2024 will force world leaders from half the planet to update their contact lists. The reason for this is that it is an election year in which more than 2 billion people in more than 60 countries will have the right to vote. Nearly half the world’s countries will hold some kind of election this year, and some of the most prominent recent figures will be involved.

And an intriguing map allows us to see all these election processes very clearly.

Half the world is at the polls. It is interesting that, for one reason or another, 2024 is the most active political year ever recorded, as elections are being held in countries where almost half of the planet’s population lives. India is the country where the largest constituency will drive the process and vote on legislation like other countries like the UK or communities like the European Union.

In the USA, Indonesia or Mexico, both legislative and executive votes will be held, and countries such as Venezuela or Ukraine will renew the executive branch. Now, in some countries there are dates that are not yet known, and in others, such as Ukraine, it will not be held for now due to the Russian occupation.

Map made by VisualCapitalist with Worldometer data.

An intense first half. Some elections have already been held, such as in Finland, Taiwan, El Salvador or Russia. The majority of elections with fixed dates were held or will be held in the first months of 2024. In India, the date has not been determined yet and it is likely to be held between April 19 and June 1, 2024. 960 million people are called to the polls.

Europe. The European Parliament elections will be the only supranational elections to be held this year and will elect 720 members of the next Parliament. Approximately 373 million people will be able to exercise their right to vote in the event that will take place between 6-9 June. The first of these will be in the Netherlands on June 6, and many other countries, including Spain, will celebrate them on June 9. Provisional results will be published on the same day.

There is no shortage of debates. As we said, although Ukraine is visible on the map and the calendar year of the votes is 2024, President Zelensky decided to postpone the votes due to the martial law that was implemented approximately two years before the Russian invasion. Speaking of the other side of the coin, this has already happened in Russia, where Vladimir Putin was re-elected with an overwhelming 87.28% of the vote in the absence of any real opposition.

There were also discussions in Bangladesh, where Sheikh Hasina was re-elected and the USA was quick to comment. There were no free and fair elections due to voting irregularities and violent processes. In Venezuela, María Corina Machado led the opposition until she was disqualified from running for public office a few weeks ago. They have also been in the air in other countries such as Burkina Faso since the 2022 military control.

v for Vendetta. Among the elections with a known date, the elections in the USA are the ones that will last the longest. November 5 is the date when Americans are called to the polls to elect a new president, a process that always takes a long time in the United States due to all the primary phases that parties go through throughout the year.

Trump is likely to confront current president Joe Biden once again on some important issues because these come at a time when China and the United States are going through a new phase in the trade and technology war they have been in for years.

Insecurity. Megan Shahi, director of the Center for American Progress, told CNN that, beyond the internal debates around some of the votes, 2024 will be a very important year because “The current global context is marked as follows: distrust in institutions and disinformation influencing public discourse, added to the advent of new technologies such as generative AI that contribute to the disinformation ecosystem“.

Shahi continues by stating that these processes will show:acceptance of leaders imposing their own agenda rather than serving the collective interest”.

In any case, it is clear that almost 25% of the world’s population will vote this year, representing an almost unprecedented situation.

Image | Visual Capitalist

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