Top Elections To Keep An Eye On In 2023

In 2022, millions of people around the world voted. Yoon Suk-Yoel, a conservative contender, was narrowly elected president of South Korea. Viktor Orbán was re-elected Prime Minister of Hungary after his far-right Fidesz Party won a substantially gerrymandered election.

 
Top Elections To Keep An Eye On In 2023

Emmanuel Macron was re-elected in France, making him the first French president in two decades. The Philippines' voters elected Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr., the son of the tyrant deposed in 1986, as president. Colombians elected Gustavo Petro, a former guerilla soldier, as their first leftist president. The People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola retained power in the country's closest election in its history.

William Ruto won Kenya's presidential election by less than two percentage points. Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva defeated President Jair Bolsonaro in a hotly contested run-off election. Israelis voted for the fifth time in less than four years, allowing former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to create a new administration.

The Democrats retained control of the Senate in the midterm elections, but Republicans reclaimed control of the House of Representatives. Next year will witness several pivotal elections. Some of these may come as a surprise as governments fall, whether due to ordinary parliamentary manoeuvrings, street rallies, or coups. However, many elections have already been scheduled, even if particular dates still need to be set. Here are the five elections to watch in 2023.

1.Nigerian General Elections

Nigerian General Elections are scheduled for February 25. Nigeria is the most populous and influential country in Africa. As a result, whoever wins Nigeria's presidential election matters to Nigerians, Africa, and beyond. Term constraints prevent incumbent President Muhammu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Party from running for reelection. As a result, the APC has selected the former governor of Lagos, the country's most populous state, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as its candidate.

The People's Democratic Party, the biggest opposition party, has nominated former Vice President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who lost to Buhari in the 2019 election. There will be candidates from sixteen other parties on the ballot.

Peter Obi, the Labour Party candidate, has a chance to beat both Tinubu and Abubakar. Obi is a businessman who attended Harvard Business School and is a former governor of Anambra State. In a late September 2022 poll, he was ahead among Nigerians who had already picked on a candidate. Nigeria will hold its first run-off election if no candidate receives a majority in the February election. The election in February will be placed under the new Electoral Act, which aims to make voting more open and secure.

2. Turkish General Elections

Turkish General Elections are scheduled for June 18. Recep Tayyip Erdoan's two-decade political supremacy in Turkey will be put to the ultimate test in the 2023 general elections, which will elect a new president and members of the Grand National Assembly. From 2003 to 2014, Erdoan was Turkey's Prime Minister. He stood for president in 2014, a primarily ceremonial position in Turkey's legislative system.

In 2017, he oversaw the country's transition to a presidential system. In 2018, he was re-elected to the suddenly significantly more powerful presidency. Erdoan has lost his political magic in recent years, even as he has made it more difficult for opponents to challenge his leadership. He has weakened not only Turkey's democracy but also mismanaged the country's economy.

Annual inflation currently exceeds 80%, considerably exceeding the global inflation rate of 12%, and unemployment exceeds 10%. Can Erdoan's opponents depose him? The major opposition grouping is the Millet (Nation) Alliance, a collaboration of parties. It has not yet chosen a presidential candidate. The Labor and Freedom Alliance is another opposition coalition led by the People's Democratic Party, Turkey's primary political party for the Kurdish minority.

3. Pakistan General Elections

Pakistan will have a general election on October 12, 2023. Pakistan is in turmoil. Prime Minister Imran Khan, a former cricketer, lost a no-confidence motion in parliament in April 2022, following a trend in which no Pakistani prime minister has ever served a full five-year term. Khan, on the other hand, did not retire quietly. Instead, he led his supporters in a series of protest marches on Islamabad's capital, aiming to depose his successor, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. Khan was wounded in a failed assassination attempt in November. He blamed the strike on Sharif and high military leaders. Meanwhile, Pakistan is dealing with several economic issues.

It is in debt, struggling to generate enough electricity to power its economy, and recovering from unprecedented flooding that submerged one-third of the country. In this context, Pakistani voters will go to the polls in mid-October next year to elect a new parliament, however, Khan has demanded that Sharif call early elections. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (Pakistan Movement for Justice), led by Khan; the Pakistan Muslim League, led by Sharif and his brother, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif; and the social-democratic Pakistan People's Party (PPP), led by Asif Ali Zardari, widower of assassinated Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

4. Argentina General Elections

General Elections in Argentina, October 29. Argentina is one of two dozen democracies that need voting. Argentinians will vote for president, members of both houses of their National Congress, and governors of most provinces in October. Alberto Fernández of the Frente de Todos, Argentina's incumbent president, has announced his intention to run for reelection.

However, he may face opposition from within his alliance. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who served as president from 2007 to 2015, has hinted that she will run. However, she was recently convicted on corruption allegations, condemned to six years in prison, and forbidden from holding public office. Sergio Massa, the current Economy Minister, may enter the race. Several top Juntos para el Cambio members are vying for the coalition's nomination.

La Libertad Avanza is expected to propose Javier Milei; an economist turned politician who raffles off his legislative income every month to protest what he calls government robbery. Milei's criticism of Argentina's governing class has prompted similarities to Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro. Milei has promised that if elected, he will abandon communist beliefs and strengthen connections with the United States.

5. Bangladesh General Elections

Bangladesh will have general elections in December 2023. The democracy of Bangladesh has an interesting trait. Voters elect three hundred members of its unicameral national parliament in general elections.

These three hundred members then vote only for women to fill the remaining fifty parliament seats. This two-step procedure is designed to ensure that women are adequately represented. The full legislature then elects a prime minister to administer the country and a president to act mostly as a ceremonial figure. Bangladesh is effectively a two-party system. The ruling Grand Alliance, a coalition of left-wing political parties led by the Awami League, is on one side.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), on the other hand, advocates a nationalist agenda, as the name implies. Corruption and violence have characterised recent Bangladeshi elections. The election in 2023 could be more of the same. Earlier this month, police arrested hundreds of BNP supporters who had gathered in Dhaka's capital city to demand that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed resign in response to rising inflation and what they see as the politically motivated conviction of the BNP's leader, Khaleda Zia, on corruption charges. Hasina has been prime minister since 2009 and has utilised harsh techniques to silence her critics.

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