Year of Elections

The US election on November 5 will be historic, as has been the race leading up to it. In the early stages of the campaign, this was the first election between a sitting president and a former president in more than 60 years. In June there was the earliest presidential debate in history between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, soon after which Mr Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed his Vice President, who secured and accepted the...

The US election on November 5 will surely be one of the most consequential in recent memory.

Former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are competing for the Oval Office in what seems like a rippled reflection of the contest we saw between Mr Trump and Joe Biden in 2020.

Still, the race is seeing a lot of the unexpected: Mr Trump courting Arab American voters, and Ms Harris campaigning with Liz Cheney (the daugh...

In our previous Year of Elections episode, we looked ahead to the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. A lot has changed since. US Vice President Kamala Harris has moved up the ticket and is now running for the presidency. She will be the one to take on former president Donald Trump for the White House.

After all, this is a historic election. Mr Biden is the first sitting president in more than 50 years to drop out of a ...

With less than 120 days until millions of Americans cast their ballots to decide their next president, the 2024 election is shaping up to be one of the most consequential in recent history. Amid the campaign trail, pressing questions are being raised about President Joe Biden’s fitness for office and the high-profile legal challenges facing Republican challenger Donald Trump.

For months, the candidates have been neck and neck, prom...

It is a political gamble that looks to be going badly wrong for French President Emmanuel Macron. On Sunday, millions of voters went to the polls in the first round of a snap general election called by the French leader after a disastrous showing by his centrist alliance in June’s European Parliament elections.

Opinion polls strongly suggested that France’s main far-right party, the Eurosceptic and anti-immigration National Rally, ...

The UK's Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour Party leader Keir Starmer have entered the final straight in the race to Downing Street, with voters going to the polls on July 4.

The general election is being fought largely on the issue of the economy. But Mr Sunak’s campaign has been hit by false starts and pitfalls, putting in jeopardy the prospect of his party continuing to govern after 14 years in power.

In this epi...

On Thursday June 6, hundreds of millions of Europeans will head to the polls for a unique and significant election. Instead of choosing their national governments, voters will elect representatives to the European Parliament in Strasbourg in the world's only popularly elected multinational legislature.

The context of these elections is vastly different from the last European elections in May 2019. Since then, the UK has exited the ...

India’s general election, the world’s largest, is now a month in, and a fortnight away from its conclusion on June 4. By the time the last ballot is counted, more than half a billion people will have made their voices heard on the country’s future.

The challenge at this stage in the vote has been turnout, as the most recent phase saw only two thirds of eligible voters show up. But while voters may appear a little apathetic, the pol...

Over the next several weeks, about 970 million people in India will cast their ballots in the world’s largest election.

The country holds general elections every five years to elect members of the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament. The winning party – or coalition of parties – will be able to form a government and choose the prime minister.

But it takes a long time to get to that point – this year, the election process will ...

Iranians are getting ready to go to the polls for a vote taking place on March 1 in the 12th legislative election the Islamic Republic will have held since its founding in 1979.

A country of nearly 90 million people, Iran’s government is at the centre of several ideological battles at home, in the Middle East and on the international stage.

A wave of protests swept Iran from September 2022 and lasted well into the spring of the fol...

In this week’s episode of Year of Elections podcast series, host Sulaiman Hakemy looks at Indonesia, where 200 million eligible voters will go to the polls on February 14 in the world’s largest single-day election to choose a new president,, vice president and parliamentary and local representatives.

Indonesia, a nation of 280 million people, is the world’s largest Muslim-majority country and its third-largest democracy. With nearl...

In the first episode of the Year of Elections podcast series, host Sulaiman Hakemy looks at Pakistan, where 241 million people are about to vote.

Pakistan is a nuclear power and one of the most populous countries in Asia, and is mired in a political and economic crisis.

The run-up to the elections, scheduled for February 8, has seen one of its leading figures, former prime minister Imran Khan, imprisoned, as a host of political par...