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People cast their votes during general election in Utena, Lithuania October 13, 2024.
Lithuanians want change but shun populists
Lithuanians voted in the first round of general elections on Sunday, where exit polls indicate they will empower a center-left coalition and reject far-right populists. The small Baltic state has enjoyed economic growth and low inflation — a rarity these days. Still, the ruling center-right coalition has been criticized for its handling of Russian and Belarusian migrants, as well as health care access.
The opposition Social Democrats said they will begin coalition negotiations after taking around 20% of the vote. They are promising to raise taxes on the wealthy and build a stronger social support net, but the exact makeup in parliament will be decided in run-offs on Oct. 27. Even with the expected change of government, Lithuania’s strong support for Ukraine and efforts to bolster its own military are points of broad mutual agreement.
Far-right populist parties have had strong showings in Europe this year, surging in elections in Austria, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Lithuania has its homegrown variety, the Nemunas Dawn party, whose leader is on trial for allegedly inciting hatred with antisemitic remarks. Other parties have promised to sideline the far right in Lithuania, a tactic that has kept the populists out of power elsewhere.
The Civic Coalition's leader Donald Tusk speaks during the election night in Warsaw.
Poles push populists out at polls
Exit polls from Sunday’s Polish national election show the ruling Law and Justice party, or PiS, failing to secure enough support to form a third majority government.
While it won the most seats, opposition leader Donald Tusk is claiming victory as his Civic Coalition looks to build a government with the Third Way and the Left, who scored a combined 248 seats, surpassing the 231 needed for a majority. The Third Way performed better than expected with 13% of the vote, while the far-right Confederation party, on whose support PiS depended, got only 6.2%, which the party called a defeat.
Turnout was the highest since 1989 when voters turfed the ruling communist party. Some 73% of Poles voted, compared to the expected 55-60%, suggesting that the liberal opposition mobilized enough voters in the last two weeks of the campaign to turn the tide in its favor.
“The outcome is good news for Poland’s domestic political and economic trajectory as well as its position in the EU,” says Eurasia Group expert Anna-Carina Hamker. “The incoming liberal opposition government will take steps to restore the rule of law and depoliticize state institutions while adopting a more consensus-oriented approach towards Brussels and other European capitals.”
European populism after Trump
During his four years in office, former President Donald Trump wasn't just a rock star to his devoted MAGA base in the United States. He was a model for budding populists across Europe, says former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta. And now his sudden absence on the world stage presents real challenges for the populist leaders that hitched their ride to his wagon.
Letta spoke with Ian Bremmer on an episode of GZERO World, which began airing on US public television stations nationwide on Friday, March 26. Check local listings.
Watch the episode: Italy in Europe's spotlight: insights from former PM Enrico Letta
Lula vs Bolsonaro: A clash of titans in Brazil
If ever there were a knock-down, drag-out, heavyweight clash of populist titans brewing — this is going to be it.
A Brazilian court on Monday overturned a 2018 corruption conviction against former president Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva, clearing the way for the polarizing but immensely popular leftist to run in the 2022 presidential election. If he does, he'll almost certainly be the main challenger for current president Jair Bolsonaro, a bomb-throwing far right populist.
Let's get ready to rumble.
Who is Lula again? The rough-spoken former union boss was president from 2003 to 2011, when a commodities boom enabled him to massively expand state support for the poor while also enjoying one of the headiest periods of economic growth in Brazil's history. His critics, however, accused his Workers Party of graft and incompetence. After he left office the wheels came off — his successor Dilma Rousseff was impeached amid massive protests over corruption, and Lula himself was convicted of graft in a polarizing and politicized trial that occurred just before the 2018 presidential election, preventing him from competing.
His supporters cried foul: he was the most popular candidate at the time. His jailing cleared the way for Jair Bolsonaro to sweep to power on a rightwing populist platform of anti-corruption, strong arm policing, fiscal discipline, and provocative statements about women, gays, and minorities.
Lula is still the most popular politician in Brazil. According to a poll published by the daily O Estado de São Paulo, 50 percent of likely voters would choose Lula, against just 38 percent for Bolsonaro (Portuguese, paywall). But Lula also has a very high rate of disapproval, meaning that, just like with Bolsonaro, people love or hate him in equal measure — there's no middle ground (Spanish).
Brazilians are fed up and deeply polarized. After all the upheavals of the past ten years, Brazilians in general still feel alienated from their leaders, and divisions are deep: a 2019 IPSOS/BBC study found that a third of Brazilians say it's not even worth having a conversation with people who hold opposing political views — only India and South Africa had higher rates of intolerance on that score.
This will be a historic battle. Lula still needs to clear a few more legal hurdles before he can run, but a Lula candidacy would make for a presidential race unlike any other in the world in recent years.
The global resurgence of populism over the past 15 years has tended to pit upstarts from the ideological fringes against centrist political establishments fighting for survival. That was true of Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton — and then Joe Biden. It was true of the Philippines' Rodrigo Duterte, and Mexico's Andres Manuel López Obrador. All of them won (and, in Trump's case, lost) against establishment centrists.
But at no time in recent memory has a country of Brazil's size and clout (it's Latin America's largest economy) seen a face-off between two charismatic populists representing opposite sides of the political spectrum at the same time. What's more, Globo News international affairs commentator Guga Chacra points out, these are two figures who are well known outside of Brazil, meaning there will be a lot of international attention on the race.
Would facing Lula be bad for Bolsonaro? Lula's campaign would likely focus on jobs and inequality, a message that can land well after the economic carnage of the past year. And while Lula still commands broad popularity, Bolsonaro has recently seen his approval ratings fall, in part because of his disastrous handling of the pandemic and vaccine rollout.
But Bolsonaro has some cards to play. His pandemic relief checks have started to eat into Lula's once rock-solid base in the poorer reaches of Brazil's Northeast, Chacra told us.
And more than anything, Bolsonaro is a politician who loves to have enemies, and Lula is his — and his supporters' — greatest political nemesis. A Bolsonaro-Lula matchup would quickly become an ideological and cultural war reflecting deep rifts within Brazilian society.
And that, for better or worse, is the type of fight in which both of these populist titans can land an awful lot of punches.
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Authoritarianism's appeal when democracy disappoints
What is so attractive about authoritarianism? Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum argues it has to do with a fundamental civic disillusionment. "The drive towards authoritarianism for the last 100 years resulted from people who feel some kind of disappointment with democracy." It can be a political disappointment or a personal one, Applebaum argues, that pushes people away from democratic institutions. And it's a trend that has only grown in recent years in some of the world's oldest and strongest democracies, including in the United States.
So how do governments make the case for democracy? That's the subject of Applebaum's interview with Ian Bremmer on GZERO World, which began airing on US public television stations nationwide on Friday, March 5.
Watch the episode: Authoritarianism's Enduring Appeal: Anne Applebaum Discusses
Why anti-democratic movements in Europe and the US are remarkably similar
Political movements that promote authoritarian leaders and anti-democratic governments have gained significant ground in Eastern Europe in the past twenty years. And according to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum, it's a trend that goes beyond that specific region. "This will sound very bizarre, but the trajectory of events and the nature of political debate in Poland is amazingly similar to the United States, the kinds of arguments that people make, the, the level of polarization… you can see this impulse to destroy and undermine the institutions of democracy everywhere." What is the appeal of such movements and what has the pandemic done to expand their influence?
Applebaum and Ian Bremmer take on those questions on GZERO World, which began airing on US public television stations nationwide on Friday, March 5. Check local listings.
Watch the episode: Authoritarianism's Enduring Appeal: Anne Applebaum Discusses
Authoritarianism’s enduring appeal: Anne Applebaum discusses
Across the world, from the Philippines to Hungary to Venezuela, nations have embraced authoritarian rule in recent years, in many cases with significant popular support. What is the enduring appeal of authoritarianism, what has the pandemic done to accelerate its growth, and how susceptible is the United States to its sway? Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum joins Ian Bremmer on GZERO World to investigate the allure of these anti-democratic movements and to shed light on their unlikely champions.
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Podcast: Authoritarianism’s Enduring Appeal
Listen: From the Philippines to Hungary to Venezuela, countries across the world have embraced authoritarian rule, in many cases with significant popular support. What is the enduring appeal of authoritarianism, how susceptible is the United States to its sway, and what has the pandemic done to accelerate its growth? Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum joins Ian Bremmer to discuss.
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