Reading Time: 4 minutesTo Daniel Ortega, democratic elections are overrated. Nicaragua’s self-styled co-president recently announced to the world that elections won’t take place in his country ever again, lest they become a Trojan Horse for imperialism. Some dismiss Ortega’s comments as the rants of a deluded autocrat, but in fact they are part of a global assault on the legitimacy of elections as a foundational component of democracy.
A full fifth of humanity turned out to vote in the unprecedented 2024 global election cycle, yet this triumph of the ballot box looks increasingly hollow. International IDEA has tracked election credibility for decades, and today’s global score, which accounts for the extent to which elections are free from irregularities, is the lowest in 30 years.
This trend has not spared Latin America. It comes, however, in the wake of immense progress over the past generation. Nearly every Latin American political actor has accepted that elections are the only legitimate path to political power. This is a momentous social, political, and cultural transformation for a region where until recently power was often seized through either the military barracks or the mountains.
