Let's prepare for the twists and turns
In 2024, 2 billion people in more than 70 countries will go to the polls. Elections will be held in countries like Britain, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, USA, and Taiwan.
According to a recent survey by the Economist, more than half of the world's population will live in countries where elections will be held in 2024.
See: 2024 will be stressful for those who care about liberal democracy
So 2024 is emerging as a year of elections, the results of which may, in some cases, initiate breakthroughs and upheavals on the international stage.
By far the most important matchup involved the United States. America is deeply polarized, divided between two extremes that continue to gain strength at the expense of moderates.
He was involved in pushing a mob to take over the Congress without recognizing the result of the previous election and wanted to run again for a more powerful president. Democracies.
Trump's re-election could mean leaving Ukraine in Russia's grip. If Russia wins Ukraine, some other Eastern European country will be next.
Many worry that if Donald Trump is re-elected, America will move away from the camp of democracy and engage in opportunistic relations with oligarchs such as Russia and Turkey, the autocratic leaders the former US president admires.
If something like this happens, EU countries will have to increase their defense spending and take care of their nuclear deterrence capability. This will require time but above all a major restructuring of cost and savings. Doing so would blow up government budgets, welfare state spending and wealthy pension systems.
These will not pass without social tensions and political upheavals.
Taiwan's election result is also particularly significant as the three major parties differ on how to deal with the threat of China's annexation.
2024 will be another year where Russia, Turkey, China, etc. will continue their encirclement of Europe from Ukraine, Armenia, Middle East to North Africa.
We have entered a period of heightened geopolitical tensions. International conflicts are not a new phenomenon. Some are always in progress.
What is different about the current period, reminiscent of the last pre-war era, is that they seem to have behind them a common plan to overturn the broader post-Cold War international balances.
The main goal is to weaken the influence of western democracies and their prosperity.
Democratic regimes are trying to demonstrate that they can provide greater and more sustainable economic prosperity for their citizens than they provide for themselves.
They also attempt to meddle in elections through social networks to demonstrate immigration pressures, right-wing extremism and the deadlock on the open societies of the liberal West.
2024 has all the conditions to become an important and defining year for these developments. A year that will decide what's next.