Perkiraan peta Pilpres AS 2024 (www.cnn.com)
STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT. As the 2024 U.S. presidential election approaches, closing out a historic year in which more voters than ever will have participated in at least 64 elections globally, valuable insights can be drawn from the various elections held worldwide. Across the globe, nations have faced contentious elections marked by rising populism, democratic backsliding, external state interference (notably Russian meddling), an increase in political violence, and the deliberate targeting of female candidates. These challenges have been exacerbated by the proliferation of emerging technologies, which continue to reshape the electoral and security landscape globally.
Populist political parties have seen a wave of electoral gains this year. Anti-immigrant, far-right parties in Belgium and Austria gained significant ground, with the latter achieving an unprecedented victory and providing potential mainstreaming for extremists within the Identitarian Movement, such as Martin Sellner. The United Kingdom’s snap election this summer may have delivered a victory for the left-wing Labour Party, however, it masked the unexpected gains made by the far-right populist Reform UK Party. Tapping into voters’ disillusionment over the economy and migration issues, Reform UK was able to siphon a large number of votes from the former ruling Tories, splitting the right-wing electorate and contributing to Labour’s gains.
Although, perhaps deceptively, viewed as a repudiation of the far-right, the French elections saw the collapse of the political center, giving rise to both far-left and far-right parties. The election underscored a growing trend of increasing unity between the far-left and the far-right around certain issues, including the cost-of-living crisis and the war in Ukraine, demonstrating the appeal of populism more broadly. These gains were not just experienced at the national level, with the EU parliamentary elections in June seeing a surge in support for far-right populist parties. These gains provided a boon for the pro-Russian, anti-immigrant Patriots for Europe coalition and likely the continued mainstreaming of their priorities at the EU level. The result of the U.S. presidential election may further strengthen and embolden these parties, as they seek a potential ally in the White House and a partner aligned with their stances toward Moscow, multilateral institutions such as NATO, and policies related to migration and asylum.
Alongside the rise of populism across the West, many countries have also shown troubling signs of democratic backsliding. For instance, the Mozambique presidential election was overshadowed by allegations of electoral fraud emanating from the ruling FRELIMO party’s efforts to embed its fifty-year-long hegemony. Widespread post-electoral violence has erupted in response to the disputed results, with a heavy-handed reaction from the incumbent party. The recent elections in Venezuela under Nicolás Maduro were characterized by escalating violence, repression and forced disappearances of individuals perceived as threats to what is now considered a fully established authoritarian regime. Despite the European Union and United States’ vested interest in Venezuela’s political situation and the imposition of sanctions in response to the mass exodus of Venezuelans to the U.S., there has been no significant mitigation of this downturn. Further democratic backsliding in the lead up to Tunisia’s presidential election, the once sole success story of the Arab Spring, saw the targeting and jailing of political opponents, the erosion of power balance structures, and the solidification of autocratic rule by President Kais Saied.
In Georgia, the pro-Russian and increasingly authoritarian party, Georgian Dream, recently won the parliamentary election, allegedly through voter fraud and likely with Kremlin support. Many observers have now warned of significant democratic backsliding in the country, as the ruling party has pledged to outlaw opposition parties following their victory. Russia has already faced numerous accusations, including by the U.S. intelligence community, of election interference, disinformation, and even what CNN called “non-credible” bomb threats against polling stations that led to their temporary closure yesterday.
The Kremlin, often with support from a de facto alliance among Russia, China, and Iran — referred to by some experts as the “Axis of Upheaval” — has increasingly employed sophisticated Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) to influence elections worldwide. Building on past interference campaigns, these states have broadened their tactics, targeting the information environment, digital election infrastructure, media, and even voters through monetary incentives. From Georgia to the United States, this hybrid strategy reflects an increasingly sophisticated approach to influencing elections.
In Moldova, for example, authorities detained around 181 foreign citizens at the Chișinǎu International Airport in April with large amounts of cash, which the Moldovan government traced to a Russia-linked scheme to bribe voters and organize protests against President Maia Sandu’s pro-Western government. In Taiwan’s 2024 presidential election, Chinese interference tactics included fabricated polls and deepfakes showing current President Ching-te Lai praising the pro-Beijing KMT party. Ahead of the European Union elections, EU officials warned that Moscow aimed to discredit European governments and destabilize the EU. This interference involved a range of disinformation tactics, from amplifying existing conspiracy theories to using deepfake videos and creating “doppelganger” websites designed to mimic legitimate news sources while publishing false information.
The Axis of Upheaval’s use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in election interference further exacerbates the issue, particularly Russia’s use of such emerging technologies. In the 2024 U.S. presidential race, the Kremlin has deployed a range of deepfakes and manipulated videos to cast Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in a negative light. In one instance, Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center discovered a Russian disinformation operation that produced a video falsely depicting Kamala Harris as involved in a hit-and-run incident in San Francisco in 2011. The operation hired an actor to portray the supposed victim and disseminated the story through a fake website for a fictitious San Francisco news outlet called KBSF-TV. Another Russian intelligence operation promoted a video that falsely claimed election ballots in Bucks County, Pennsylvania were destroyed.
However, deceptive AI-generated content seeking to influence the electorate has been spread by foreign and domestic actors alike. In New Hampshire, a sophisticated AI-generated robocall impersonating President Biden’s voice told voters to “save their vote” for the November elections, encouraging them to sit out the primary. This scheme was orchestrated by a consultant for Minnesota Representative Dean Phillips, who had run in the Democratic presidential primaries.
Additionally, the intersection of emerging technology has exacerbated the already pervasive political violence against women. In Bangladesh, deepfake images of women politicians Rumin Farhana and Nipun Roy circulated on social media just before the January 2024 general election. In Slovakia, the former president, Zuzana Čaputová, declined to seek re-election, officially citing personal reasons, although this decision occurred in the context of persistent online death threats.
These issues have exacerbated myriad pre-existing societal tensions in many countries, fueling political violence. In Mexico, 2024 marked the most violent election year since 2018 with more than 749 people connected to the races affected by political violence, including 231 people killed, according to Bloomberg. Following demonstrations protesting the election results of Venezuela’s presidential election in late July, at least 22 protesters were killed, mostly by pro-government militias, according to Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED). In Georgia, after protests erupted over the summer in response to the passage of a controversial law concerning civil society, the Georgian government cracked down violently on demonstrators, fueling attacks on individual activists by unidentified civilians. In the U.S. presidential election, there is great concern about political violence surrounding the election results depending on the outcome, with 51 incidents of political violence leading up to the election, including the assassination attempts against former President Donald Trump, according to Reuters. With the January 6 insurrection still fresh in the minds of many Americans, the election will determine the future political climate in the U.S. and the potential for violence.
