By Zabih Ullah Khattak (Pakistan)

Elections around the world are about to enter a final stage. Several countries got their feats and many are within walking distance. India, Pakistan, Russia, Mexico, Taiwan and many more have reached to conclusion and enthroned their rulers. Distrust has been lurching since the whispering of elections hit our ears. In this write-up, first I would evaluate the countries which have wrapped up the disgruntled election results in one way or another and secondly, I will presume about the countries which are now preparing for elections.  

7 January’s Election in Bangladesh was called not free and fair due to the incarceration of a major contestant party and low turnout of 30% showed that it was a formality that could not reverberatethe gist of democracy. Analysts see Bangladesh in the list of one party autocratic rule due to widespread restrictions being imposed on the opposition parties and manipulation of the electoral processes.    

Pakistan has come up with a successful election, electing a prime minister and his loosely joint cabinet. After elections in Pakistan, a most populous party has been detained and could not let it exercise its constitutional right. Prior to the elections, the election symbol of PTI (an expected party winning a majority of national assembly seats) was retrieved by the election commission and could not allow the party to participate under a unanimous symbol. Following election results, rigging, dissipation, and intimidation and in a large scale frauds were reported from several areas. It was not the first time that reflected Pakistan election results with such backlashes but every election result has dubious outcomes. Anyhow, the elections in Pakistan took to a final round and political storm was set to rest and new governments sworn-in with a give and take formula.

Moreover, in one of the largest democracies having a longest electoral process being swung to conclusion and the party having ruled for ten years have ascended to the throne for a third consecutive term. The BJP led alliance NDA has won a meager majority and altered to the presumption that BJP would cross 400 seats and would win a thumping majority. Likewise, India’s elections are not free of accusations while during the elections several cases had reported showing lack of transparency. Following the elections’ results, Modi’s BJP is feared to embark on a hatred trajectory against the minority as was experienced in previous term in which they used religious rhetoric to incite fanatical Hindus against Muslim and declare Muslims a real threat to Hinduism.

Adding to that, a warring country called on Putin to set on the driving realm and continue the rife with Ukraine. Due to limited and restricted media approaches, Russian elections were not highlighted in a way that could be supposed to be. Putin, a war lord took the reign and obliged to not give up in the war in Ukraine.

On the other hand, world powerful democracies are bidding to election trajectory but the distrust among the people show uncelebrated moments, the US election is to be held in November and preliminary preparations have done and party nominees have finalized, both the parties fasten the built to contest election. The candidates of the Republican and Democrats are turning into 80s and 90s respectively. For the first time in America’s history, supporters of both parties are unhappy with their respective candidates. The recently held presidential debate by CNN, concerns about the age of their candidates have soared up. The less-likeable option with the American people is to elect a fanatical leader for the top most job of the country who could no longer respect the dignity of the democracy and goes as he wills.

The oldest democratic country, Great Britain, seems unclear about elections. The long served conservative party slashes to its lowest ebb while the other side is not looking energetic to fill the vacuum leads to confusion. The British government does not seem clear about the democratic process and both the parties have not given a clear trajectory to the people as in developing countries.     

Moreover, Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, a loyalist to the supreme leader died in a helicopter crash that turned the strides into suspicion. A tradition in Iran is set that anyone who is a fair-play guy of the supreme leader would get into the throne. 28th June’s election in Iran showed no clear majority of 50% retook Iran to the runoff election.    

Likewise, many countries have the same show like South Africa, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Georgia and Taiwan etc into the election results and nothing seems in favor of democratic norms, although a ritual obligation of democracy was exercised and after all the things set to end we would say 2024 was a biggest elections year in the human history despite of several loopholes were seen. 

As I am closely watching the electoral processes around the world, this is my second article and more articles are expected on the same topic.   

Author is lecturer at a college in Karak, KPK, Pakistan. He writes about current affairs in their opinions.