The world made dramatic political shifts in 2024, a year unusually full of game-changing federal elections, including in America.
In some countries, electorates gave unprecedented votes of confidence to incumbent leaders. The citizens of some countries were forced into depraved parodies of free and fair elections, while still others overthrew longtime dictators with no elections on the horizon at all. At home, Americans gave President-elect Donald Trump a resounding vote of confidence to return to the policies outgoing President Joe Biden endeavored to undo for the past four years.
As the world enters a new year, however, new opportunities for political change emerge on the calendar and a host of exciting races loom. Below, five elections expected to take place that could redefine the destiny of their nations.
Canada (October 20 or earlier if vote of no confidence/snap election)
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives at San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco, California, on November 15, 2023, to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Week. The APEC Summit takes place through November 17. (JASON HENRY/AFP via Getty Images)
Canadians are scheduled to go to the polls on October 20, 2025, for a general election to fill seats in Parliament and potentially choose a new prime minister – but incumbent radical leftist Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may not make it that far into the year in office. Trudeau is facing intense pressure from both opposition parties and some within his own Liberal bloc to resign in response to his poor handling of a host of policy issues, from his relationship with Trump to a socialist healthcare system in crisis to Chinese and Indian interference in Canadian affairs.
A poll published in late December by Ipsos, in conjunction with Global News, showed that over half (53 percent) of Canadians wanted an election to oust Trudeau “at the earliest opportunity,” a dramatic shift in public desire for early elections that followed the shock resignation of one of Trudeau’s top advisers, former Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland.
Asked who they would support if an election was held today, 45 percent of Ipsos poll respondents said they would support the Conservative Party, over double the number who would support the Liberals or the far-left New Democratic Party (NDP), both at 20 percent. 39 percent of respondents said Conservative Party chief Pierre Poilievre is best prepared to handle the Trump presidency, compared to 14 percent for Trudeau.
Poilievre, naturally, is calling for elections as soon as possible. While Parliament is out of session, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh said on December 20 that he would call for a motion of no-confidence in Trudeau on January 27, potentially eliminating the critical NDP support that has saved Trudeau from prior confidence votes.
The election appears to be, for now, a certain loss for Trudeau, who has been in power for over a decade – but it’s the Conservatives’ fight to lose and one that the NDP, which regularly condemns Trudeau for not being leftist enough, could have considerable sway over.
Ecuador (February 9)
Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa (C), accompanied by the Minister of Defense Gian Carlo Loffredo (2nd L), the Chief of the Joint Command of the Armed Forces, Jaime Vela (2nd R), and other members of the military high command, attends a military ceremony to commemorate the 215th anniversary of the First Cry of Independence at the Eloy Alfaro Military High School in Quito on August 8, 2024. (Photo by Rodrigo BUENDIA / AFP)
Ecuador will host a presidential election in the coming year in a climate of utter political chaos. It held its last presidential election in October 23, outside of the traditional term schedule, as a result of former President Guillermo Lasso invoking a never-before-used constitutional provision known as “mutually assured death” to dissolve both the Congress and his own presidency. The special election attracted eight candidates across the political spectrum, only seven of which made it to Election Day. Anti-socialist journalist Fernando Villavicencio, a frontrunner, died in August 2023, assassinated in front of a massive crowd of supporters outside of a campaign event. In the ensuing climate, many expected Luisa González, the handpicked candidate of fugitive socialist ex-President Rafael Correa, to sweep the election, but voters instead surprisingly chose Daniel Noboa, a then-35-year-old business heir with minimal political experience.
Noboa made a war on organized crime and gang violence the centerpiece of his presidential policy, emulating and openly praising the strategy of fellow Millennial President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador. The country’s gangs responded with an all-out war in which they took over prisons, holding dozens hostage, and terrorized civilian communities. Noboa declared war (“internal armed conflict”) literally on the gangs in January after armed hooded men took hostage the entire staff of Guayaquil’s TC Television during a live broadcast.
Noboa and his anti-gang war will be on the ballot again in February – as will González, returning as a favorite in the face of surging violent crime and a major electricity infrastructure crisis under Noboa (caused by negligence and poor governance under Correa, González’s patron). The election will be a major historical crossroads for Ecuador: continue to trust its youngest-ever president’s heavy-handed approach to security, or turn to the tried-and-failed Venezuela-style socialism of the past.
Poland (May)
European Council President Donald Tusk speaks to the media at the end of the first of a two-day summit of European Union leaders on March 21, 2019 in Brussels, Belgium. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
Poland will host a presidential election in May to replace term-limited incumbent Andrzej Duda. In Poland, both the president and prime minister hold significant political power, the former being head of state and latter head of government. That power is currently split between Duda, a conservative friendly with American President-elect Donald Trump, and globalist Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who has attempted, with limited success so far, to impose progressive leftist social policies on the country. Should Tusk’s Civic Coalition win the presidency as well as the prime ministership, the Polish left would be greatly empowered to advance a pro-EU agenda on issues such as abortion and climate, and are likely to be at odds with America on international conflicts.
The conservative Law and Justice Party has nominated Karol Nawrocki for president, a historian with minimal political experience to run against the mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski – a risky move that conservatives hope will pay off after the global victories of outsider candidates such as Trump, economist Javier Milei in Argentina, and the former sitcom actor running neighboring Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. Nawrocki is the president of the Institute of National Remembrance, a government agency that describes itself as committed to helping “investigate crimes committed from 8 November 1917, throughout the Second World War and the communist period, to 31 July 1990.”
Early polls show Trzaskowski, a much better-known political figure, leading the race, though a growing number of third-party candidates are entering the fray, including Polish Parliament Speaker Szymon Hołownia, that could swing the election for one or the other of the two major party candidates. Issues such as the economy, the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Warsaw’s relationship with the incoming Trump administration are also major factors potentially altering public sentiment.
Cameroon (October 2025, maybe)
Attendees cheer and dance during the celebration of 42 years of Cameroonian President Paul Biya being in power at the town hall in Yaounde on November 6, 2024. (Photo by ETIENNE NSOM / AFP)
Cameroon is a longtime, classic post-colonial African tyranny with little hope of holding a free and fair election. Dictator Paul Biya, 91, has “won” seven terms in office – and is reportedly prepared to launch a campaign for his eighth. What makes this year different than past ones, however, is that Biya appears to be in an extremely fragile state of health and may not make it to the election, if it even happens. Biya disappeared entirely from the country in October, leading many to believe he had already died (Biya regularly travels to Switzerland, allegedly for medical care, but this time his officials could not explain his absence). He ultimately resurfaced after six weeks looking frail and offering no clarification on where he had been – or who was running the country while he was missing.
As with all longstanding strongman dictatorships, who would take control of the country if Biya loses the election – or, more likely, dies – is not clear and a power vacuum before someone emerges the victor is possible. Two other men have announced their candidacy in the election: opposition leader Maurice Kamto of the Movement for the Renaissance of Cameroon (MRC), and New York professor Eric Essono Tsimi. They will face not just Biya but his entrenched machine of power, potentially including First Lady Chantal Biya, decades younger than her husband, and Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, secertary-general of the presidency, who is largely believed to handle day-to-day presidential duties.
Cameroon is facing several major security crises, including an English-speaking separatist movement and, more salient for American interests, a longstanding conflict against the jihadist terror organization Boko Haram. Boko Haram and its allies could easily seek to exploit any vacuum left by Biya and his establishment, potentially allowing them to turn Cameroon into a hotbed of Islamist violence that could destabilizing neighboring countries.
Bolivia (August 17)
Evo Morales returns to Bolivia after socialists win October 2020 elections. (Evo Morales/Twitter)
Bolivia is currently embroiled in a vicious presidential campaign cycle, the first preceding a normal general election since the fall of socialist attempted dictator Evo Morales in 2020. Morales ran for an unconstitutional fourth term in office that year and rapidly declared victory despite independent observers, including the Organization of American States (OAS), documenting significant irregularities in the vote. Confronted with this data, Morales fled the country, leaving it in the hands of conservative interim President Jeanine Áñez.
Áñez fulfilled her duty and held a special election as quickly as possible. The candidate replacing Morales on the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) ticket, Luis Arce, won the election and his government arrested Áñez, alleging she staged a “coup” by assuming the presidency as the constitution requires. She remains in prison to this day.
Feeling confident that Arce would protect him, Morales returned to Bolivia and began plotting his illegal return to the presidency, insisting he would run for office in the 2025 race. In addition to being term-limited, however, Morales has run into a major challenge from Arce himself, who is insisting on running for a (constitutional) second term in office and sees himself as a more rightful leader of MAS. The rift has essentially severed MAS in half between Morales loyalists and Arce loyalists, who expelled Morales from his own party in May. The court system also disqualified Morales from running for president that month, a ruling Morales has entirely ignored, threatening terrorist activity to silence socialist dissent instead.
Hanging over the entire election race is the ongoing legal battle Morales is facing over evidence that he raped and impregnated a teen girl while being president, a case over which he was formally charged in December. Arce called Morales’ alleged pedophilia an “open secret” this month, while Morales has done little to deny the allegations and focused instead of galvanizing his working class socialist base against the rest of the MAS on the grounds of their alleged elitism. As Arce has imprisoned Áñez and several other prominent conservative leaders, Bolivia is enduring this messy situation on the socialist side with no organized conservative alternative on the ballot.
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