Speaker 1: There is a general feeling among the public that it's
Speaker 1: time for a change.
Speaker 2: Candidate who speaks out against a kind of old political
Speaker 2: power and still pitch yourself as new.
Speaker 3: Around the world, there could be some serious changes.
Speaker 4: Twenty twenty three was a year of conflict and confusion.
Speaker 4: Russia and Ukraine's war pounded on in a seemingly endless stalemate,
Speaker 4: and fighting in the Middle East has rapidly escalated since
Speaker 4: Hamasa's October seventh attacks on Israel and Israel's subsequent invasion
Speaker 4: of Gaza. But we finally made it to twenty twenty four,
Speaker 4: and this year, voters across the world will have a
Speaker 4: chance to share how they are feeling at the polls.
Speaker 4: There are elections in over sixty countries that account for
Speaker 4: over forty percent of the world population. These elections mark
Speaker 4: the biggest test democracy has faced in generations. Whatever the outcomes,
Speaker 4: the world won't look the same on the other side
Speaker 4: of them. On the show, we'll hear from Bloomberg reporters
Speaker 4: across the globe who are covering these elections on what
Speaker 4: to watch for and what these elections are likely to
Speaker 4: mean for all of us. I'm your host, Sarah Holder
Speaker 4: and This is the big take from Bloomberg News. Voters
Speaker 4: in these elections across the globe are of course seeking
Speaker 4: candidates that can address local pocketbook issues like inflation and jobs,
Speaker 4: but whether they know it or not, their votes are
Speaker 4: also going to shape big global conflicts.
Speaker 3: If you look across the globe, basically there's conflict everywhere.
Speaker 4: Daniel Flatley is a national security reporter for Bloomberg.
Speaker 3: All of those conflicts have some dimension that could be
Speaker 3: changed by the outcome of an election.
Speaker 4: Voters who go to the polls this year will also
Speaker 4: be helping shape something national security experts call the global
Speaker 4: economic order. Daniel explained what that means.
Speaker 3: Basically, you're talking about the quote unquote Western nations like
Speaker 3: the US, in Europe and a lot of the poorer
Speaker 3: countries around the world who are trying to basically get
Speaker 3: a share of this piece of the pie that is
Speaker 3: the global economy. And within that economic order, you have rivalries, right,
Speaker 3: So you have the US and Europe basically, and then
Speaker 3: you have China. And China has risen faster than anyone
Speaker 3: really expected and has become a real economic rival not
Speaker 3: just to the US but to Europe and a lot
Speaker 3: of European nations as well.
Speaker 4: There are a lot of moving parts here, so let's
Speaker 4: start with the elections in these three countries, Russia, Venezuela
Speaker 4: and India. Together they're home to more than one and
Speaker 4: a half billion people, almost half the number of voters
Speaker 4: participating in this year's slate of elections. The influence these
Speaker 4: leaders have on regional and global concerns is first. Let's
Speaker 4: talk about Russia, where the election outcome is almost certain.
Speaker 4: A twenty twenty one rule change paved the way for
Speaker 4: Vladimir Putin to pursue up to two more six year
Speaker 4: terms as president, and this year Putin faces no meaningful
Speaker 4: opposition for the role he first helmed in March two
Speaker 4: thousand and has essentially held ever since. And next in Venezuela,
Speaker 4: our colleague Pati Laya tells us what to expect.
Speaker 5: With slim chances of winning an open election, Malua is
Speaker 5: pulling out almost every lever at his disposal to rally
Speaker 5: domestic support and extend his rule. Still longtime Venesswanan observers
Speaker 5: finding highly unlikely that Maluro would allow any opponent to
Speaker 5: defeat him next year, his main rival, opposition primary winner
Speaker 5: Maria Gurna Machau is still banned from running for public office.
Speaker 4: And then in India, Narendra Modi is all but assured
Speaker 4: a third term as Prime minister. He's seen as a
Speaker 4: crucial political partner to the US and other allies who
Speaker 4: have tended to turn a blind eye to concerns over
Speaker 4: political assassinations on form or in soil, discrimination against minority groups,
Speaker 4: and the seeming lack of fairness in the upcoming national elections.
Speaker 4: Here's Daniel again for more on this relationship.
Speaker 3: The first state dinner that Biden hosted was Prime Minister
Speaker 3: Narendra Modi here in the US, and that was a
Speaker 3: signal basically that this partnership is important and needs to
Speaker 3: be preserved at all costs, because if you look at
Speaker 3: the world the way that national security officials here in
Speaker 3: the US look at the world, basically what they're seeing
Speaker 3: is threats from multiple vectors China, Russia, the Middle East, Iran.
Speaker 3: But they have an important partner in India.
Speaker 4: While elections in Russia, India and Venezuela seem predetermined, the
Speaker 4: outcome of many upcoming elections across the globe remain unknown.
Speaker 4: We'll get into which other nations go to the polls
Speaker 4: and what their voters are deciding.
Speaker 3: After the break, the US is no longer the unipolar
Speaker 3: power in the world. There's a rising China. There's other
Speaker 3: countries that are vying for a piece of the pie,
Speaker 3: and as that sort of shakes itself out, who is
Speaker 3: running these countries is going to be enormously consequential.
Speaker 4: In some places, the status quo looks primed to change.
Speaker 4: Our colleague Alex Wickham in the UK lays out the
Speaker 4: state of play.
Speaker 1: There years of political turmoil with the Conservatives in power
Speaker 1: since Brexit, five prime ministers in seven years. In particularly
Speaker 1: over the last few years with Boris Johnson, Liz Trust
Speaker 1: and Rissie Sunak, we have perhaps the biggest prospect of
Speaker 1: a changing government in fourteen years. The opposition Labor Party
Speaker 1: is now consistently ahead in opinion polls by around twenty points,
Speaker 1: so Keir Starmer, the Labor leader, is well on course
Speaker 1: to become the next prime minister.
Speaker 4: And in Mexico, Maya Averbach reports.
Speaker 2: Mexico will likely have its first female president at the
Speaker 2: end of this year. Runder the race by a huge
Speaker 2: margin is Claudia schein Bam, who comes from the current
Speaker 2: ruling party. Her competitor, Social Galvis has called attention to
Speaker 2: the current president's record on violence, a really high homicide rate,
Speaker 2: the lack of green energy policies, the importance for reforms.
Speaker 2: We see a kind of mimicry of the discourse between
Speaker 2: these two leading women trying to pitch themselves as candidates
Speaker 2: who will really represent the voice of the people in
Speaker 2: this race.
Speaker 4: Meanwhile, in West Africa, new leaders in Ghana and Senegal
Speaker 4: will face their own unique set of challenges. Yinke Ibukun
Speaker 4: lays out the stakes in Ghana.
Speaker 6: Dana's next leader has their work cut out for them.
Speaker 6: The country is in the throes of a dead crisis
Speaker 6: and the central bank is struggling to tame inflation under
Speaker 6: an IMF program. The victor will have little physical space
Speaker 6: to respond to citizens' immediate concerns.
Speaker 4: By contrast, Senegal is one of africa'st longest growing economies.
Speaker 4: It's slated to begin oil and gas production this year
Speaker 4: and preparing for an election that could undermine its stability.
Speaker 4: Even in places with smaller economies like these, elections can
Speaker 4: have big consequences. They can set off a kind of
Speaker 4: butterfly effect where electoral results in one country will influence
Speaker 4: policy in others. Additional oil production in Mexico or Senegal
Speaker 4: can influence US energy policy.
Speaker 3: So you have energy producing states that are kind of
Speaker 3: fighting for relevance at this point. With a lot of
Speaker 3: these countries that have economic resources and have and are
Speaker 3: kind of up and coming, so to speak, they want
Speaker 3: to really show that they can hold sway on the
Speaker 3: world stage, that they can influence events.
Speaker 4: Where elections are free and fair. The leaders voters choose
Speaker 4: matter a lot, not only for local economies but for
Speaker 4: the global economy as investors look to try and make
Speaker 4: sense of a changing global economic order and versus like
Speaker 4: the COVID pandemic, Climate change and regional conflicts inject chaos
Speaker 4: into an already complex world. Dan says, pay attention to
Speaker 4: the way this election season shakes out.
Speaker 3: So whether it comes to housing policy, industrial policy, whether
Speaker 3: to bail out certain companies or not bail out other companies,
Speaker 3: how long the recovery takes, how long it lasts, or
Speaker 3: even look at the COVID nineteen pandemic, all of those things.
Speaker 3: Those decisions are ultimately made by politicians. How we get
Speaker 3: from here to there is going to involve a lot
Speaker 3: of day to day decisions that are going to be
Speaker 3: shaped by philosophies of the candidates that are.
Speaker 4: Running, and we'll keep following these elections as they unfold,
Speaker 4: both inside the US and outside. Later this week, voters
Speaker 4: in Taiwan will decide on their president, and our Big
Speaker 4: Take Asia team will have stories in the build up
Speaker 4: and aftermath of the results. This weekend, the US presidential
Speaker 4: primaries will begin in Iowa, where our new sister show,
Speaker 4: The Big Take, DC, will be on the ground as
Speaker 4: former President Donald Trump will try and fend off rivals
Speaker 4: for the chance to unseat President Joe Biden this November.
Speaker 4: Thanks for listening to The Big Take from Bloomberg News.
Speaker 4: I'm Sarah Holder. This episode was produced by Alex Sugiura.
Speaker 4: It was fact checked by Molly Nugent. It was mixed
Speaker 4: by Blake Maples. Sage Bauman is our executive producer and
Speaker 4: head of podcasts. Thanks for tuning in. We'll be back tomorrow.