One of several interesting facets of the 2020 US presidential election is that both Joe Biden and Donald Trump received a record number of votes. The US practising democratic base had expanded.
Another interesting fact is that there is a growing polarisation in support for the major players. The electoral gap between the leading contenders has narrowed. Among the many deranged claims put forward by Trump and Rudy Giuliani as the basis for their fraud allegations is this record turnout of voters.
The emerging picture is not just about Trump. Populist leaders in other parts of the world are having a similar effect on their electorate and, in turn, their actions follow a similar pattern and are designed to stymie any budding resistance to their longevity.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was not particularly impressed when his party lost Istanbul’s mayoral election, an important event in the Turkish political landscape. So he did a Trump, called it fraudulent and cancelled the result. (In the re-run of the city’s mayoral election, Erdoğan’s party lost by a wide margin.)
In Mexico, President Andrés López Obrador now sidesteps entire branches of government that do not blindly follow his imprimatur while, in the US, Trump simply fires those who show dissent.
Another example of populism morphing into authoritarianism is Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi consolidating his grip on the country by capturing institutions including the police and the judicial system. Trump was lucky and took advantage of the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to further swing the ideological bias in the US Supreme Court, literally days before an election, in anticipation of what may be needed. Even in the haven of liberal politics, the European Union, authoritarianism is taking root. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Poland’s Mateusz Morawiecki oppose the linking of EU funds to adherence to the rule of law and are challenging this latest mechanism in the European Court of Justice.
Despite unprecedented attacks, US democracy is still alive and well
There is a heavy price to pay for Trump’s vandalism of America’s democratic process. Four out of five US Republicans now believe Biden stole the election. A US president-elect will, for the first time, be inaugurated under a shadow of fraud and corruption.
Trump’s frenetic attempts to overturn a lawful election result has so far failed despite his iron grip on an ideologically weakened and wobbly Republican Party. America’s deeply embedded sense of political freedom has won.
Trump has been frustrated by a strong and independent judicial system made up of countless people who chose to carry out their professional duty despite their own political leanings. Despite unprecedented attacks, US democracy is still alive and well, due to the independence of its judiciary and the continuing strict separation of powers.
Former prime minister Joseph Muscat was also a populist who flirted with authoritarianism. His massive electoral support, like Trump’s a product of a strong economy, provided him with the authority to govern more for the benefit of his cohorts than in the national interest.
Muscat’s government knew what it had to do to embark on a systematic unravelling of governance in Malta. Ministerial accountability was totally disregarded and those ministers who did not form part of the ‘kitchen cabinet’ were sidestepped when it came to a number of questionable business deals.
They populated the judiciary with members of their own ilk. The police were suitably managed through contrived top senior appointments. They broke down every partition between the sectors of government so there was no separation between the executive, the judiciary and the administration. The government became mired in irresponsible business interests.
Muscat’s actions were, in fact, a microcosm of Trump’s. What brought the mayhem he was inflicting on Malta’s credibility to an end was the wanton murder of a journalist and a combination of action by civil society in Malta, which exerted pressure on the European Union to demand action, which it did.
All that remains now is for lessons to be learned by those who may, in future, govern and those who are governed.
Tony Trevisan, retired businessman