Over the next 12 months, billions of people – roughly half the world’s population – will vote in local, regional, parliamentary and presidential elections.
Some elections will offer new democracies a chance to take hold, while others will only strengthen existing regimes, but either election could add to rising geopolitical tensions in a time of political turmoil.
More than 80 countries, from Mexico to India, Russia to South Africa, Venezuela to Sudan, are preparing for elections or have already begun.
It is already clear that threats to democracy abound, and not just in countries with turbulent electoral histories.
This year, even strong democracies have found themselves in a bind, struggling with voter apathy, efforts to repress opposition groups and sophisticated disinformation campaigns.
Below are some of the most important races to watch.
This House of Representatives election will be closely watched as a test of the strength of the far-right Liberal Party.
The main party in the current coalition government, the center-right Lithuanian Christian Democrats, is struggling in opinion polls and could be defeated by the Social Democrats.
The showdown between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump brings new uncertainty to the global political landscape.
Probably November
Sri Lanka
The country will hold its first presidential election since a popular uprising ousted the government in 2022.
President Nicolas Maduro was declared the winner in a vote marred by fraud, with some polling officials refusing to release paper results from electronic vote tallies and widespread reports of fraud and voter intimidation.
Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame was re-elected with more than 99 percent of the vote, extending his nearly 25-year term in office, in an election that opposition and right-wing groups say was neither free nor fair.
In France’s hastily held parliamentary elections, the three major political groups of the left, center, and right won large percentages of the vote, but they fell far short of an absolute majority, leaving the country facing a hung parliament.
Massoud Pezeshkian, a cardiac surgeon and relative moderate within the ruling party, defeated an ultra-conservative former nuclear negotiator in a runoff election.
Labour’s landslide election victory ended 14 years of Conservative rule, but the fragmentation of voters and low turnout suggest a deeply dissatisfied Britain.
Voters handed a victory to a conservative Flemish nationalist party, reversing opinion polls that had predicted a sweep of Flemish separatists.
Voters wreaked havoc on French and German politics, benefiting hard-line nationalist parties in many countries, but the far-right wave never fully emerged and maintained its hold on EU politics.
Narendra Modi is in his third term as prime minister, but parliamentary elections have been closer than expected, forcing him to turn to coalition partners who do not share his Hindu nationalist platform.
Climate scientist and former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum’s landslide victory in Mexico’s presidential election marked a double milestone: She became Mexico’s first woman and first Jew to be elected president.
For the first time since coming to power 30 years ago, the African National Congress won less than 50 percent of the national vote, setting the country on an uncharted path.
President Mahamat Idriss Deby was declared the winner, but many analysts believe the result was engineered by a transitional government that never intended to relinquish power.
Panamanians have elected a former minister of public security as their next president, at the culmination of an election cycle marked by political turmoil.
In Croatia, a far-right party has emerged as a possible candidate to take power after the ruling conservatives failed to win the number of seats needed to form a new government.
South Korea’s president is on the brink of a lame duck and the opposition has won its largest parliamentary majority in decades.
The victory of an ally of Slovakia’s populist prime minister strengthens Moscow’s ties with Central Europe.
A young political outsider backed by strong opposition forces has won a surprise victory in Senegal’s presidential election just 10 days after being released from prison.
There was little doubt that Vladimir V. Putin would be declared the winner, but the presidential election took on added significance as the first since the invasion of Ukraine, and when the choreographed vote was over, Mr. Putin had secured a fifth term in office.
Iranian authorities called on citizens to take part in the country’s first general election since the uprising in 2022, but that did not happen. Many people did not turn out to polling stations due to what were perceived as protests, and turnout in Tehran was estimated to be low at 11%.