The number of populist leaders around the world has fallen to its lowest level in 20 years after a string of victories for progressives and centrists over the past year, according to analysis by the Tony Blair Institute showing that the number people living under populist rule fell by 800 million in two years.
The research claims that 2023 could be an equally decisive year for populism, with critical elections in Turkey and Poland. These two elections could see the fall of two of the world’s most influential populist governments, although this may still require divided opposition parties in both countries to form clearer coalition programs than they have managed so far. here.
Among the populists who lost power, Brazil Jair Bolsonaro And Slovenian Janez Janša was defeated in a relatively close election in 2022, while Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines was limited to one term and unable to run again. In Sri Lanka, Gotabaya Rajapaksa was forced out of office by protests.
The report says 1.7 billion people were living under a populist leader at the start of 2023, up from 2.5 billion in 2020. of a country is locked in a moral conflict with “outsiders” and, secondly, that nothing should constrain the will of the “true people”.
Much of the decline in populism has occurred in Latin America, notably with the defeat of Bolsonaro in Brazil, according to the report, but also with the election of a generation of moderate leftists across Latin America who have ” disavowed populist rhetoric and focused on a progressive economy”. and social rights rather than the populist left’s historical emphasis on industrial nationalization.
The report also notes that in the midterm elections in the United States, a majority of candidates supported by donald trump who espoused right-wing nationalism and conspiracy theories failed to get elected and underperformed moderates.
“After beating several moderate Republicans in swing-state primaries, the Trump candidates then lost most of those races in November, costing Republicans control of the Senate and several governorships. Most notably, they lost all state-level elections for offices involving election administration in swing states,” the report said.
“While Congress has blocked Trump’s efforts to void the 2020 election, American voters have blocked his supporters’ efforts to administer the future ones in 2022.” But the report warns that this defeat of Trump’s rejection of democracy may not signal the long-term defeat of cultural populism across the United States.
The report broadly defines populism into three categories: cultural populism, which has a right-wing ethno-nationalist appeal; socio-economic populism, which appeals to the left; and protest populism, which targets elites.
He says populism still has a major cultural influence on American politics, despite the defeat of Trump-endorsed candidates and doubts over the former president’s prospects in 2024, pointing to views of Ron DeSantis, likely to be a another key candidate. “Even if Trump loses, cultural populism will likely remain strong within the Republican Party,” he says.
The report – Repel and Rebuild: Expanding the Playbook Against Populism – claims that the remaining examples of populist governments around the world (seven out of 11) include almost entirely right-wing cultural populists, as opposed to economic or anti-establishment populists.
But populist governments have struggled to form effective cultural governments, especially when faced with economic challenges or complex issues such as Covid, the report claims, noting that four fell from power in 2022 – at the Brazil, the Philippines, Slovenia and Sri Lanka.
The report, however, strongly cautions against premature claims of defeat for populism, pointing out that in 2022 populists were part of winning coalitions in Italy, Israel and Sweden. Marine Le Pen was beaten by French President Emmanuel Macron, but her party fared well in the legislative elections.
In the UK, the Conservative party is likely to face a challenge from the populist right-wing Reform UK party, which has pledged to field candidates against all parties rather than continuing Ukip’s 2019 pact not to stand. oppose Boris Johnson’s Tories.
Although Richard Tice’s party is unlikely to win a seat in the next election, it garners around 8% of the vote, and the bulk of those are believed to come from disgruntled Tory voters. It could be more successful if Nigel Farage, who led Ukip and the Brexit Party to greater prominence, gets more involved.
The institute argues that mainstream anti-populist parties may need to recognize that they need a different anti-populist playbook when in power than the one used by mainstream parties when populists are in power. .
He says mainstream parties should have their own clear and substantial political platform and not focus on negative campaigns against populist challengers, because populist challengers will always argue that their core issues are being under-addressed by mainstream politics. The report says mainstream parties need to realize that voters are growing increasingly tired of excessive rhetoric that ignores the issues facing a country.
The report’s author, Brett Meyer, said it showed a trend of progressive centrism in a number of countries. “Centrists continued to push back the frontiers of populism in 2022 as the number of populists in power fell to a 20-year low,” he said.
This is largely due to the success of progressive centrism over populism across the Americas as centre-left progressive leaders replaced the old populist left. Populism also suffered a blow in the midterm elections in the United States.
But the fate of populism could turn this year in elections in Poland and Turkey, where the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in serious danger. “At the end of 2022, Turkey had the highest negative interest rates in the world after adjusting for inflation, and the lira was the best performer in emerging markets against the dollar,” the report said, warning that the Turkish president was least willing to talk about conflicts with Greece or the Kurds to drum up nationalist support.
0 Comments