The world hangs in the balance with the autumn election.
US President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Brazilian President Lula da Silva. Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/AP/TT, Sergei Bobylev/ AP/TT, Ronen Zvulun/AP/TT, and Vadim Ghirda/AP/TT (Montage)
It is not only Sweden’s near future that will be decided this autumn.
Belligerent world leaders are facing pressure, and the willingness of major powers to compromise will be put to the test. Here are the elections that could tip the scales of global politics.
USA
Two years of Donald Trump’s term have nearly passed. Two years remain. In this autumn’s midterm elections, Americans could rein in the maverick president.
Many signs point to a shift in power in at least one chamber of Congress. If the Democrats win a majority in the House of Representatives, it will become much harder for Trump to push through his policies. Until now, he has been able to rely on a fully Republican-controlled Congress.
With that power, Trump has instigated major conflicts in the Middle East, launched his own so-called peace council to rival the UN, threatened allies, and ordered military strikes in a number of countries.
Regardless of the election results, the president will retain significant power over foreign policy and the military; however, public confidence in Trump is falling in the polls, and American patience with warmongering is wearing thin.
A major defeat this autumn would turn Trump into more of a "lame duck"—a president whose ability to act is paralyzed and who rapidly begins to lose influence over his party as voters turn away.
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Israel
Benjamin Netanyahu is often described as the prime minister with nine lives. Israel’s Prime Minister has repeatedly weathered scandals and political setbacks, climbing his way back to power.
The election for the Knesset is the first since Hamas’s attacks on the country on October 7, 2023, and the ensuing wars in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran.
Critics and analysts have long accused Netanyahu of escalating conflicts and fostering polarization to portray himself as Israel’s defender. This pattern continues now, as he opposes the latest peace initiative for Gaza.
Since the last election—and amidst the ongoing wars in the Middle East—the Prime Minister has relied on smaller extremist parties and their supporters, who persistently demand military escalation and attacks on Palestinians that violate international law.
Netanyahu and his ultra-religious allies appear to be losing support, yet polls predict that neither they nor the opposition will secure a majority.
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Russia
The election for the State Duma is not a genuine election; the outcome is a foregone conclusion. However, Vladimir Putin will have to contend with simmering discontent among the Russian people and attempt to project an image of a powerful state apparatus amidst the protracted war of invasion against Ukraine.
Yet, the more drastic the measures required, the weaker that apparatus appears.
The political system is designed by and for Putin and his ruling party, United Russia. Opposition parties have long been suppressed or banned—most recently the liberal party Yabloko, which was barred from the election after taking a stand against the war.
The parties permitted to run abide by the dictator’s rules of the game, acting at most as sparring partners for him. The presidential party’s election campaign centers on the "special military operation"—the war in Ukraine—which is portrayed as absolutely crucial to Russia’s security. Soldiers hailed as war heroes have secured spots on the list of candidates.
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UN Secretary-General
The United Nations is set to get a new Secretary-General at the turn of the year, as the Portuguese António Guterres steps down after ten years.
The process is likely to require considerable compromise. The permanent members of the Security Council must agree on a candidate at a time when geopolitical tensions are higher than they have been in decades.
This points toward a candidate who can satisfy all sides and is not expected to stick their neck out in high-stakes international politics. There have been calls for the nomination of women, given that every Secretary-General to date has been a man.
An early favorite was Michelle Bachelet—former President of Chile and the UN’s human rights chief—but she has received several "thumbs down" in the Security Council’s anonymous straw polls. Two other women have garnered broader support: Costa Rica’s former Vice President Rebeca Grynspan and Guyana’s former Foreign Minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett.
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Brazil
South America’s largest country is sharply divided between right and left. Here, too, Donald Trump casts a long shadow.
The incumbent leftist president, Lula da Silva, is running for re-election at the age of 80. Former right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro has been convicted of attempting to retain power through a coup d'état, but his son, Flávio Bolsonaro, has since taken over.
Father and son Bolsonaro maintain strong ties to the Trump administration in the US, a fact that also divides the electorate. Flávio Bolsonaro visited the White House in May, and Trump has imposed new import tariffs on Brazil. One side interprets this as a sign of strong American support, while the other views it as a US attempt to influence the Brazilian election.
If Lula da Silva and the younger Bolsonaro were to face off in a decisive runoff election, opinion polls suggest it would be essentially a dead heat.
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Bosnia and Herzegovina
Alongside new major conflicts, one of the world’s most delicate peace projects is being put to the test.
Bosnia and Herzegovina is heading to the polls nearly 31 years after the end of the devastating Bosnian War. That conflict concluded with a compromise—the Dayton Agreement—which cautiously divides power in the country along ethnic lines.
Today, tensions are higher than they have been in a long time. Bosnian Serb leaders are threatening to secede, and nationalists across all factions are causing political gridlock, stalling necessary reforms. The road to EU membership remains long, whereas the smaller neighboring country of Montenegro has made much greater progress.
Facts
Autumn election schedule
September 18–20: Elections for the State Duma in Russia.October 3: Elections for the Latvian parliament, the Saeima.
October 4: First round of Brazil’s presidential election (a runoff, if necessary, is tentatively scheduled for October 25). Elections for the tripartite presidency, parliament, and cantons in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
October 25: Presidential election in Bulgaria.
October 27: Election for Israel’s parliament, the Knesset.
November 3: Midterm elections in the United States, covering a total of 35 Senate seats and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives. State and local elections are also being held.
November 7: Parliamentary election in New Zealand.
December 13: Crisis-stricken Haiti is tentatively scheduled to hold its first election in ten years.
December 22: War-torn South Sudan is tentatively scheduled to hold its first election, which has been postponed several times.
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