Atlantic Council FREEDOM AND PROSPERITY CENTER
ISSUE BRIEF AU G U S T 2024
South Asia’s Political Parties Need Internal Reforms to Revitalize Regional Democracy STEVE CIMA, GEOFFREY MACDONALD, JAMES STOREN Introduction
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early 50 percent of the world’s countries will see voters head to the polls in 2024 in what has become known as the “year of elections,”1 and South Asia leads the way, representing nearly half of the world’s voters this year. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Maldives, and Bhutan have already held their general elections. Sri Lanka’s presidential election is scheduled for this fall. Only Nepal, which held its last national elections in 2022, is not joining this year’s voting festivities.
These elections come at a precarious time for South Asia’s democratic standing. Prominent democracy indices, including Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem),2 Freedom House,3 and the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Indexes,4 show most of the region going in the wrong direction. Recent elections in South Asia’s most populous nations illuminate this trend. Narendra Modi’s surprise setback5 buoyed faith6 in India’s democracy, but the reelection rhetoric7 and tactics8 of the Bharatiya
The Freedom and Prosperity Center aims to increase the wellbeing of people everywhere and especially that of the poor and marginalized in developing countries through unbiased, data-based research on the relationship between prosperity and economic, political, and legal freedoms, in support of sound policy choices.
ATLANTIC COUNCIL
1
“2024: Year of Elections,” The Guardian, accessed August 12, 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/ world/series/2024--year-of-elections.
2
V-Dem Institute, “Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem),” accessed August 12, 2024, https://www.v-dem. net/.
3
Freedom House, “Freedom in the World,” accessed August 12, 2024, https://freedomhouse.org/ report/freedom-world.
4
Atlantic Council, “Freedom and Prosperity Indexes,” accessed August 12, 2024, https://freedomand-prosperity-indexes.atlanticcouncil.org/.
5
“Modi to Take Oath as Prime Minister After Election Setback,” Bloomberg, June 9, 2024, https:// www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-09/modi-to-take-oath-as-prime-minister-afterelection-setback.
6
“India Election 2024: Modi and the BJP,” Vox, accessed August 12, 2024, https://www.vox.com/ world-politics/353785/india-election-2024-modi-bjp.
7
“Modi’s Anti-Muslim Rhetoric During India’s Election Campaign,” Foreign Policy, May 28, 2024, https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/05/28/modi-india-election-campaign-rhetoric-anti-muslim/.
8
“Why India’s Democracy is Dying,” Journal of Democracy, accessed August 12, 2024, https:// journalofdemocracy.org/articles/why-indias-democracy-is-dying/#:~:text=While%20India’s%20 formal%20institutions%20of,assemble%20freely%20without%20fear%20of.
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