killing 16 people. The tragedy crystallised a deep reservoir of disillusion across the country, and produced a student-led mass movement<\/a> which has survived state intimidation since then, and is now fielding a full list of candidates against the SNS.<\/p>\n Former Serbian president Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107 delivers a speech at the ruling Serbian Progressive party (SNS) final campaign rally in Belgrade. Photograph: Pierre Crom\/Getty Images<\/p>\n The candidates, like the students who nominated them, disagree among themselves on key political issues but they demonstrate a purist adherence to direct democracy. Decisions are taken by large plenum meetings, and no one has been allowed to emerge as an identifiable leader.<\/p>\n To win on Sunday, the students will have to break the mould of Serbian politics, and in particular, Vu\u010di\u0107\u2019s hold on his loyal base in the countryside. If they come close, there is a risk of unrest and violence. The SNS has a record of paying bands of thugs to disrupt opposition rallies, and those gangs may appear at polling sites if Vu\u010di\u0107 feels threatened. The students too have vowed to take to the streets to defend the victory they expect on Sunday.<\/p>\n A Likud electoral campaign billboard featuring Israel\u2019s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Jerusalem. Photograph: Jewel Samad\/AFP\/Getty ImagesIsrael<\/p>\n Democracy Index rating 48<\/p>\n Israeli democracy has always been partial. Palestinians in the occupied territories do not have the vote or many other rights, while Israeli settlers next door to them are treated as full citizens and provide vital backing for Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s far-right coalition government. That government however will be fighting for its survival in Tuesday\u2019s parliamentary elections.<\/p>\n Palestinians with Israeli citizenship are about a fifth of the population but are consistently under-represented in the Knesset. They turn out to vote in smaller numbers than Israeli Jews, with many viewing participation as pointless in a system which systematically excludes them. The main opposition bloc challenging Netanyahu is ruling out a coalition with Arab parties<\/a>, even if it means the difference between a clearcut victory and an uncertain deadlock, once Knesset seats have been assigned.<\/p>\n Netanyahu has been Israel\u2019s leader on and off for most of the past three decades, but in the nearly four years of his current term, in coalition with extreme settler-backed parties, he has mounted an offensive on Israeli democratic norms, seeking to limit the independence of the judiciary<\/a> in the name of \u201creform\u201d, putting pressure on the independent press, and politicising the police, army and internal security service, Shin Bet.<\/p>\n Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar (\u201cStraight\u201d) party, visits the Western Wall in Jerusalem\u2019s Old City on Thursday. Photograph: Mahmoud Illean\/AP<\/p>\n The opposition bloc, led by former general Gadi Eisenkot, shares much of Netanyahu\u2019s outlook when it comes to Palestine<\/a>, largely supporting the war in Gaza and refusing to countenance a two-state solution. But it is determined to expunge the corruption of his government and its autocratic excesses. It is expected to win more seats than the government coalition in Tuesday\u2019s election, but fall short of a clear majority. For that they may have to forge an understanding with Israel\u2019s long ignored Palestinian minority.<\/p>\n Democratic US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, speaks at a labour rally at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, on 22 October. El-Sayed is competing against Republican candidate Mike Rodgers for Michigan\u2019s US Senate seat in the upcoming midterm elections. Photograph: Jeff Kowalsky\/AFP\/Getty ImagesThe US<\/p>\n Democracy Index rating 51<\/p>\n No western country in modern times has \u201cundemocratised\u201d<\/a> itself as rapidly as the US in less than two years of Donald Trump\u2019s second term in office. With a Congress dominated by loyal Republicans and a mostly acquiescent supreme court, he has forged an imperial presidency, frequently governing by executive order decrees, and turning state institutions into political tools \u2013 including organs of internal security, such as the justice department and the FBI \u2013 which have been weaponised against political opponents<\/a>, independent prosecutors<\/a> and journalists<\/a>.<\/p>\n Administration policy, domestic and foreign, has been used to generate self-enrichment opportunities<\/a> for Trump\u2019s family and friends.<\/p>\n