Trump to blame for election protests across the world

It now seems to be expected all over the world that any election loss is to be contested, often by extreme and/or violent means. Whenever an election result is announced - whether it be a close-run race or a walkover, whether it be a victory for the incumbent or a surprise breakthrough for the opposition - you have to expect a protest or, more often, a full-scale riot, accompanied by strident claims of electoral irregularities, fraud and intimidation. Like Gollum and Frodo in Lord of the Rings, leaders seem to be finding it increasingly difficult to relinqish power.

The latest such example is happening right now in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, although, there at least, it is quite likely that there have indeed been irregularities, fraud and intimidation.

But the same thing is also happening in Serbia, the same thing happened in Paraguay and in Mozambique and in Nigeria and in Turkey and in Ecuador and in Thailand and in Guatemala earlier this year; in Brazil and in Angola in 2022, in the Philippines in 2022, in Georgia and in Russia in 2021, in Belarus in 2020, etc, etc. The list goes on. And the common denominator? Populist politicians unwilling to admit defeat.

Oh yes, and one more, a few years back now: the USA in 2020/2021. And there's the rub. No longer can we say that election protests and claims of electoral fraud, whether baseless or not, are a feature of benighted African and Asian countries, a "Third World" problem, in places where they don't know how to do democracy right. The 2020/2021 US protests by the Trump-loving hard right of American Republicans has opened the floodgates. 

If "Third World" countries see America acting badly, they feel they have carte blanche to do the same, or worse. And, while such protests have always happened to some extent, vociferous, often violent, protests  are now the norm, the default reaction, after any election anywhere. Democracy, and trust in democracy, worldwide has been weakened. (This also applies to more "First World" developed countries and I have grave concerns about what might happen here in Canada if Pierre Poilievre doesn't win.)

And that retrograde step can be laid squarely at the door of one Donald Trump. With over half of the world's population going to the polls in 2024 - India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Russia, Mexico, USA, and possibly UK and even Canada - one can't help but worry how this "high-water mark for democracy" is going to pan out.

The last few years has seen many instance of "electoral backsliding", with "electoral autocracies" and "non-liberal democracies" showing a marked increase. 2024 will probably see more of that - world democracy has never seemed more fragile.