Front Burner - 2024: The year of the election

Episode Date: July 17, 2024

This is a big year for national elections around the world. More than 80 countries have gone to the polls, or will before 2024 is over. The volley of elections comes as incumbents struggle to remain popular amid economic challenges, high migration rates and surging challengers.We speak with political scientist, author and commentator Ian Bremmer about what’s at stake with so many elections and what social and economic forces are driving change.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcriptsTranscripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. In the world's biggest democratic exercise, India has announced that it will vote in national elections from the 19th of April. Tomorrow, Mexico holds the largest election of its history, nearly 100 million registered voters. Millions of South Africans have been voting in the country's elections. And today is a crucial final day of voting in the snap elections in France. This is a big year for elections. Around the world, voters are going to the polls

in more than 80 countries. Of course, there is the U.S. election this fall, India, where there were almost a billion eligible voters, Iran, the U.K., Venezuela, Syria, just to name a few. In all, about half of the world's population is living in a country that will have a national election in 2024. With the frenzy of political activity, there's a potential for plenty of upheaval. We've already seen a bit of that. there's a potential for plenty of upheaval. We've already seen a bit of that. In the European Union, the far right surged. For example, Portugal also saw a swing to the right. In the UK, the Labour Party ended 14 years of conservative rule. To look at how all of these elections are changing the global political landscape and what's at stake, I'm joined by Ian Bremmer. He's an American author and political scientist

and president of the Eurasia Group and GZERO Media, which has really insightful coverage of international affairs. And I just want to note that we recorded this conversation before the weekend, before former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. Since then, Ian has posted these remarks on social media. The U.S. is the only major democracy in the world today that is experiencing a serious crisis. And we do ourselves no favors by normalizing the events of the past months of this election and the events that we've just witnessed in the past moments in the United States. This is going to require people to recognize that U.S. political

institutions are in danger, and that they require our protection together as citizens to uphold the values that we believe in. If further devolution into blamesmanship, into polarization, into the weaponization of politics is the way you lose your democracy. And those stakes are very real, certainly much more real than at any point in my lifetime. All right. Here's our conversation about a particularly busy year for democracy around the world. Ian, hi. Thank you so much for coming on to FrontBurner. It's such a pleasure to have you.

Sure. Happy to be here. So before we get into specific elections, I want to start with the broad trends that you see motivating the world's vote. So as like half the world gets the chance to go to the polls this year, what do you think is the number one most common thing that they'll be looking for with their ballots? The most common thing is throwing out the incumbents. This is a world that at least when we talk about the democracies, the true democracies that are going to the ballot, they're generally unhappy with the leaders they have. They're generally unhappy with the trajectory that

they feel like their countries are on. And we can talk about why that is. But if you ask me for, you know, one general, like massively oversimplified commonality, that's what it would be. And just help me understand why that is. Like, why does so much of the world want this kind of change at the same time? Well, there's one obvious reason, and it's not getting enough attention, which is that we've all gone through the most disruptive global event of our lifetimes, the pandemic. And the pandemic shut down the global economy and it shut down our ability to move. And it did that for almost two years. And in order to respond to that, you had these incredibly extreme measures, economic measures taken to ensure that businesses would be able to stay afloat, that households would be able to stay afloat, that schoolchildren would be able to stay afloat, that households would be able to stay afloat,

that schoolchildren would be able to stay afloat. And there are consequences. And the consequences are twofold. First of all, that when you throw all that money around and supply chains are completely seized up, now suddenly the global economy is running again. The money that you gave to all those people has run out. But the inflation, the knock on inflation is massive. So number one, you've got that. You have historic levels of inflation that are going down, but you're still dealing with it because it's not like the prices are going down. The rate of inflation is returning to normal from a very high rate. Secondly, you have an abnormal amount of migration. People that wanted to move, wanted to leave their country to go someplace else, could not for a couple of years. And suddenly they're all on the move again. And so if you look around the world, you see a whole bunch of people that are really angry about the way their economy is going, mostly the working middle classes, because they're dealing with that inflation.

And they're really unhappy with all of the migration that's going on. If you are a president or a prime minister that is left holding the bag post-pandemic, that is your misfortune. You know, it's like musical chairs and the music suddenly stops and everyone's running around. Right. So that that's the main reason. And the good news there is that this is temporary. This is not something that we're going to have to deal with, you know, sort of every electoral cycle. But it is a reason why you're seeing incumbents getting particularly and peculiarly thumped. There's a second reason, which is more

structural, unfortunately. And that is that people are getting their information around politics and many other things algorithmically. And that drives more polarization. It drives more tribalism. It drives more disinformation. And it splits people apart. It undermines democracies in team than having any nuance. And that creates much more anger and much more of an anti-centrist push, whether it's far left or far right in democracies all over the world. That's structural. That's getting worse every year. That's another piece of it. And just let's talk about that polarization a little bit more here. You know, in which direction are we seeing, you know, certain parts of the world move? Like who's doing the better job here of grabbing all of these people who are like they're angry, they're discontent?

It depends. I mean, you can generally say that the far right around the world has been more advantaged than the far left. You see that, you know, in the way that Germany, the alternatives for Deutschland has risen much more than the far German left, for example, in Canada, you know, Poliev is much more likely to win and win big next time around, more likely to win and win big next time around, as opposed to the far left. In the closely watched federal by-election of Toronto St. Paul's, conservative Don Stewart has won the longtime liberal stronghold. This is a stunning result in a seat the liberals have held for more than 30 years, one that's sure to ignite more questions around the political future of

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. And in the United States, certainly the MAGA movement has picked up a lot more than the far left. That's true. But I would not try to make that argument globally. You look at Mexico, and one of the few incumbents that actually outperformed with a near constitutional supermajority is AMLO to Scheinbaum and Morena and their party. And historic victory this morning for Claudia Scheinbaum, who rose to national prominence here as mayor of Mexico City and now will take office later this year as Mexico's first ever female president. Now will take office later this year as Mexico's first ever female president. No matter your politics, this is a monumental moment for this country where politics have long been patriarchal, where women were not even granted the right to vote until the 1950s. Shane Baum is also Jewish, another first in this extremely Catholic country. And that's because this is a party that is seen on the far left as supporting the average Mexican citizen, the Mexican South, which has been underinvested in for generations, as opposed to a oligarch business friendly center right that has really controlled and captured the political system for a long time.

that has, you know, really controlled and captured the political system for a long time. You know, in when I look at France right now, the left, yeah, the far left actually, I mean, even though the far right outperformed, the far left also outperformed strongly. And what we saw is just the center getting completely eviscerated. I think the bigger trend is that the center is losing. The bigger trend is that the people that represent the so-called globalists, you know, sort of the support for market access and open migration and global security and basically people and ideas and thoughts and capital moving faster and faster and faster around world borders, those people are getting hurt. And people that are more effective at talking in a more nativist way about their own populations and parts of their own population, religious parts, ethnic parts, racial parts, you name it, they tend to do better. Just going back to France for a moment, one of the most interesting parts of that election

is that we saw hundreds of candidates from the center and left bow out to lower vote splitting. Is this situation unique to France, or do you see it as a sign that this kind of electoral cooperation could really work to stymie the right, if that was something that... Well, it's not working in France. So, I mean, there's an argument to be made that if that didn't happen, and the far right had actually taken a majority of seats in parliament, and Bardella, who's running the National Rally Party, Marine Le Pen's party, had become prime minister. He would have been responsible for governance, would have failed,

and that would have led to an anti-incumbent reaction that would have helped the centre again, kind of like what you're seeing in the UK with Labour coming back with a strong majority. That didn't happen. Instead, the far right still got 38% of the vote, but they came in third. And now instead, you have the far left and the centre working together in principle to stymie the far right, but they hate each other on every policy. There is no cooperation. As a consequence, this government will be completely unmanageable for Macron. He still will be seen as losing. He won't have any influence over domestic or economic policy,

just foreign national security policy. The far right, they are much better set up now to win the presidency in 2027 in France. So I would argue that Macron made a really big bet. It was rash and intemperate. He did somewhat better on that bet than people expected in the near term, but still badly. And he's now set up for a much bigger problem down the road. That's really interesting that these attempts to stop them, you're saying, is actually setting them up for greater success down the road in the near future. If the political changes that we've been talking about continue to come to fruition, which, you know, they certainly they certainly are like it's certainly playing out that way. You know, I imagine that it will impact the wars that are materially and diplomatically tied up with a lot of these countries.

Right. And how can we expect this to change the face of the war in Ukraine and the war in Gaza? of the war in Ukraine and the war in Gaza? Well, first of all, if you want to talk about the wars, you have to recognize that the United States continues to be by far the most powerful country militarily. And so what the Americans do has outsized impact on the war. So everything we've just talked about on France and the UK and other countries just matters a lot less, right? And specifically in the US, you saw 80% of senators vote in favor of a massive new military package with about $16 billion for Israel, $2 billion for Taiwan, and $61 billion for Ukraine. So there was a strong majority. But the MAGA right, the Make America Great Again right in the United States, delayed that for six months, which hurt the Ukrainians.

And they're the ones that want to end the war, end the war under any circumstances. Trump has used as an electoral line regularly, no new wars under me, two new wars under Biden, I'm going to end them. Who wants to spend all this money on the Ukrainians? Zelensky is a great salesman. He's wasting all your cash. He's going to get us involved in World War III. Why are we doing it? I will prevent and very easily World War III, very easily. very easily. Before I even arrive at the Oval Office, I will have the disastrous war between Russia and Ukraine settled. It will be settled quickly. That resonates strongly with Trump's voting base. And if Trump becomes president, I think there is a much higher likelihood that he will make an effort to drive an immediate ceasefire or else he cuts off the Ukrainians.

Now, I've just spent a week in Washington for the NATO summit, the 75th, and met with probably 15 of the leaders in those delegations. And many of those leaders, almost all of them, are deeply worried about this. And that's because they're on the front lines. They're the ones that fear that if the Americans pull out, they've got to face the Russians themselves. I mean, just while that meeting was going on, we learned about an advanced assassination plot that was foiled by the

Russians against the CEO of the largest German defense company. They say the plot to kill CEO Armin Papago was one of a series of Russian government plans to assassinate industry executives across Europe who were supporting Ukraine's war effort. I mean, that's not, you know, asymmetric warfare, that's warfare. And these leaders are very worried that if the Russians win in Ukraine, that they're going to have to face these challenges themselves. And that means they need to spend a lot more on defense. So it is true that the Americans are potentially dropping the ball on Ukraine on the basis of the questions

that you're asking. But for the countries that are on the front lines, no matter who they vote in, they're going to be much more worried. And we see that with Poland. We see it with the Baltics. We see it with the Nordics. I think we, you know, it is true that away from the front lines. So when you start talking about, you know, sort of France, for example, Le Pen's party is much more willing to give away the store to Putin. to Putin. And you can find that when you're talking about countries that don't feel like they have as much directly at stake. But let's keep in mind that an awful lot of Europe and an awful lot of NATO feel very different. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here.

You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income. That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing.

In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I want to ask you about the leaders themselves for a second. In so many of the countries that we're talking about that are looking for change, the leaders or incumbents not surprisingly have horrible approval ratings, right? Like Rishi Sunak and in the UK, Canada's Trudeau, though, you know, likely we won't have an election this year. Who knows? You know, likely we won't have an election this year. Who knows? So I guess even Macron and obviously Joe Biden added on to his low approval rating are now obviously all these very increased concerns about his age.

Why is it that you think these leaders insist on running again instead of letting someone without the baggage try, considering everything that we've been talking about today? Or does it matter? I think, of course, it matters. And it matters a lot in the United States. I mean, I have, about a year ago, I mean, I was very public about the fact that Biden and Trump are obviously way too old to be running again. And most Americans feel that way, but it's not stopping them. Why not? It's ego. It's narcissism. It takes a certain type of unhinged personality to be willing to put yourself through the extraordinary amount of pressure and public scrutiny and people beating you up every day and saying horrible things about you and your family every day. The idea that I'm the old guy, I am, I'm old, but I'm only three years older than Trump, number one. And number two, my mental

acuity has been pretty damn good. I've gotten more done than any president has in a long, long time, in three and a half years. Very good health. I just won two club championships, not even senior, two regular club championships. To do that, you have to be quite smart, and you have to be able to hit the ball a long way. And I do it. He doesn't do it. He can't hit a ball 50 yards. He challenged me to a golf match.

He can't hit a ball 50 yards. I told you before, I'm happy to play golf if you carry your own bag. Think you can do it? To still believe that you're the messiah, still believe that you're the only person that's capable of leading this country, of beating this opponent, that is particularly pathological individually in the case of Donald Trump. And anyone that spends time with him knows that. But it's true for Biden, too. And it's one of the reasons I think, you know, you also see this.

I mean, this is a more male quality. I do think we'd be better off if we just got rid of a lot of the men and forced women in for a term or two. I'm not going to argue with you there. Yeah, not many people honestly would. I mean, again, you see this, that so many of these very powerful guys in power that are running countries just absolutely believe

that they are right about everything. Yeah, and that no one else could do it. That no one else could do it. I mean, Biden at 81 years old, who has lost more than a step. And clearly, I mean, there is literally no one around Biden that believes that he could run the country for four more years. There's literally no one that believes that. You know, I've talked to his closest advisors. I've talked to world leaders that speak with him all the time. No one thinks he can do another four years. So why is he running? I mean, that is on its face insane, right? And Trump is, I mean, 50% of the population of the US believes that Trump is too old, both physically and

mentally to capably serve. If it wasn't for Biden's 72%, Trump would be unprecedented in his unfitness. And I'm not just, I'm not talking about like, you know, his, his orientation towards democracy, rule of law. I'm just talking about, he is too freaking old. And, and, and yet, you know, I mean, that's like, you can't even begin to have that conversation with him. And so that is a, I think that's a serious problem. I think it's a failing of our system. And it makes people believe, it makes people believe that their leaders aren't legitimate. It makes them feel disenfranchised. It's a serious problem. Just two questions, if you don't mind, before we go.

The first is that we've been talking a lot about the West today, mainly Europe, North America. But I'm also wondering whether there's trends you're seeing in the global South where we're seeing real power rising in India and China and others. How would you say the way it is shifting is different from the west or in line with what we're seeing in the west? Well, a lot of countries, when you talk about, there were elections this year in Russia, but one would not call them legitimate elections. Vladimir Putin has gotten winning elections down to a science. Over decades in power, he's figured out how to control public opinion, control the polls, and get rid of his opposition. He wants to make sure that he can say that he's Russia's chosen leader.

The Russians, the last time they had a popular opposition figure, he was jailed and then murdered by the regime, Alexei Navalny. So it doesn't matter. The trends don't matter for those countries because the leadership has enormous control over the population and the consequences for displaying any form of opposition are severe. But when Venezuela is about to have elections, and in principle, they're allowing an opposition figure who's very popular to run, and I feel quite confident that they will find a way to ensure that the election is stolen from him. So this is not relevant in authoritarian states, but it is very relevant, very relevant in

hybrid systems and in democracies in the global South. In South Africa, the African National Congress got historically thumped and are now in a very weak coalition that will probably lead to the ouster of President Ramaphosa within a couple of years, because of the same things we talked about, because of the challenges in the economy, in particular, because of views of corruption, and because people are very angry with their incumbents. ANC had been leading, you know, since Nelson Mandela. And this is the first time that they had to actually form a coalition to govern. In India, Modi is enormously popular. He has presided over an incredible amount of growth.

They're growing at 8% a year right now, but still he underperformed significantly and as a consequence was forced into a coalition with two relatively small state-based, region-based parties for, again, same reason, because the economic performance post-pandemic was a lot more problematic. And a lot of the people that thought that they were going to benefit, they have higher unemployment. Those jobs haven't, you know, they haven't come back in the way that he said they were going to. Now the economy is running again. He needs to do more for them. And that's why, like in Uttar Pradesh, for example, he got just like way, way destroyed in ways that they thought they were going to get 400 seats.

And they ended up with more than 100 less than that. So we are seeing some of these trends play out in the global south, too. So just to end this conversation, I know this is a thread that you've been pulling on throughout, but I think it would be helpful if I just asked it to you straight. If the decade or the era that we're coming out of was defined by the center, the liberal democratic order, what might this new era of global politics be defined by, if you could sum it up? defined by, if you could sum it up? I think that for your and my lifetimes, we have presumed that democracy is the best system out there for bringing benefits to the entire population of a country. And what we are now seeing is an era where a lot of people around the world are utterly unconvinced of that. And this is a time when, you know, the Chinese's a third way, maybe there's something in between. So a lot is at stake,

a lot is up for grabs with the political and economic systems that we think will actually be the dominant ones on the world stage. Okay. Ian Bremmer, thank you so much for this. Good talking to you. Okay, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Puesto, and thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.