More than 80 countries are due to head to the polls this year, including some of the wealthiest and most powerful, the most populous, the most authoritarian and the most fragile. Many votes will test the limits of democracy, while others will be exercises in rubber-stamping. Some will be boycotted by the opposition or undermined by government crackdowns on press and dissenters. Keep track of all the results and upcoming polls with our election tracker:
January
BHUTAN
30 November 2023 – 9 January 2024: The tiny Himalayan kingdom elected the liberal former prime minister Tshering Tobgay and his People’s Democratic Party (PDP) with a large majority. Tobgay has vowed to promote the investment needed to boost the country’s $3bn economy and address the unemployment that is driving an increasing number of young Bhutanese abroad, mainly to Australia, in search of better opportunities.
BANGLADESH
7 January: Prime minister Sheikh Hasina won a fifth term in office in an election that was overshadowed by a ruthless crackdown on the opposition and voter turnout of just 40%. In the months leading up to the election, tens of thousands of opposition leaders and rank and file party members were arrested en masse with at least nine dying in jail in the three months preceding the election.
TAIWAN
13 January: Taiwan elected Lai Ching-te as its next president, ushering in a historic third term in power for the pro-sovereignty Democratic Progressive party (DPP) and angering Beijing. Two days after the elections, China managed to reduce the number of Taiwan’s formal diplomatic allies to just 12, and has also begun increasing its military threats, with warplanes frequently entering Taiwanese airspace.
COMOROS
14 January: President Azali Assoumani won a fourth five-year term more than two decades after he first came to power in a coup. Though the country experienced three democratic transitions of power after he first stepped down in 2006, his return in elections in 2016 have since seen him erode democratic mechanisms. After January’s vote opposition candidates alleged fraud and ballot-stuffing.
TUVALU
26 January: Former attorney general and fisheries official Feleti Teo was elected as prime minister by MPs a month after general elections closely watched by Taiwan, China, the US and Australia amid a geopolitical tussle for influence in the Pacific. Tuvalu, with a population of about 11,200 spread across nine islands, is one of three remaining Pacific allies of Taiwan. Prior to the elections there had been calls for the new parliament to debate recognition of China and review a cooperation deal with Australia. But after his election Teo reaffirmed the country’s “long-term and lasting special relationship” with Taiwan.
FINLAND
28 January-11 February: Centre-right former prime minister Alexander Stubb won an election runoff against rival Pekka Haavisto in what was seen as the country’s most high-stakes presidential election in a generation. It was the country’s first poll since it joined Nato and took place amid escalating geopolitical drama on the border with Russia.
February
EL SALVADOR
4 February: President Nayib Bukele won a thumping victory after voters rewarded him for a fierce gang crackdown that has transformed security in what was once one of the world’s most dangerous countries. But his second term was unconstitutional and his New Ideas party’s sweep of parliamentary seats means Bukele will wield unprecedented power. Analysts also suggest that the suspension of civil liberties and imprisonment of more than 2% of the country’s adult population – many without charge – is unsustainable.
MALI
Were scheduled for 4 February: The junta said in September it would postpone presidential elections set for February – which was already a two-year delay on what was agreed by interim authorities after the 2020 coup led by Colonel Assimi Goïta. It appears the military plans to hang on to power indefinitely in the west African country, which has suffered an upsurge in terrorist violence since the military takeover.
AZERBAIJAN
7 February: President Ilham Aliyev won his fifth term with over 90% of votes in elections observers said were neither free nor fair. He had called the poll early after recapturing the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia last year and launching a crackdown on independent journalists.
HAITI
Were due by 7 February 2024: Elections were supposed to happen in 2023 with an earlier agreement in place for power to have been transferred by 7 February 2024. But since the assassination of president Jovenel Moïse in 2021, Haiti has descended into crisis and there are no longer any elected officials. In the latest bout of violence, gang leaders launched attacks on key institutions and infrastructure in Port-au-Prince while prime minister Ariel Henry was in Kenya in February, seeking support for a UN-backed force to stabilise the country. Gang leader Jimmy Chérizier, a former elite police officer known as “Barbecue” called for Henry’s ousting and said he would try to capture the country’s police chief and government ministers. While abroad, Henry pledged to hold parliamentary elections by mid 2025 but it was unclear if and when he would be able to return.
PAKISTAN
8 February: Despite opposition from the powerful military and a state-led crackdown, the PTI party of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan won the most votes in legislative elections. However after days of wrangling and political horse-trading a coalition including the rival Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PLM-N) and the Pakistan People’s party (PPP) agreed to form the next government with Shehbaz Sharif as prime minister and ensure that that the PTI party could not take power.
INDONESIA
14 February: Prabowo Subianto, a 72-year-old former general who was dismissed from the military amid allegations he was involved in kidnapping and torture in the 1990s, is on course to win the presidency in the world’s third largest democracy with more than half of votes counted – as of early March there was still no final result. Prabowo has always denied wrongdoing but the results have provoked fear among rights activists that accountability for past atrocities will fade even further under his leadership, and that his future government will have little regard for human rights.
BELARUS
25 February: There were no surprises in parliamentary elections denounced by the US as a sham, the first since presidential polls won by longtime dictator Alexander Lukashenko sparked widespread protests in 2020. He has since cracked down even harder on opposition figures, including his main challenger, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who is now in exile. But the elections saw the All-Belarusian People’s Assembly become an official organ with immense powers, after a constitutional change made last year. According to one analyst, “It’s a step on the path to a Belarus without its contested leader Alexander Lukashenko, even if it’s impossible to say how long that path will be.” After the election, Lukashenko said that parliament’s role would continue to be expanded, but also announced that he would run for a seventh term in 2025.
CAMBODIA
25 February: The ruling Cambodian People’s party (CPP) claimed a landslide victory in Senate elections and set the stage for former prime minister Hun Sen to officially return to politics. Last year Hun Sen, who had ruled the country for almost four decades, handed power to his son, military general Hun Manet, just a month after parliamentary elections widely criticised as a sham. Party spokesperson Sok Eysan said Hun Sen had won a seat and confirmed the CPP would nominate the former leader as the president of the Senate – allowing him to act as head of state when the king is overseas – when it convenes in April. Human rights activists had warned ahead of the polls that the country, where opposition leaders have been jailed, was “continuing on its descent into authoritarianism”.
March
IRAN
1 March: Elections for parliament (Majlis) and the Assembly of Experts, the body which chooses the Supreme Leader, saw turnout of just 41%, the lowest since the 1979 Islamic revolution that swept the clerical rulers into power. The vote – the first since the massive protests sparked by the death of Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in police custody in 2022 – was seen as a test of the clerical establishment’s legitimacy amid mounting economic struggles and a lack of electoral options for a mostly young population chafing at political and social restrictions. With heavyweight moderates and conservatives staying out and reformists calling the election not free and unfair, the contest was essentially among hardliners and low-key conservatives, all proclaiming loyalty to revolutionary ideals. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei disqualified reformist former president Hassan Rouhani from running for the assembly.
PORTUGAL
10 March: Portugal’s centre-right Democratic Alliance ousted the Socialist government with the narrowest of victories in a snap election that saw a surge in support for the far-right Chega party. Under its leader, Luís Montenegro, the alliance made up of the Social Democratic party (PSD) and two smaller conservative parties formed a minority government and was sworn in early April, but its stability is still a concern as it needs the support of either the Chega party or the centre-left PS to pass legislation.
RUSSIA
15-17 March: Vladimir Putin claimed a landslide victory and a fifth term in presidential elections that were widely condemned as neither free nor fair by the west. The government said Putin won 87.28% of the vote and that turnout was the highest in history at 74% of the electorate – results that used to appear only in Russia’s most despotic regions, such as Chechnya. There was no meaningful opposition; just a month before the election the country’s most prominent opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, died in mysterious circumstances in prison in Siberia. The elections were also seen as an attempt to gain a mandate for Putin’s war in Ukraine and voting took place in the four partially-occupied regions of Ukraine – a message to locals that there is no alternative to Russian control.
SLOVAKIA
23 March: Nationalist-left government candidate Peter Pellegrini won Slovakia’s presidential election ahead of liberal, pro-western opposition candidate Ivan Korčok in a run-off poll. Pellegrini is a close ally of the pro-Moscow, populist prime minister Robert Fico. The vote was seen as a demonstration of how the country feels about Fico’s comeback last year after being forced to resign amid mass protests in 2018. Pellegrini’s victory cements Fico’s grip on power by giving him and his allies control of major strategic posts.
SENEGAL
24 March: Bassirou Diomaye Faye, a leftwing pan-Africanist, was sworn in as Senegal’s youngest president after a stunning election victory. He swept to a first-round win just 10 days after being released from prison. Faye’s election is being seen as a damning rejection of Macky Sall, the former president who was in power for 12 years. Faye is pledging radical reform with systemic change, greater sovereignty and calm after years of deadly turmoil, but faces major challenges in passing new laws as he lacks a majority in the national assembly.
UKRAINE
Due by 31 March: Ukraine was due a presidential election by the spring – Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s five-year term is up. Under martial law, elections are suspended, but observers say a vote that acts as a safety valve to release internal tensions and popular discontents would be a worthwhile exercise – even if Putin tried to bomb it.
NORTH KOREA
Were expected by March: Elections to the hermit state’s rubber-stamp National Assembly were expected to be held in March. However the month passed with no indication a poll was about to take place. Observers have suggested the delay may be down to a constitutional amendment the Kim Jong-un regime wants to make regarding relations with Seoul. Elections usually feature a 99.99% turnout, with 100% backing the ruling Workers’ party.
April
INDIA
19 April- 1 June: Prime minister Narendra Modi has been accused of overseeing an unprecedented consolidation of power since he was first elected in 2014 and he is widely expected to win a third term with his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP). Critics allege that the BJP government has systematically used tools of the state to go after and jail political opponents and undermined the independence of key state institutions such as the election commission – which oversees and enforces election rules – and the judiciary, charges the government denies. Regional opposition is strong in pockets of south and east India but nationally it is seen as fragmented and weak and a recently formed coalition of all major opposition parties – which goes by the acronym INDIA – has failed to unite on crucial issues. For more, read our explainer.
KUWAIT
4 April: The official Kuna news agency said opposition candidates won 29 seats in the 50-member assembly, matching the outcome of last year’s parliamentary elections. Kuwait bans political parties and candidates run as independents. Two hundred candidates competed, the lowest number in over five decades. The elections took place after new emir, Sheikh Mishal al-Ahmad al-Sabah, who took over from his late brother in December, dissolved parliament in February after a lawmaker reportedly insulted the ruler, the latest in a series of dissolutions.
SOUTH KOREA
10 April: Liberal opposition parties scored a landslide victory in parliamentary elections, dealing a resounding blow to sitting President Yoon Suk-yeol and his conservative party but falling just short of a super majority. Support for the already unpopular Yoon had sunk further after a scandal over a Dior bag allegedly given to his wife. In the wake of the poll, senior ruling party politicians offered to resign to take responsibility for its heavy defeat, including the prime minister, Han Duk-soo. The Democratic party (DP) won 161 out of 254 directly contested seats, while the PPP won 90 seats. The Democratic party leader, Lee Jae-myung, said: “When voters chose me, it was your judgment against the Yoon Suk-yeol administration.”
SOLOMON ISLANDS
17 April: Solomon Islands’ incumbent prime minister, Manasseh Sogavare, retained his seat in parliamentary polls but results have not yet been finalised and it is unclear whether his Our party can form the next government. The election was the first since Sogavare struck a security pact with China in 2022, drawing the Pacific island country closer to Beijing. The move concerned the US and Australia because of the potential impact on regional security and the poll is being closely watched for signs of any deepening of the relationship.
MALDIVES
21 April: Voters backed President Mohamed Muizzu’s tilt towards China and away from traditional benefactor India, with his party winning control of parliament in an election landslide. Muizzu’s People’s National Congress (PNC) won 66 of the first 86 seats declared, according to the Elections Commission of Maldives, already more than enough for a super-majority in the 93-member parliament. The vote was seen as a crucial test for Muizzu’s plan to press ahead with closer economic cooperation with China, including building thousands of apartments on controversially reclaimed land.
TOGO
29 April: President Faure Gnassingbe pledged to hold elections within 12 months in December 2022, but they’ve been repeatedly delayed. The country’s last poll in 2018 was marred by opposition boycotts. Since coming to office in 2005, Gnassingbe has won every election. The election is now set for 29 April, after being delayed yet again as tensions soared over fresh constitutional reforms. Critics argue those reforms are a bid to keep Gnassingbe in power for longer.
May
PANAMA
5 May: Former president Ricardo Martinelli is leading a crowded field in the upcoming presidential election. That’s despite a nearly 11-year prison sentence handed down last year for money laundering. Martinelli is appealing against his sentence, but should he lose his appeal he will be barred from running for office. In that case, the election could pit Martín Torrijos, another former president, against Ricardo Lombana, who leads a new centrist political movement focused on austerity and anti-corruption.
THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
19 May; 30 June (runoff): Centrist incumbent Luis Abinader is leading the polls, which suggest he could win over 50% in the first round of the presidential election, voiding the need for a runoff. Analysts attribute his popularity to a strong post-Covid recovery and a hardline stance on migrants from Haiti. But others say the resulting economic challenges posed by the closure of the Haiti border may erode his support. A coalition of three opposition parties could also challenge the majorities held by his Modern Revolutionary party in both houses of Congress in simultaneous legislative elections.
LITHUANIA
12-26 May: President Gitanas Nauseda, who won 66% in the 2019 runoff, will be seeking a second five-year term and is the frontrunner in this year’s elections. The independent’s main challenger will be his centre-right former opponent Ingrida Simonyte, who has since become prime minister. The country has been a staunch Ukraine supporter, and that stance is not expected to change regardless of who wins. Lithuania will also hold parliamentary elections later in the year.
MADAGASCAR
29 May (unconfirmed): Legislative elections are due to take place months after President Andry Rajoelina was re-elected in a vote marred by low turnout, an opposition boycott and accusations of fraud. Despite its wealth of resources, 75% of the population of the island nation off the south-east of Africa lives below the poverty line. Rajoelina’s government has been accused of sliding towards dictatorship – it banned public protests last year and has cracked down on opposition.
June
ICELAND
1 June: Five candidates have so far declared they will run for election to Iceland’s presidency after the incumbent, former history professor Guðni Th. Jóhannesson, said he would seek a third term. They include a former judge, a rescue worker and an investor, and have until 26 April to collect at least 1,500 voter signatures to make it to the ballot. Several other candidates, including actor, comedian and former Reykjavik mayor Jón Gnarr, have said they may enter the race. The role is largely ceremonial, acting as a guarantor of the constitution and national unity, although Icelandic presidents have in the past refused to sign unpopular legislation.
MEXICO
2 June: Mexico will almost certainly have its first female president this year, after the governing leftist Morena party and the opposition coalition both chose women as their candidates. Polls show Morena’s Claudia Sheinbaum, a climate-scientist-turned politician, with a double-digit lead over her rival Xochitl Galvez, candidate of a right-left alliance of three parties. Whoever wins will have to contend with widespread drug-related gang violence.
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
6-9 June: Populist “anti-European” parties are heading for big gains in elections across the 27-nation bloc that could shift the parliament’s balance sharply to the right and disrupt key parts of the EU’s agenda. Radical right parties are forecast to finish first in nine countries, including Austria, France and Poland, and second or third in another nine, including Germany, Spain, Portugal and Sweden. It’s not clear yet whether a centre-right, conservative and radical right MEPs will emerge with a numerical majority – still less whether such a majority could ever function – but in theory the next parliament could block or slow laws on Europe’s green deal and take a harder line on other areas of EU sovereignty including migration, enlargement and support for Ukraine.
BELGIUM
9 June: The far-right Vlaams Belang party has traditionally been excluded from Belgian coalition governments but commentators have increasingly been asking whether this can hold after the upcoming legislative elections as the party has topped opinion polls over the past year. Prime minister Alexander De Croo is well regarded but his popularity is not reflected in his conservative liberal Open VLD party’s ratings, which are at an all-time low according to one recent poll. Belgium is infamous for its lengthy coalition negotiations: after the last elections in 2019 it took more than 650 days before a government was formed.
MAURITANIA
22 June: The country’s last presidential election, in 2019, represented the first peaceful transfer of power in its history. President Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ghazouani, whose party won a comfortable victory in parliamentary elections last year, is seeking a second five-year term. He has overseen the West African country’s relative stability in the increasingly violent Sahel region.
MONGOLIA
28 June: Parliamentary elections will be the first to take place since major changes were made to the system last year, increasing the number of seats in the chamber from 76 to 126 and reducing the number of electoral districts from 29 to 13. The measures, introduced by President Khurelsukh Ukhnaa and his ruling Mongolian People’s party (MPP), are designed to attract more female candidates and ensure more diverse representation in the country which held its first free multiparty elections in 1990. The MPP can count on widespread support but observers say frustration among voters over issues like corruption could boost the opposition, especially in cities.as
July
VENEZUELA
Expected in second half of 2024: Presidential elections are expected to go ahead in the second half of this year, but opposition leader María Corina Machado has been barred from running for office for alleged corruption and for backing international sanctions against Caracas. Machado is appealing that decision. Incumbent Nicolás Maduro took power after the 2013 death of his mentor Hugo Chávez – who spent 14 years dismantling the country’s already fragile democracy – and has held onto the presidency since then by cracking down, sometimes violently, on the opposition and allegedly rigging elections. After decades of mismanagement, the economy of the country with the world’s largest oil reserves is in tatters; over the eight years until 2022, GDP shrank by 80%.
RWANDA
15 July: No surprises are expected in presidential and legislative elections in a country where President Paul Kagame has ruled with an increasingly iron fist since coming to power in 1994, after the genocide. About two-thirds of the deputies in the lower house of parliament will be elected on the same day and the remainder on the following day. Kagame is eligible to continue in office for another decade, after a constitutional amendment in 2015 changed term limits.
BURKINA FASO
Were scheduled for July: Elections scheduled for this year have been indefinitely postponed by the junta that seized power from the democratically-elected government two years ago. Since then security in the country has rapidly worsened as the government cracks down on Islamist militants, with both sides accused of the mass killings of civilians. Observers suggest junta leader Capt. Ibrahim Traoré’s refusal to stick to a 24-month transition timetable set out by Ecowas in July 2022 suggests he intends to cling on to power.
SYRIA
Expected by July 2024: A date for legislative elections has yet to be announced and 13 years after the country descended into a bloody civil war little change is expected under President Bashar al-Assad and his ruling Ba’ath party.
August
KIRIBATI
By August: President Taneti Maamau reaches the end of his second term in May and must call the election within three months, according to the constitution. Kiribati is a collection of atolls that sit in the central Pacific Ocean and like Solomon Islands, it is an ally of China. The vote will take place against the backdrop of a long-running judicial and constitutional crisis, with limited legal services available and no court of appeal.
SOUTH AFRICA
By August: Observers see this year’s election as the most important since the end of apartheid in 1994 – one that could see the end of ANC rule after three decades in power. Odds are that the party of Nelson Mandela, in possible coalition with the leftist Economic Freedom Fighters, will in fact cling to power. But the party looks set to be punished by voters for years of shameless corruption, leadership scandals, high rates of crime and unemployment, and its inability, literally, to keep the lights on – daily power cuts of up to six hours have become routine.
September
CROATIA
Before 22 September (most likely spring, parliamentary) and December (presidential): Polls currently predict the ruling centre-right Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) will again finish top, on about 32% of the national vote, ahead of the Social Democratic party (SDP) on 19% and with a trio of smaller parties including We Can!, Most and DPMS on about 10%. The presidential race later in the year is currently headed by the SDP-affiliated incumbent, Zoran Milanović, and the Andrej Plenković of the HDZ, who has served as the country’s prime minister since 2016.
October
AUSTRIA
Before 23 October (most likely in September): The far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) has led in the polls since late 2022 and is on course to win 27% of the vote, ahead of the centre-left Social Democratic party (SPÖ) on 23% and the centre-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) on 22%. After the debacle of the 2019 Ibiza scandal, the FPÖ has regained the confidence of far-right voters with criticism of Covid lockdowns and EU sanctions on Russia and could provide Austria’s next chancellor in one of Europe’s most significant votes this year.
BOTSWANA
Expected October: One of Africa’s most stable democracies, Botswana’s elections are shaping up to be the most competitive ever, according to observers. The president is indirectly elected by the National Assembly. President Mokgweetsi Masisi will be running for re-election with the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), which has held a parliamentary majority for decades, but the opposition Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) coalition has been boosted by success in 2022 byelections.
SRI LANKA
By October: Ranil Wickremesinghe, the six-time former PM who was brought back as caretaker president from political near obsolescence in 2022 as the country grappled with its worst economic crisis since independence, is expected to seek another term. Yet he has little public support. One recent poll gave him only 9% while AK Dissanayake, leader of the leftwing AK Dissanayake JVP party, gained 50%. As observers suggest, however, this suggests a rejection of the establishment rather than solid support for the JVP.
CHAD
October-November: It will be more than three years since General Mahamat Déby seized power in a military coup following the death of his father, who had himself seized power three decades earlier. Though he has committed to transitioning to a democratic civilian government, the signs are that Déby intends to cling on to power in the planned presidential and legislative elections. Dozens of people were massacred by security forces in October 2022 when they held protests to push for a quicker transition to democratic rule.
LITHUANIA
By 6 October, second round two weeks later: A coalition of centre-right parties led by the Homeland Union and current prime minister Ingrida Simonyte – who is contesting the presidency in May – will be fighting to retain power after weathering an expenses scandal last year.
MOZAMBIQUE
9 October: Violent – and deadly – protests broke out after local elections in the east African country in October 2023 amid allegations of vote rigging; the ruling party, Frelimo, was declared the winner in 64 out of 65 municipalities. Frelimo has ruled Mozambique since independence in 1975. Observers suggest last year’s polls offer a taste of what to expect in the presidential and legislative elections scheduled for a year later.
GEORGIA
26 October: Georgian Dream, led by prime minister Irakli Kobakhidze, remains the country’s most popular party, but it has lost ground since winning the last legislative elections in 2020 and it is unclear if it can hang onto its slim majority this time round. On paper, the ruling party wants to move closer to the west and is pursuing EU and Nato membership, with support from its overwhelmingly pro-western population. In reality however, Georgians fear that Russia is already taking over their country by stealth aided by their own government. Press freedom has been eroded in recent years and civil society activists say Georgian Dream party is answerable just to one man, its billionaire founder, Bidzina Ivanishvili.
URUGUAY
27 October (first round); 24 November (runoff): The current president can’t run again, which makes this election an eagerly watched race. Some observers say it should reinforce the view that Uruguay is one of the strongest democracies in the world. The polls are too close to call, but analysts name among the leading contenders as Montevideo’s mayor and electrical engineer Carolina Cosse from the Frente Amplio (FA) party, as well as Álvaro Delgado, a veterinarian by trade from the ruling Partido Nacional (PN) party.
November
MOLDOVA
Expected by November: Pro-European President Maia Sandu will be running for a second term in an election that will be closely watched for signs of Russian interference. Sandu has made EU membership the cornerstone of her programme since defeating the country’s most prominent opposition figure, Socialist pro-Russian former president Igor Dodon by a landslide in December 2020. Last year she accused Moscow of plotting a coup against her.
JORDAN
Expected by November: Parliamentary elections are scheduled for later this year though no firm date has been set and the country is largely apathetic towards them. The last polls, in 2020, were marred by low turnout amid the Covid epidemic. The country’s parliamentary system is structured so that urban areas – Islamist and Palestinian strongholds – have far fewer MPs per voter than the countryside, whereas sparsely populated tribal and provincial cities which form a bedrock of support for the kingdom’s Hashemite monarchy send the majority of deputies to parliament.
UNITED KINGDOM
Expected by November: About 20 points behind in recent opinion polls, Conservative prime minister Rishi Sunak faces an uphill battle against Labour’s Keir Starmer. A Labour victory would put an end to 14 years of Tory rule, the last half of which has been dominated by the economic and political fallout of Brexit including a rotating carousel of Conservative prime ministers.
NAMIBIA
November: Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, the ruling Swapo party’s candidate, could become the southern African nation’s first female president should she win elections planned for November. Swapo has won every previous presidential election since independence from South Africa in 1990 but its share of the vote has been declining.
UNITED STATES
5 November: The US’ 60th presidential election is expected to see its oldest ever candidate, Democrat Joe Biden, face off against the first former US president to stand trial on criminal charges, Republican Donald Trump. Amid fears that America’s democracy is facing unprecedented challenges, observers have likened the race to a “powder keg” that could explode at any point over the course of the year.
SOMALILAND
13 November: Presidential elections in Somalia’s breakaway region have been postponed for two years and the opposition has accused President Muse Bihi Abdi of trying to hold on to power longer than his five-year term. But opposition parties in January approved changes made to electoral law meant to improve transparency and previous elections have seen transitions of power between parties.
TUNISIA
24 November: President Kais Saied has cracked down on the opposition and the press since suspending parliament in 2021. Subsequent elections have been boycotted by the opposition and marred by extremely low turn out – just 8.8% in the parliamentary polls held in December 2022 and 11% in the runoffs a month later. Observers say this presidential election the opposition will try to field a united candidate but they face an environment much more restricted than in the last such poll in 2019.
SOUTH SUDAN
Late 2024: President Salva Kiir – in power since before Africa’s youngest nation voted for independence in 2011 – has repeatedly postponed general elections until now. Holding free and fair polls will present a huge challenge to the fledgling nation, which has been embroiled in a conflict for the past decade that has cost an estimated 400,000 lives and in which three-quarters of the population depends on aid.
MAURITIUS
30 November: The ruling Militant Socialist Movement (MSM), which has led the government since 2009, will be seeking to retain its parliamentary majority in one of Africa’s most stable democracies. Victory would grant prime minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, who took over from his father in 2017, a new five-year term.
ROMANIA
November and December: Local, parliamentary and presidential ballots due before the end of the year make 2024 a crunch electoral year as support for the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR) climbs steadily. Polls suggest the anti-establishment, pro-Russian party, which emerged from nowhere in 2020 to score 9%, could take 19% of the vote in the parliamentary election, level with the Liberal party (PNL) – potentially depriving the centre-right party and the Social Democrats (PSD, forecast to win 30%), who have governed in coalition for the past 10 years, of an absolute majority. A PSD candidate, Nato deputy secretary-general Mircea Geoană, currently leads the presidential race, but AUR leader George Simion is a contender.
PALAU
November: Palau will hold general elections in November in which President Surangel Whipps Jr. will seek another term. The archipelago in the western Pacific Ocean is an independent country with a Compact of Free Association with the US. Its relationship with Washington including delays over funding, along with continued ties with Taiwan, will be among the issues facing voters.
December
GHANA
7 December: The west African country is undergoing its worst economic crisis in a generation, a subject set to dominate the campaign ahead of the vote to succeed President Nana Akufo-Addo. Vice-president Mahamadu Bawumia, a 60-year-old economist, will run for the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), facing off against former president John Mahama. But his presidential prospects may be threatened by his role as the face of economic policy throughout the presidency of Akufo-Addo.
GUINEA-BISSAU
Expected December: No firm date has yet been set for this year’s presidential election and candidates have not yet been announced but analysts suggest it could be a rematch between 2019’s close-run match-up between President Umaro Sissoco Embalo and leader of the opposition PAIGC party Domingos Simões Pereira. The poll will take place in an atmosphere of political uncertainty – Embalo dissolved parliament in December, accusing the government of “passivity” in the face of an attempted coup.
GUINEA
Expected in December: After a junta seized power from the country’s first democratically elected president in 2021, it is hoped this year’s planned legislative and presidential elections will be a step back on the road to democracy. Junta leader Col. Mamady Doumbouya has announced a constitutional referendum to take place this year and agreed an election roadmap with regional body Ecowas, but has failed to provide much transparency or a timeline.
ALGERIA
Expected in December: No candidate has yet stepped forward to challenge President Abdelmajid Tebboune, the 78-year-old leader who after his 2019 election vowed to reach out to the pro-democracy protesters who ousted his predecessor. Algeria has continued to dole out harsh punishments to journalists and activists who criticise the government yet public discontent is rising due to economic and other factors. As one observer writes, “Algeria has almost returned to the situation it was in prior to the 2019 presidential elections, when the thought of new leadership, with all the uncertainties that it could entail, was too risky to envision.”
UZBEKISTAN
Expected in December: The Central Asian nation is to hold its first legislative polls since President Shavkat Mirziyoev – who won a third term last year in what monitors said was a poll “lacking genuine competition” – signed into law a mixed majority and proportional electoral system. However there is little opposition in a country where the media are tightly controlled and the government cracks down on any form of dissent.
Reuters, Associated Press and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
