In many democracies, incumbent governments have been toppled or seen their support decline in the polls. For what?
The past year has not been easy for our governments. François Legault and Justin Trudeau are plummeting in the polls, voters in Manitoba have driven the Conservatives from power and voters in Alberta have given them a serious warning shot.
In short, governments of all stripes in Canada have had a tough time this year. They're not the only ones.
Ruthless polls
Nowhere is the boredom more palpable than in the United States, where voters who bother to respond to polls seem ready to reject an inveterate liar, a proven cheater, a proven sex offender and a potential criminal to bring power.
Even if the Biden administration has managed to lead the country out of a deep crisis, and even if its Republican opponents have nothing concrete to offer, Democrats appear to be suffering from this disappointment in 2024.
In Germany, France and the United Kingdom, governments of the left, center and right are also facing dissatisfaction from voters who appear ready to remove them from office at the first opportunity.
Musical chair
In 2023, several governments were sanctioned, both on the left and the right.
In Argentina, popular dissatisfaction was most clearly expressed with the election of the vocal libertarian Javier Melei.
In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders' far-right party benefited from the disappointment of coming first in November's general election, but appears unlikely to be able to form a government.
The right is not the only beneficiary of this movement of rejection. In Poland, which was badly affected by the war in Ukraine, a coalition of democratic forces prevailed against the outgoing government with authoritarian tendencies from the Law and Justice party.
Mixed signals for democracy
The Polish example shows that democracy has not fallen by the wayside everywhere in the face of popular discontent. In fact, it is normal for incumbent governments to suffer when they cannot fulfill their promises to their citizens, regardless of whether the blame lies with them or not.
The shock of the pandemic and the subsequent wave of inflation reinforced the growing global challenges in the areas of security, migration and climate change. The public's ability to hold its leaders accountable for their actions is therefore more important than ever.
It is also true that the current trend toward fed-up voters poses risks to the democratic ideal by fueling the cynicism and nihilism of certain categories of voters who become easy prey for demagogues.
When boredom leads to cynicism, democracy ceases to be a form of collective decision-making to find the best solutions to the problems of our societies. Rather, it becomes an arena of confrontation in which the expression of resentment and the pursuit of retribution against those supposedly responsible for all our ills take the place of healthy reflection. We have seen this too often in 2023. Let’s hope 2024 takes a different turn.