LONDON: When voters around the globe had their say in 2024, their message was often: “You’re fired.”
Some 70 countries that are home to half the world’s population held elections this year, and in many incumbents were punished. From India and the United States to Japan, France and Britain, voters tired of economic disruption and global instability rejected sitting governments — and sometimes turned to disruptive outsiders.
The rocky democratic landscape just seemed to get bumpier as a dramatic year careened toward its end, with mass protests in Mozambique and Georgia, an election annulled in Romania and an attempt to impose martial law in South Korea.
Cas Mudde, a professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia who studies extremism and democracy, summed up 2024 in Prospect magazine as “a great year for the far right, a terrible year for incumbents and a troublesome year for democracy around the world.”
INCUMBENTS BATTERED
One message sent by voters in 2024: They’re fed up.
University of Manchester political scientist Rob Ford has attributed the anti-incumbent mood to “electoral long COVID” -– lingering pandemic-related health, education, social and economic disruptions that have made millions of people unhappier and worse off. High inflation, fueled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and mass displacement from that war and conflicts in the Middle East and Africa have added to the global unease.
In South Africa, high unemployment and inequality helped drive a dramatic loss of support for the African National Congress, which had governed for three decades since the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule. The party once led by Nelson Mandela lost its political dominance in May’s election and was forced to go into coalition with opposition parties.
Incumbents also were defeated in Senegal, Ghana and Botswana, where voters ousted the party that had been in power for 58 years since independence from Britain. Namibia’s ruling SWAPO party extended its 34 years in power in December -– but only by a whisker.
Uruguay’s leftist opposition candidate, Yamandú Orsi, became the country’s new president in a November runoff that delivered another rebuke to incumbents.
In India, the world’s largest democracy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party lost its parliamentary majority in a shock election result in June after a decade of dominance. It was forced to govern in coalition as the opposition doubled its strength in Parliament.
Japanese politics entered a new era of uncertainty after Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s governing Liberal Democratic Party, which has ruled almost without interruption since 1955, suffered a major loss in October amid voter anger at party financial scandals. It now leads a minority government.
The UK’s July election saw the right-of-center Conservatives ousted after 14 years in office as the center-left Labour Party swept to power in a landslide. But the results also revealed growing fragmentation: Support for the two big parties that have dominated British politics for a century shrank as voters turned to smaller parties, including the hard-right party Reform UK led by Nigel Farage.
AUTHORITARIANS ADVANCE
Britain is not alone in seeing a rise for the right. Elections in June for the parliament of the 27-nation European Union saw conservative populists and the far right rock ruling parties in France and Germany, the EU’s biggest and most powerful members.
The anti-immigration National Rally party won the first round of France’s parliamentary election in June, but alliances and tactical voting by the center and left knocked it down to third place in the second round, producing a divided legislature and a fragile government that collapsed in a Dec. 4 no-confidence vote.
In Austria, the conservative governing People’s Party was beaten by the far-right, pro-Russia Freedom Party in September, though other parties allied to keep it out of a coalition government.
Nepotism and political dynasties continued to exert influence -– and to be challenged. After messy elections in February, Pakistan elected Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, younger brother of three-time leader Nawaz Sharif. Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest democracy, elected President Prabowo Subianto, son-in-law of the late dictator Suharto.
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the world’s longest-serving female leader, won a fourth successive term in a January election that opposition parties boycotted. Months later, her 15-year rule came to a tumultuous end: After mass student-led protests in which hundreds were killed, Hasina was ousted in August and fled to India.
In Sri Lanka, voters also rejected a discredited old guard. Voters elected the Marxist Anura Kumara Dissanayake as president in September, two years after an island-wide public movement by an engaged middle class removed the long-ruling Rajapaksa clan.
INTERFERENCE ALLEGATIONS
Covert meddling and online disinformation were growing concerns in 2024. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, said that this year it took down 20 election-related “covert influence operations around the world, including in the Middle East, Asia, Europe and the US” It said Russia was the top source of such meddling, followed by Iran and China.
In Romania, far-right candidate Călin Georgescu came from nowhere to win the first round of the presidential election in November, aided in part by a flood of TikTok videos promoting his campaign. Amid allegations of Russian meddling, Romania’s Constitutional Court canceled the presidential election runoff two days before it was due to take place after a trove of declassified intelligence alleged Russia organized a sprawling campaign across social media to promote Georgescu. No date has yet been set for a rerun.
Moldova’s pro-Western President Maia Sandu won a November runoff against her Moscow-friendly rival in an election seen as pivotal to the future of one of Europe’s poorest nations.
Georgia has seen huge protests since an election in October was won by the pro-Moscow Georgian Dream party, which suspended negotiations on joining the European Union. The opposition and the pro-Western president, Salome Zourabichvili, have accused the governing party of rigging the vote with Russia’s help.
UNCERTAINTY REIGNS
Possibly the year’s most seismic result, Donald Trump’s victory in November’s US presidential election, has America’s allies and opponents bracing for what the unpredictable “America-first” leader will do with his second term.
And instability already reigns on several continents as the year ends. Venezuela has been in political crisis since a July election marred by serious fraud allegations which both President Nicolás Maduro and the opposition claim to have won. Amid opposition protests and a harsh crackdown, opposition candidate Edmundo González went into exile in Spain.
In Mozambique, the Frelimo party that has ruled for half a century was declared the winner of an October election that the opposition called rigged. Weeks of ongoing street protests across the country have left more than 100 dead.
South Korea’s conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol — weakened after the liberal opposition retained control in an April election -– astonished the country by declaring martial law in a late-night announcement on Dec. 3. Parliament voted to overturn the decision six hours later, and within days voted to impeach Yoon. The crisis in the deeply divided country is far from over.
Democracy’s bumpy ride looks likely to continue in 2025, with embattled incumbents facing challenge in countries including Germany, where Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a confidence vote on Dec. 16, triggering an early election likely in February. Canada will also vote in 2025, with the governing Liberals widely unpopular and increasingly divided after almost a decade in power.
Seema Shah, head of democracy assessment at the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, said global surveys suggest support for the concept of democracy remains strong, but the numbers plummet “when you ask people how satisfied they are with their own democracy.”
“People want democracy. They like the theory of it,” she said. “But when they see it actually play out, it’s not living up to their expectations.”

NEW DELHI: In a country where the love for cricket is a national obsession, chess is the sport of choice in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where its city of Chennai is emerging as India’s chess capital.

Over a third of the country’s 85 grandmasters have come from Tamil Nadu, with the majority of them based in Chennai, including 18-year-old Gukesh Dommaraju, the world’s youngest chess champion.

Dommaraju won the title in early December at the Fide World Championship 2024 held in Singapore, defeating titleholder Ding Liren of China, who was 14 years his senior.

Dommaraju is the second Indian to win the World Chess Championship after Viswanathan Anand — India’s first grandmaster — who won it five times and is also from Chennai.

The city’s success in bringing up champions over the years can be traced back to the Velammal Nexus School, which has helped produce as many as 22 grandmasters, including Dommaraju and 2024 Chess World Cup finalist R. Praggnanandhaa.

“Chess players are heroes in Tamil Nadu,” Velavan Subbiah, the main coach at the Velammal Nexus school, told Arab News.

“In Chennai, people prefer to play chess rather than invest in cricket. Viswanathan Anand laid the foundation here. Now Gukesh is the new hero. His win in the world championship has inspired the youngsters and there is new zeal among them to do better.”

The 55-year-old who started focusing on chess after seeing his daughters win grandmaster and FIDE master titles said Velammal not only trains young players but also sponsors those who have financial difficulties.

Now a chain of 15 schools in Chennai, the academy trains about 2,000 students and plans to expand to other parts of India.

“In the future, we want to develop more young achievers,” he said. “It’s our goal to dominate in India in chess.”

In Chennai, family support also plays a major role in nurturing talents, with parents investing their time and money to support the younger generation’s chess pursuit.

After introducing his daughters to the sport five years ago, Kannappan Dinesh has been busy helping them hone their skills and signing them up in local tournaments.

“Kids, if you notice, will get easily addicted to mobile or TV, but if you give them a chance to play chess they will easily perform well,” Dinesh told Arab News.

“For the parents here, it’s an investment. If you invest more time with your kids and invest in their talents, you will be rewarded. I think this attitude separates the parents in Tamil Nadu from other parts of India.”

With both daughters enrolled in Velammal, Dinesh credits the school for “providing all kinds of support.

“They take care of you in all aspects, and the infrastructure that they have supports the kids to grow and learn faster and perform better,” he said, adding that he was more motivated following Dommaraju’s historic win.

“After seeing Gukesh and all, even as parents we feel that (we need to) give our kids a chance.”

Dinesh’s 11-year-old daughter, Ayushi, is already aiming for the stars.

“I want to become a world champion like Gukesh because me and my sisters are passionate about chess,” she told Arab News.

“Gukesh is my true inspiration, and he teaches us that with the right mindset and dedication, we can achieve any goal.”

Nitin Narang, president of the Chess Federation of India, said that Chennai’s emergence as “a Makkah of chess” came from a foundation laid long ago.

“Chennai is often described as the Makkah of Indian chess and rightly so because there has been a lot of effort on the ground by lots of coaches and parents’ sacrifices,” Narang told Arab News.

“What you see today is something that has been going on in Chennai in the last three decades and these are the fruits we bear nationally.”