After Bolsonaro’s defeat and Duterte’s departure, 1.7 billion people are now living under populist rule, report says.The number of populist leaders around the world has fallen to a 20-year low after a series of victories for progressives and centrists over the past year, according to analysis from the Tony Blair Institute showing the number of people living under populist rule has fallen by 800 million in two years.
The
research claims 2023 could be an equally decisive year for populism, with
critical elections in Turkey and Poland. Those two elections could see two of
the most influential populist governments in the world fall, though that may
yet require divided opposition parties in both countries to form clearer
coalition programmes than they have managed so far.
Of the
populists who lost power, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and Slovenia’s Janez Janša
were defeated in relatively close elections in 2022, while Rodrigo Duterte of
the Philippines was limited to one term in office and could not run for
re-election. In Sri Lanka, Gotabaya Rajapaksa was driven out of office by
protests.
The
report says 1.7 billion people were living under a populist leader at the start
of 2023, compared with 2.5 billion in 2020. It says that populism on both left
and right is defined by two claims – that a country’s “true people” are locked
into a moral conflict with “outsiders” and, second, that nothing should
constrain the will of the “true people”.
Much of
the decline in populism has occurred in Latin America, notably with the defeat
of Bolsonaro in Brazil, the report said, but also with the election of a
generation of moderate leftists across Latin America that have “disavowed
populist rhetoric and focused on progressive economic and social rights rather
than the populist left’s historic focus on industrial nationalization”.
The
report also notes that in the US midterm elections, a majority of candidates
endorsed by Donald Trump who espoused rightwing nationalism and conspiracy
theories failed to be elected and underperformed against moderates.
“After
having defeated several moderate Republicans in swing-state primary elections,
the Trump candidates then lost most of these races in November, costing the
Republicans control of the Senate and several governorships. Most notably, they
lost every state-level election for offices involving election administration
in swing states,” the report said.
“While
Congress blocked Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, US voters
blocked his followers’ efforts to administer future ones in 2022.” But the
report warns that this defeat of Trumpist rejection of democracy may not signal
the long-term defeat of cultural populism across the US.
The
report broadly defines populism in three categories: cultural populism, which
has a rightwing ethno-nationalist appeal; socioeconomic populism, which appeals
to those on the left; and anti-establishment populism, which focuses on
targeting elites.
It says
cultural populism still has major sway in US politics, regardless of the defeat
of Trump-endorsed candidates and doubts over the prospects of the former
president in 2024, pointing to the views of Ron DeSantis, likely to be another
key contender. “Even if Trump loses, cultural populism is likely to remain
strong within the Republican party,” it says.
The
report – Repel and Rebuild: Expanding the Playbook Against Populism – claims
the remaining examples of populist governments around the world (seven out of
11) almost entirely comprise rightwing cultural populists, as opposed to
economic or anti-establishment populists.
But
cultural populist governments have struggled to form effective governments,
especially when faced by economic challenges or complex issues such as Covid,
the report claims, pointing out that four fell from power in 2022 – in Brazil,
the Philippines, Slovenia and Sri Lanka.
The
report, however, warns strongly against premature claims of populism’s defeat,
pointing out that in 2022 populists were part of election-winning coalitions in
Italy, Israel and Sweden. Marine Le Pen was defeated by the French president,
Emmanuel Macron, but her party did well in the legislative elections.
In the
UK, the Conservative party is likely to face a challenge from the populist
rightwing party Reform UK, which has vowed to put up candidates against all
parties rather than continue with Ukip’s 2019 pact not to stand against Boris
Johnson’s Conservatives.
While
Richard Tice’s party is unlikely to win a seat in the next election, it is
polling at about 8% of votes, and the bulk of these would come from disgruntled
Conservative voters. It could have greater success if Nigel Farage, who led
Ukip and the Brexit party to much wider prominence, becomes more involved.
The
institute argues that anti-populist mainstream parties may have to recognise
they need a different anti-populist playbook when they are in power from the
one used by mainstream parties when the populists are in power.
It says
mainstream parties should have a clear, substantive policy agenda of their own
and not focus on negative campaigning against populist challengers, since
populist challengers will always argue that their core issues are
under-addressed by mainstream politics. The report says mainstream parties must
realise voters are increasingly tired of rhetorical excess that ignores the
problems a country faces.
The
report’s author, Brett Meyer, said it showed a trend towards progressive
centrism in a number of countries. “Centrists continued to roll back the
frontiers of populism in 2022, with the number of populists in power down to a
20-year low,” he said.
“This is
in large part down to the success of progressive centrism over populism across
the Americas as progressive centre-left leaders replaced the old, populist
left. Populism also suffered a significant blow in the US midterms.”
But the
fate of populism may turn this year on elections in Poland and Turkey, where
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government is in grave jeopardy. “By the end of 2022,
Turkey had the deepest negative interest rates in the world when adjusted for
inflation and the lira was the worst performer in emerging markets relative to
the dollar,” the report said, warning that the Turkish president was willing to
talk up conflicts with Greece or the Kurds to excite nationalist support.
****This
article was amended on 5 January 2023. An earlier version said that the number
of people living under populist rule had fallen by 800,000 in two years. This
should have been 800 million.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/05/number-of-populist-world-leaders-at-20-year-low