A large number of countries have returned incumbent leaders, some of whom, such as Cyril Ramaphosa in South Africa and Modi in India, have returned to power with smaller numbers and coalitions rather than the larger majorities they previously enjoyed.

Incumbents:

Algeria: Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune was re-elected as president of the country by an overwhelming majority 94.7 percent of the votes In September.

Azerbaijan: President Ilham Aliyev received Fifth state He took office in February after a severe crackdown on the media and in the absence of any real opposition.

Belarus: President Alexander Lukashenko retained power in the legislature Parliamentary elections in February. Lukashenko, a staunch ally of Russia, has been accused of rigging previous elections and eliminating political opposition. Presidential elections are scheduled to be held in January 2025.

Bulgaria: Center-right party my dear He took the lead, but was unable to win a majority of votes, in the country’s seventh early election in four years October.

Chad: Mohamed Idriss Déby was confirmed the winner of the May elections Presidential elections After the appeals of two of the losing candidates were rejected, extending his family’s decades-long rule. The country held parliamentary elections on Sunday, December 29. The results have not been announced yet.

Comoros: President Azali Assoumani won a Fourth for five years In the island state. He was declared victorious over five opponents, with 62.97 percent of the votes. Protests shook the country, and the army imposed a curfew after the results were announced.

Croatia: Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic The Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) formed a coalition to continue governing after the April elections.

dominican republic: Louis Abinader He won a second term last May with 58.5% of the vote, after his hardline stance on immigration from neighboring Haiti secured support for him.

Georgia: The ruling Georgian Dream party and its billionaire founder Bidzina Ivanishvili He obtained more than 54% of the votes in the parliamentary elections. The results are seen as a blow to pro-Western Georgians who viewed the elections as a choice between a ruling party that had strengthened its ties with Russia and an opposition that hoped to accelerate integration with the European Union.

India: Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party won a third term, but not with a majority – unlike previous terms. Modi was forced to form a coalition to govern, against the opposition led by Rahul Gandhi that gained seats and visibility across the country.

Lithuania: Gintautas Palukas took office as Prime Minister in December, with the Social Democrats forming a coalition government with the Dawn Nemunas and For Lithuania parties with control of 86 seats in the 141-member parliament.

Pakistan: In February, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif returned to power after a controversial election that saw his family-led political party, the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN), fail to secure numbers on its own. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, led by former Prime Minister Imran Khan, was excluded before the vote, but its candidates competed as independents and won more seats than any other party. Sharif formed a coalition government with the Pakistan People’s Party. PTI alleges electoral error in the vote, which the government denies.

Russia: Vladimir Putin He won his fifth presidential election With 87% of the votes, the highest result ever in the history of post-Soviet Russia.

Rwanda: Paul Kagame He won his fourth term With 99 percent of the votes. His critics accuse him of suppressing opponents. His supporters claim that his critics are nothing more than Western puppets unwilling to accept his popularity.

South Africa: Cyril Ramaphosa He was re-elected from the African National Congress as President of South Africa for a second term. After losing its majority in Parliament for the first time since 1994, the ruling African National Congress formed an unworkable coalition with political rivals to remain in power.

Taiwan: In January, Lai Ching T – also known as William Lai – of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party won Taiwan’s presidential election, despite warnings from China not to vote for him. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and considers Lai, a vocal critic of Beijing, a separatist. Lai served as Vice President of Taiwan under outgoing President Tsai Ing-wen.

Togo: Togo’s ruling UNIR party, led by President Faure Gnassingbé, won 108 out of 113 seats in parliament. The overwhelming majority follows the outgoing parliament’s approval of controversial constitutional reforms that could extend the Gnassingbé family’s 57-year rule.

Tunisia: In October, President Kais Saied won a second term in the presidential elections. Several other presidential contenders have been imprisoned. In 2021, Saied dissolved the elected parliament and rewrote the constitution in a move the opposition described as a coup.

Venezuela: In July, Nicolas Maduro wins re-election by 51% Of the votes – his third victory since he first took office as president in 2013 after the death of his mentor and former president Hugo Chavez. The United Socialist Party has been in power for 25 years. Protests erupted to demand the publication of election results by individual polling stations, with the opposition saying that the results of the July 28 elections were fraudulent. Maduro’s government has cracked down on protesters and opposition leaders, forcing many to seek refuge in foreign embassies.

New leaders:

Austria: In September, AustriaThe far-right Freedom Party emerged victorious after the country’s parliamentary elections. While the Freedom Party won the largest number of votes, it did not win by a large enough margin to govern alone. Coalition talks will continue into the new year as the three centrist parties are under pressure to reach an agreement, with none of the parties willing to cooperate with the Freedom Party.

Botswana: In november, Always poco He was declared the winner of the election over incumbent President Mokgweetsi Masisi in a massive shake-up that ended the ruling party’s 58 years of rule since independence from Britain in 1960.

Bhutan: Tshering Topgay He returned as prime minister, with his Democratic People’s Party winning the largest number of seats in Bhutan’s parliamentary elections in January, defeating the Druk Nyamrup Chogpa (DNT).

Iceland: In December, the center-left Social Democratic Alliance in Iceland won the largest number of votes in early elections that were the result of the collapse of the coalition that had ruled the country for the past seven years. Kristron Frostadóttir assumed her role as Prime Minister on 21 December. Earlier in June, Hala Tomasdottir was elected president of Iceland, defeating incumbent Gudni Johansson with 55 percent of the vote.

Indonesia: The former general, Prabowo Subianto, became president of the world’s third most populous country, with his deputy, Gebran Rakabuming Raka, the son of former president Joko Widodo.

Iran: Masoud Pezeshkian He won the presidential election in July. Pezeshkian, a reformist, assumed the role of president amid the ongoing war waged by Israel on Palestine and its repercussions on the greater Middle East, and after the death of former President Ebrahim Raisi.

Mexico: Claudia SheinbaumThe climate scientist and former mayor of Mexico City became Mexico’s first female president after a landslide victory last June, succeeding Morena party leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Portugal: In March, a centre-right coalition led by the Social Democratic Party won Portugal’s general elections by a narrow margin and formed a minority government. the The hard right Chiga’s party made significant gains and claimed a place in parliament cabinetBut the center-right coalition formed a government without them.

Senegal: In March, the opposition candidate Passero Diomai Fay He received 54% of the votes in the presidential elections. His victory came just 10 days after his release from prison.

Sri Lanka: In november, Anura Kumara Dissanayake The leftist coalition won a landslide victory in early parliamentary elections, giving the self-described Marxist leader a strong mandate to fight poverty and corruption in the crisis-hit country.

Tuvalu: Former Attorney General, Teo’s apartmentHe was appointed the new prime minister after a general election that ousted the island’s pro-Taiwan leader. Teo’s promotion to prime minister came after his pro-Taiwan predecessor, Kosia Natano, lost his seat in the January 26 election.

UK: UK voters are at their lowest voter turnout in 20 years 14 years have passed From Tory rule in a snap election that returned Keir Starmer and the Labor Party to Downing Street.

In the midst of the economic and healthcare crisis, there has been a rise in support for the right-wing populist Reform Party UK.

US: Donald Trump She emerged victorious in November after defeating Kamala Harris in the Electoral College by a comfortable margin, as many states that had previously voted Democratic fell to Republicans.

Deleted leaders:

Bangladesh: Sheikh Hasina was re-elected in January 2024 for her fifth term as Prime Minister. In June, protests broke out against the quota policy, which quickly expanded into a movement against its increasingly authoritarian rule. After days of bloody clashes between protesters and security forces, Hasina resigned and fled to India in early August. At least 280 people were killed and thousands injured.

Nobel Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus was appointed head of an interim government until elections were held.

Syria: Bashar al-Assad held parliamentary elections in July, in which all 250 seats went to his Baathist party. But after five months, he was out of power. Opposition forces took control of Damascus in the early hours of December 8 after a lightning attack, ending the Assad family’s 50-year rule in a surprise attack.

A 13-year civil war in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed, thousands disappeared, and six million fled the country has finally ended.

The attack, led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and its leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, known as Abu Muhammad al-Julani, led to the formation of an interim administration that will establish a new constitution and a new government.