Half the world's adult population will be able to vote in national elections in 2024 - but people voting can also be dangerous and harmful to the "development of democracy", argues Sweden's tax-funded state media SVT - at least if they vote for the wrong candidates.
"The fact that half the world holds elections is not necessarily positive for the development of democracy", the paper argues, highlighting Anna Sundström, secretary general of the Olof Palme International Center, who argues that democracy is threatened when citizens vote for politicians or parties that are not considered sufficiently "democratic".
– We have seen an increasing number of populist leaders coming to power through democratic elections and then dismantling democratic institutions.
– We have seen a long period of democratic decline in the world, and with a super election year like this, there is now an opportunity to turn democratic development in a positive direction again, she continues.
According to SVT and its "experts", democracy does not seem to be about voting rights and the ability of citizens to choose the leaders they want to represent them through free elections - but about certain values, positions and opinions. A leader with a dissenting view on a particular issue is not considered as "democratic" as a leader with a more left-liberal view, even if both are elected by the people.
Like in the Soviet Union
– Authoritarian and populist leaders very often turn away from international cooperation and come to power promising to put their own nation's interests first. In a world that is so interconnected, global challenges are something we must face together, Sundström continues.
– Our survival depends on having democratic leaders who are willing to take important decisions to stop climate change, she adds.
SVT repeats several times that "democracy is in decline in the world" and claims that this "has been established in several research studies.
– The fact is that we are now back to the same level of democracy in the world as before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, it claims, warning that the alleged lack of "democracy" risks having "far-reaching consequences for the climate".
"The right leaders in place"
– The overall election results will reflect a trend towards either more autocratic leaders or the retention of several democracies, says Gunilla Reischl, senior researcher and program director at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (Utrikespolitiska institutet), stressing that "getting the right political leaders in place" is necessary to "meet the temperature targets".
In the Swedish media, Hungary and Poland, for example, have been accused of being "undemocratic" and "threatening democracy" in various ways - not because their leaders were not elected by the citizens, but because they had the "wrong" views, pursued the "wrong" issues, and opposed migration, LGBTQ lobbying, climate alarmism, increased supranationalism, and other core left-liberal and globalist issues.
Brazil and Argentina have also been accused of the same when politicians who are ideologically different from those who dominate the EU sphere are elected as national leaders.
