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“`The provided text is CSS code, not prose, so it cannot be rewritten into fluent English without altering its meaning. If you’d like, I can explain what the code does in plain English.Four elections across four continents in just 10 days could significantly reshape global politics—either pushing the world further along its current authoritarian path or marking a limited revival of democratic norms.
In all four races, basic democratic principles are at stake at a time when autocracy is spreading worldwide at an alarming rate. According to the Sweden-based V-Dem Institute, which uses multi-variable assessment tools, the democratic freedoms of the average global citizen have fallen to levels last seen in 1978—long before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism in Europe.
This cluster of four pivotal elections could either stop that trend or reinforce it. In each race, pro-democracy parties are in close contests with current or aspiring autocrats. The results in each case are likely to have spillover effects in their regions and beyond.
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, faces the right-winSenator Flávio Bolsonaro in the runoff presidential elections. Photograph: Evaristo Sa/AFP/Getty Images. On Sunday, Brazil will hold a runoff presidential election with a far-right candidate in the lead. If he wins, Flávio Bolsonaro is threatening to “change the constitution,” pardon his father for plotting a coup, and loosen environmental restrictions—a critical issue for the Amazon rainforest.
On the same day, the semi-autocracy run by Aleksandar Vučić in Serbia for the past 12 years will face its toughest challenge yet in the form of an unconventional, student-led protest movement fielding a slate of little-known academics and technocrats running on the simple slogan “Serbia or Mafia?”
‘This is a lethal threat’: Indigenous groups fear Bolsonaro’s hold on voters in Brazil’s Amazon towns. Read more.
On Tuesday, it will be Benjamin Netanyahu’s turn to face his challengers at the polls. Israel’s leader for 19 of the past 30 years has overseen a prolonged period of democratic backsliding and spiraling human rights abuses. He is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, and could face heightened legal jeopardy from an ongoing corruption trial at home if he loses. His far-right coalition is currently trailing an opposition bloc.
View image in fullscreen. A digital billboard in Tel Aviv, Israel, featuring US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu displays a message in Hebrew that says ‘President Trump: Vote Netanyahu. Only with him will we complete the mission.’ Photograph: Oded Balilty/AP.
On 3 November, at the end of this potentially historic 10 days, Donald Trump’s imperial-style presidency faces a rebuke from US voters in midterm elections, with at least one chamber of Congress, and possibly two, likely to fall to the Democrats. They will then, however, face an uphill task in trying to rein in Trump’s excesses, which have seen the US plummet down the V-Dem Institute’s Liberal Democracy Index.
By the time the US counts its votes on Tuesday, the world could look markedly different. Not only are the four looming contests bunched together, they are also interwoven. Trump’s Maga movement has given overt political support to Netanyahu, Vučić, and Bolsonaro. Israeli-built Pegasus spyware has been found on the phones of student and pro-democracy activists in Serbia. Bolsonaro is strongly pro-Israel and is promising to follow the US lead and move the Brazilian embassy to Jerusalem. The US has provided much of the ordnance for Netanyahu’s wars. Serbia is committed to spending $2bn on Israeli defense systems, and in September the two countries opened a joint plant making surveillance and attack equipment.
Victory for the authoritarian right in one country will bolster counterparts in others, and conversely a win for pro-democratic campaigners in each contest will give hope and encouragement to their allies around the world.
The four elections may be closely interlinked, but the struggle between authoritarianism and democracy takes very different forms in each country. The odds are different in each case, as are the stakes, but they are all close races.
View image in fullscreen. Surfers gather during a demonstration in defense of democracy and in support of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s re-election bid at Milionários beach in Sao Vicente, São Paulo. The banner reads ‘For democracy’. Photograph: Roosevelt Cassio/Reuters.
Brazil. Democracy index ranking 28. Brazil has enjoyed a democratic resurgence since Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office on the first day of 2023, defeating an attempt by his far-right populist predecessor to overturn the October election result. According to V-Dem’s measures, it now has better democratic credentials than the UK, and far better than the US.
The loser in those elections four years ago, Jair Bolsonaro, an ex-soldier who served under Brazil’s 21-year military dictatorship and still admires it, was sentenced to 27 years in jail for trying to stage a coup to hold on.to power. Now his son, Flávio, is seeking to follow in his footsteps, and goes into the second round of the election on Sunday with a small but significant lead over Lula.
View image in fullscreenFábio Heitor, four, poses for a photo for his mother, Francislene Fernandes, 25, wearing a shirt featuring images of presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro, during a mass vehicle-decal event in support of presidential candidate in Boa Vista, Roraima, Brazil. Photograph: Raphael Alves/The Guardian
The younger Bolsonaro has not only pledged to free his father, but also to punish members of the judiciary involved in his prosecution. If he wins, he will have a supportive rightwing majority in Congress to work with and has vowed to change the constitution and “re-democratise the country”. The term harks back to the transition from military rule in 1985, and for the Brazilian left, it has a chilling Orwellian ring coming from the mouth of an avowed admirer of prominent members of the junta.
Bolsonaro has campaigned on hard-line law and order policies addressing the chronic issue of high crime. He argues for lowering the age of criminal responsibility to below 18, sending more teenagers to jail, and calling for judicial reforms, which his critics suggest he intends to mount an attack on the independence of the courts.
View image in fullscreenSupporters of the electoral list Student List – Students Win attend a final campaign rally at Slavija Square in Belgrade, Serbia, 22 October 2026. Photograph: Marko Đurica/Reuters
Serbia
Democracy Index rating 112
Over his 12 years as president, Aleksandar Vučić has steadily eroded the pillars of Serbia’s democracy. He and his allies have taken over almost all the country’s broadcast channels, with the result that he is the overwhelming presence on the nation’s television screens over the course of the current election campaign. The future of the last two independent news channels is now in doubt, as they were bought during the campaign by a Portuguese investor with links to the ousted Hungarian regime of Viktor Orbán.
The ruling Serbian Progressive party (SNS) has turned ministries and other state institutions into political tools to the extent that, in the words of Raša Nedeljkov, the programme director of the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability, “the line between the state and the parties is almost deleted”.
A student protest movement has gripped Serbia for two years. This weekend it will try to take power
Read more
Until now, the opposition parties seeking to curb Vučić have been weak and divided, but Serbian politics was transformed two years ago by the collapse of a concrete canopy on a crowd of people at a railway station in Novi Sad, killing 16 people. The tragedy crystallised a deep reservoir of disillusion across the country, and produced a student-led mass movement which has survived state intimidation since then, and is now fielding a full list of candidates against the SNS.
View image in fullscreenFormer Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić delivers a speech at the ruling Serbian Progressive party (SNS) final campaign rally in Belgrade. Photograph: Pierre Crom/Getty Images
The candidates, like the students who nominated them, disagree among themselves on key political issues but they demonstrate a purist adherence to direct democracy. Decisions are taken by large plenum meetings, and no one has been allowed to emerge as an identifiable leader.
To win on Sunday, the students will have to break the mould of Serbian politics, and in particular, Vučić’s hold on his loyal base in the countryside. If they come close, there is a risk of unrest and violence. The SNS has a record of paying bands of thugs to disrupt opposition rallies, and those gangs may appear at polling sites if Vučić feels threatened. The students too have vowed to take to the streets to defend the victory they expect on Sunday.
View image in fullscreenA Likud electoral campaign billboard featuring Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Jerusalem. Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/GettyIsrael Democracy Index rating: 48
Israeli democracy has always been partial. Palestinians in the occupied territories do not have the vote or many other rights, while Israeli settlers living next to them are treated as full citizens and provide vital support for Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition government. That government, however, will be fighting for its survival in Tuesday’s parliamentary elections.
Palestinians with Israeli citizenship make up about a fifth of the population but are consistently under-represented in the Knesset. They turn out to vote in smaller numbers than Israeli Jews, with many seeing participation as pointless in a system that systematically excludes them. The main opposition bloc challenging Netanyahu is ruling out a coalition with Arab parties, even if it means the difference between a clear victory and an uncertain deadlock once Knesset seats have been assigned.
‘The biggest motivation is fear’: High turnout among Israel’s Palestinians could unseat Netanyahu
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Netanyahu has been Israel’s leader on and off for most of the past three decades, but during the nearly four years of his current term, in coalition with extreme settler-backed parties, he has launched an offensive against Israeli democratic norms—seeking to limit the independence of the judiciary in the name of “reform,” putting pressure on the independent press, and politicising the police, army and internal security service, Shin Bet.
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Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar (“Straight”) party, visits the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City on Thursday. Photograph: Mahmoud Illean/AP
The opposition bloc, led by former general Gadi Eisenkot, shares much of Netanyahu’s outlook when it comes to Palestine, largely supporting the war in Gaza and refusing to consider a two-state solution. But it is determined to wipe out the corruption of his government and its autocratic excesses. It is expected to win more seats than the government coalition in Tuesday’s election, but fall short of a clear majority. To achieve that, it may have to forge an understanding with Israel’s long-ignored Palestinian minority.
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Democratic US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed speaks at a labour rally at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, on 22 October. El-Sayed is competing against Republican candidate Mike Rodgers for Michigan’s US Senate seat in the upcoming midterm elections. Photograph: Jeff Kowalsky/AFP/Getty Images
The US
Democracy Index rating: 51
No western country in modern times has “undemocratised” itself as rapidly as the US in less than two years of Donald Trump’s second term in office. With a Congress dominated by loyal Republicans and a mostly acquiescent supreme court, he has forged an imperial presidency, frequently governing by executive order, and turning state institutions into political tools—including organs of internal security such as the justice department and the FBI—which have been weaponised against political opponents, independent prosecutors and journalists.
Administration policy, domestic and foreign, has been used to generate self-enrichment opportunities for Trump’s family and friends.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been vastly expanded with lightly trained but heavily armed recruits and deployed across the country, trampling the civil rights of anyone—predominantly Latinos—suspected of being an illegal immigrant.
With the president’s approval ratings at record lows, the Democrats have a good chance of winning a majority in the House of Representatives and a slimmer possibility of winning the Senate too.
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Supporters cheer as Donald Trump arrives to speak at a midterm election campaign rally at Sioux Gateway airport in Iowa on 22 October 2026. Photograph: Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images
Even if they gain control of both chambers, however, there are limits on how far they can go to restrain the authoritarian excesses of the Trump presidency. He can be expected to use his veto freely, and Democrats wilI do not have the votes needed to overturn it or to defeat a Republican filibuster in the Senate. In theory, Congress controls the purse strings and could try to make funding for government departments and agencies conditional on reforms. A Democratic majority would also use its control of committees to launch several investigations into corruption and other wrongdoing, issuing subpoenas to government officials. In both cases, however, the Trump administration could simply ignore Congress and refuse to cooperate. The most immediate result of a Democratic victory is therefore likely to be a prolonged constitutional crisis before democratic norms recover.
Frequently Asked Questions
FAQs Ten Days That Could Shake the World Democratic Norms at Stake in Four Key Elections
1 What does Ten Days That Could Shake the World mean
It refers to a stretch of about ten days in which four major elections take place with results that could significantly affect democratic norms and global politics
2 Which four elections are involved
The exact four depend on the year and context of the piece but the framing typically centers on major national votesfor example elections in the US India the EU and another key democracy The common thread is that all four matter far beyond their own borders
3 Why do these elections matter to people outside those countries
These countries are large economies and geopolitical players Their election outcomes can shape trade security alliances climate policy and the global standing of democracy itself
4 What are democratic norms
Theyre the unwritten rules and shared expectations that make democracy workthings like accepting election results respecting an independent judiciary and free press tolerating opposition and transferring power peacefully
5 What does it mean for democratic norms to be at stake
It means the election could weaken or strengthen these rules For example a candidate who refuses to accept defeat pressures the media or attacks courts can erode norms even without breaking any law
6 How can a single election damage democratic norms
Norms erode gradually If leaders violate them without consequencepacking courts intimidating journalists questioning valid resultsthe boundaries of acceptable behavior shift and future leaders face fewer constraints
7 What warning signs should I watch for during these elections
Common red flags include claims of fraud made before voting even starts pressure on election officials restrictions on observers disinformation campaigns violence or threats against candidates and refusal to commit to accepting results
8 Whats the difference between a democratic norm and a law
Laws are written and enforceable by courts Norms are unwritten and enforced by public opinion political pressure and institutional culture Breaking a norm may be legal but still deeply damaging
9 Why are these four elections happening so close together
Its largely coincidence of electoral calendars but the clustering amplifies the effectnews coverage market reactions and geopolitical attention all compound when major votes overlap
