Voters line up to vote at a polling station in Parcelle, a suburb of Dakar, Senegal, on November 17, 2024. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra v @CFR
Numerous countries will hold elections in 2025. Here are ten to watch
December 10, 2024 10:14 am (EST)
Incumbents facing the voters in 2025 must be nervous. Two thousand twenty-four began as the mother of all election years with eighty countries representing four billion people holding elections. It ended as the year of the challenger. Voters across the globe, including in the United States and the United Kingdom, sent incumbent parties packing. Long-governing parties in India, Japan, South Africa, and elsewhere held on to power but saw their political majorities narrow. Regardless of the hemisphere, time zone, or growth rate, voters voted against the status quo.
We will see if that anti-incumbent mood carries over into 2025. Many fewer countries are voting this year, but the results will still matter to their citizens and possibly for others beyond their borders. What follows are ten elections to watch. In most cases, we know when voters will head to the polls. But in some cases, the precise date remains to be set. And the list of critical elections in 2025 could grow. The collapse of the French government last week could lead France to hold parliamentary elections in the second half of 2025 and possibly even a presidential election. Other unplanned elections could materialize as governments fall, whether because of routine parliamentary maneuvers, protests in the streets, or coups.
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Watchlist 2025: Safeguarding the World’s Most Vulnerable Nations
What We’re Watching Around the Globe in 2025
Transition 2025: Events Will Test Donald Trump’s Foreign Policy Promises
U.S. President Joe Biden, Angolan President Joao Manuel Goncalves Lourenco, Democratic Republic of the Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi, President of Zambia Hakainde Hichilema, and Tanzania’s Vice President Philip Isdor Mpango pose for a photo, during a Elizabeth Frantz/REUTERS v @CFR
What’s at Stake for Africa in 2025
The incoming administration should think twice before ignoring the Africa portfolio.
December 20, 2024 4:18 pm (EST)
No one expects a great deal of focus on Africa policy from the incoming Trump administration. But the Africa portfolio in 2025 will present ample opportunities to assert or decline U.S. leadership, to protect or endanger U.S. interests, and to align with or oppose African societies.
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The World Next Year: Wars, New Governments, and Stormy Weather to Watch in 2025
In this special year-end episode, hosts Bob McMahon and Carla Anne Robbins sit down with the New York Times’ chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe Steven Erlanger to review the biggest stories of the past year and discuss developments to watch in 2025. They analyze the conflicts and political developments in the Middle East and Europe, President-elect Donald Trump’s picks for his national security team, the state of democracy worldwide, and more.
Donald Trump’s second term in the White House is expected to dominate the economic agenda. Global trade tensions are on the horizon as the president-elect threatens to impose sweeping tariffs on US imports.
Britain’s economy is faltering while inflationary pressures remain. The largest economies of the eurozone are engulfed in political turmoil. Beijing is battling to revive the Chinese economy, while countries in the global south are facing soaring debt interest payments.
Reuters
Iran says 2025 ‘important year’ for nuclear issue
Will Israel bomb Iran — and 3 more questions for the world in 2025
Whether it’s China, Ukraine, Trump or the Middle East, Britain will have to tread carefully, a former foreign policy adviser in No 10 writes
It is likely to be a pivotal year in the making or breaking of the modern world, with profound consequences for the United Kingdom.
Indeed, it is hard to think of a period in postwar history in which foreign policy has the potential to alter the lives of people in this country so dramatically, from their bank bills to their personal security.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we have seen the growing alignment of our adversaries around the world — Iran, Russia, China and North Korea — and their increased willingness to support each other with diplomatic cover, sanctions evasion, lethal weaponry, technological subsistence for their defence industrial bases and now, in the case of North Korea’s intervention against Ukraine, the sending of troops to fight and die in each other’s wars.
In response, a quantum leap is required in the way we reimagine, re-energise and reinforce the alliances that have long been the strategic trump card of the democratic world.
Foreign Policy
Fareed Zakaria Looks Ahead to 2025
Submit your questions for Fareed Zakaria now.
Every January, FP Live dedicates one episode to looking ahead at the next calendar year. What will 2025 hold in store for global politics, conflict, and the world order?
Join Ravi Agrawal in conversation with Fareed Zakaria, CNN host and bestselling author, for the second of a two-part series looking back and ahead as a new year begins.
Fareed Zakaria
Host, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS
Fareed Zakaria is the host of Fareed Zakaria GPS, CNN’s flagship weekly foreign affairs show. He is also a columnist for the Washington Post and a bestselling author. His latest book is Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present.
Ravi Agrawal
Editor in chief, Foreign Policy
Ravi Agrawal is the editor in chief of Foreign Policy and host of FP Live. Before joining FP in 2018, Agrawal worked at CNN for more than a decade, including as New Delhi bureau chief and correspondent. He is the author of India Connected: How the Smartphone Is Transforming the World’s Largest Democracy.
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Fareed Zakaria Looks Back at 2024 (On Demand on December 26, 2024 | 11:00am ET)
Every January in Foreign Policy, the International Crisis Group lists 10 conflicts to watch in the year ahead. But beyond Israel’s conflicts with Iran and Hamas, and the wars in Syria and Ukraine, what else should we be keeping an eye on?
The International Crisis Group is an independent organization that speaks to all sides in conflicts and seeks diplomatic avenues to solve them. Join an FP Live conversation with the group’s president and CEO, Comfort Ero.
Comfort Ero
President & CEO, International Crisis Group
Comfort Ero is the president and CEO of the International Crisis Group. She was previously the group’s Africa program director. She has spent her entire career working on or in conflict-affected countries.
