Beyond Left and Right

Lula may be Left, but that is not what made his victory important (Source: here)

"Lula is to my left. Magyar is to my right. And I don’t care in the slightest, because they are the candidates of democracy against autocracy." These are the wise words of Josh Chafetz, a Professor of Law and Politics at Georgetown University, United States.

Josh is 100% correct.

Under normal political circumstances, we, as voters, face a relatively simple choice between Left and Right-wing candidates, who all have in common that they subscribe to basic principles of democracy. While our choices may seem incredibly important at the time, the truth is that simple choices between Right and Left are relatively marginal in importance, because democracy itself is never at stake.

Sure, if you are a Leftist, you will not enjoy being governed by right-wingers, and vice-versa, but as long as whoever is in power believes in democracy then you can be sure that your human rights will not be taken away, rule of law will be preserved, and you will get another chance, in a few years' time, to vote someone else into office.

Not so if the choice is between politicians, who believe in democracy and aspiring autocrats. Which is exactly the kind of choice many voters face today. Choices between democracy and autocracy are orders of magnitude more important than conventional choices between Right and Left. If you vote autocrats into power, you run a real risk that democracy itself will be dismantled. In other words, you may never again get to vote. Your human rights could also be taken away as could the rule of law.

This is why the recently concluded elections in Serbia and Brazil were so important. In both countries, voters faced a straight-up choice between pro-democracy candidates and right-wing authoritarians - and voted in favour of democracy.

Serbia's Vucic was a corrupt, pro-Russian aspiring autocrat, who was thankfully defeated before he could stage an irrevocable power grab. The thanks for this must go to the Serbian student movement, whose young members clearly recognised that their futures were at stake. In Brazil, veteran President Lula defeated Flavio Bolsonaro, whose former-president father attempted to overturn an election and whose policies would undoubtedly have been very similar.

There are several other important elections coming up, whose stakes extend far beyond a simple choice between Right and Left. On 27 October 2026, Israeli voters get the opportunity to oust Netanyahu, who has demonstrated to the whole world - as if we needed a reminder - that fascists regard genocide as a perfectly acceptable instrument of foreign policy.

In the United States, Americans will be able to turn Trump into a lame duck at the up coming mid-term elections by overturning Republican majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. In turn, this should pave the way for much-needed impeachment trials against members of Trump's Administration as well as Trump himself.  

In addition, there are pivotal elections coming up in Bulgaria, Spain, and France. In Bulgaria, the second round of the president election on 1 November pits pro-Russian populist Iliana Iotova against Andrey Gyurov, who is committed to democratic principles. In Spain on 29 November, voters get to choose between on one hand an alliance of Partido Popular (which has its roots in Franco fascism) and Vox, an anti-immigration party, and on the other Pedro Sanchez's socialists and his regional allies. And then there is the big one: the French election on 18 April 2027, which could finally give fascist Marine Le Pen access to real power.

There is never room for complacency when democracy is at stake.

The End