BANGKOK – Whether left or right, regardless of how long they have been in power, incumbent governments around the world have been beaten down this year by disgruntled voters in what has been called the “super year” for elections.

of Donald Trump victory in the US presidential election it was just the latest in a long line of losses for the incumbent parties in 2024, with people in about 70 countries representing about half the world’s population going to the polls.

The issues driving voter discontent have varied widely, though there has been a general malaise since the COVID-19 pandemic as people and businesses struggle to recover while facing stubbornly high prices, lackluster governments of cash and an increase in migration.

“There is a general sense of frustration with political elites, seeing them as out of touch, that cuts across ideological lines,” said Richard Wike, director of global attitudes research at the Pew Research Center.

He noted that a Pew survey of 24 countries found that the appeal of democracy itself declined as voters reported increasing economic hardship and a sense that no political faction truly represented them.

“A lot of factors are driving this,” Wike said, “but certainly sentiment about the economy and inflation is a big factor.”

Since the pandemic hit in 2020, candidates have been voted out of office in 40 out of 54 elections in Western democracies, said Steven Levitsky, a political scientist at Harvard University, revealing “a huge incumbent disadvantage.”

In Britain, the centre-right Conservatives suffered their worst result since 1832 The July electionswhich returned the centre-left Labor Party to power after 14 years.

But just across the English Channel, right extreme shaken the ruling parties of France and Germany, the largest and most powerful members of the European Union, in June’s parliamentary elections bloc of 27 nations.

The results prompted French President Emmanuel Macron to call for a parliamentary elections hoping to stop a wave of extreme right at home. The anti-immigration National Rally Party won the first round, but alliances and tactical voting relegated it to third place in the second round. producing a fragile government above a divided legislature.

In Asia, a group of liberal South Korean opposition parties, led by the Democratic Party, defeated the ruling The conservative People’s Power party in the April parliamentary elections.

Meanwhile, India’s Narendra Modi was expected to easily cruise to a third consecutive term in June, but instead voters turned away from his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in droves. costing him his majority in parliamentalthough he managed to stay in power with the help of allies.

So do Japanese voters in October punished The Liberal Democratic Party, which has ruled the country almost continuously since 1955.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will remain in power, but the larger-than-expected loss ended the LDP’s one-sided rule, giving the opposition a chance to make policy changes long opposed by conservatives.

“If you were to ask me to explain Japan in a vacuum, it’s not too difficult,” said Paul Nadeau, an assistant professor at Temple University’s Japan campus in Tokyo.

“Voters punished an incumbent party for a corruption scandal, and that gave them a chance to vent a lot more of the frustrations they already had.”

Globally, however, it is harder to draw conclusions.

“This is pretty consistent in different situations, different countries, different elections — incumbents get a crack in the shin,” he said. “And I don’t have any good big-picture explanation for why this is happening.”

Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, said inflation was a major factor in the “biggest anti-incumbent vote ever seen” – although the reasons behind the backlash may also be “wider and more diffuse”.

“It could be something directly related to the long-term effects of the COVID pandemic – a large wave of health problems, disrupted education, disrupted workplace experiences and so on, making people less happy everywhere, and they I answer to governments,” he said.

“A kind of election-long COVID.”

In South Africa, high unemployment and inequality have contributed to a dramatic loss of support for the African National Congress, which had ruled for three decades as of the end of the year the apartheid system of the white minority. party once led by Nelson Mandela it lost its parliamentary majority in the May elections and was forced into a coalition with opposition parties.

Other elections in Africa presented a mixed picture, said Alex Vines, director of the Africa Program at international affairs think tank Chatham House, partly overshadowed by countries with authoritarian leaders whose re-elections were not in doubt, such as President Rwanda’s long-time leader, Paul Kagame, who won 99% of the vote.

However, in African countries with strong democratic institutions, the punishment model holds, Vines said.

“Countries with stronger institutions – South Africa, Senegal, Botswana – have seen either a government of national unity or a change of ruling party,” he said.

In Botswana, voters unexpectedly rejected a party that had ruled for 58 years since independence from Britain in a October elections.

Vines said that across the continent, “you have this electorate now that has no memory of decolonization or the end of apartheid, and so they have different priorities, who are also feeling the pressures of the cost of living.”

In Latin America, one major country stands out to buck the anti-incumbent wave – Mexico.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, limited to a single term, chose Claudia Sheinbaum, a member of his party, to succeed him. Sheinbaum with ease won the presidency in the June elections.

Wike noted that Mexico is one of the few countries in the Pew survey where voters reported satisfaction with economic conditions.

Some new incumbents have already found that the honeymoon that followed their victories was short-lived as the people quickly turned against them.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer he has seen his approval ratings slip from a jaded electorate that wants lower prices and better public services – but is deeply skeptical of politicians’ intent and ability to effect change.

Ford, of the University of Manchester, said it was a problem for democracy when voters, whose job it is to hold governments to account, rush to judgement.

“If voters are the electoral equivalent of a hanging judge, hanging politicians, whether guilty or innocent, then what incentive is there for governments to try?” he asked. “Angels and devils are thrown alike, but it’s harder to be an angel.”

Trump first came to power as a challenger in the 2016 election and then lost as the incumbent in the 2020 election to Joe Biden. This year, he defeated Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris, who intervened late in the race when the president unexpectedly resigned.

Trump’s victory is one of the most important triumphs of the conservative populist movement. But another symbol of the cause, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, has seen his own party suffer worst show decades in this year’s European Union elections, proving that no move is immune to backlash.

Temple University’s Nadeau suggested that analysts may have previously misunderstood global electoral trends — parsing them as ideological shifts — “when it’s actually been an anti-incumbent mood over time.”

“Maybe she was always anti-incumbent and I was just misdiagnosing her,” he said.

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Lawless reported from London and Riccardi from Denver, Colorado.