It was flagged at the outset that 2024 would be an unprecedented year of elections, affecting almost half the world’s population. That would not turn out to be the entire story. This has been a year when democracy has been subject to setbacks, reversals and repression.
As Ireland goes to the polls today, it is timely to recall some of democracy’s darker moments this year. In February, opposition leader Alexei Navalany died in dubious circumstances in a Russian penal colony. In July, Nicolás Maduro claimed victory in a Venezuelan election that was neither free nor fair. And earlier this month, 47 pro-democracy activists were jailed in Hong Kong.
These are just three examples of how advocates for democracy across the world have forfeited their freedom and sometimes their lives in defence of a right which too often is taken for granted by those who enjoy it.
Today, Irish voters have the opportunity to decide the shape of the 34th Dáil and, by extension, their next government. It is a right denied to most of the world’s population. And in many democracies – including the world’s largest, India – norms and institutions are under stress.
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In its modern form of universal adult suffrage, democracy is a relatively recent innovation, based on a simple but profound truth: each person is of equal value and should have an equal say. In practice, democracy is usually contingent and often incomplete. The United States – the world’s oldest and foremost democracy in the eyes of many – only became fully democratic with the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1965.
One sign of the health of a democracy is the presence of losers’ consent, where all sides accept the legitimacy of the process and the outcome. That can be lost if the majority abuses its power, as happened for decades in Northern Ireland. Losers’ consent has also been strained in recent US elections, and might have reached breaking point this time had the result been different.
Populist authoritarians on both right and left set out to undermine these principles of equality and legitimacy by claiming to act on behalf of “the people” against internal enemies. That leads inevitably to the conclusion that there can only be one legitimate winner.
Fortunately, for social and historical reasons, that mindset has found little purchase in Ireland. Our electoral system has its shortcomings but tends to reward consensus and tolerance over extremism and polarisation.
It would be unwise to be complacent, though. The trends visible in other democracies – declining trust in institutions, discontent with the failure of elected governments to tackle pressing problems, social atomisation – are all present here. The first and best way to guard against them is by actively participating in the democratic process and casting a vote today.