#2024 South African Elections

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Rachel Savage at The Guardian:

South Africans go to the polls on 29 May in elections in which the ruling African National Congress party could lose its majority for the first time since it swept to power in 1994 after the end of apartheid. Chronic unemployment, inequality, power cuts and corruption have contributed to a haemorrhaging of support for the ANC, which won the 2019 election with 57.5% of the vote.

Who are the ANC’s challengers?

The ruling party is battling against established opposition parties such as the economically liberal Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Marxist-inspired Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). It is also being challenged by upstarts such as the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party, led by the former president Jacob Zuma, who is bitterly opposed to the current South African leader, Cyril Ramaphosa. Polls have consistently shown the ANC getting less than 50% of the vote. A telephone tracking survey by the Social Research Foundation had it on 44.1% of the vote in a 60% turnout model this week, compared with 39.1% a month earlier. Some analysts think the ANC could still scrape a majority, noting that phone polls often have significant flaws, including underestimating ANC support in rural areas where many poorer votes do not have phones.

[...]

How will the elections work?

Almost 28 million South Africans are registered to vote in national and provincial elections, less than half of the 62 million population. The 400-seat national parliament will vote for the president no later than two weeks after election day. There is no constitutional process for forming a coalition government. South Africa uses a system of proportional representation. Voters get three ballots – two for the National Assembly, each allocating 200 seats, and one for their provincial legislature. One of the national ballots will only have political parties on it. The second will be for one of nine multi-member provincial constituencies. Voters can either opt for a party, which will list its candidates’ names, or an independent.

Could the days of the incumbent African National Congress (ANC) having a majority in South Africa be over and be forced into a coalition to keep them in power? We'll find out in the elections today.

See Also:

MCI Maps Substack: Issue #182: South Africa Election Preview: The ANC Faces its Greatest Test

[comrade-onion]

Might wanna start a local ANTIFA chapter. What do yall think?

[dreaminginwonderlands]

A youth perspective

Democratic South Africa is 30 years old now – a fully-fledged adult in my eyes. Our country is in its third decade and has indeed faced the trials and tribulations of young adulthood. She has taken her time to navigate the journey and she has emerged victoriously, perhaps slightly bruised but most definitely not broken. She has used the values upon which she was raised to give power to the…

[head-post]

Steenhuisen alliance vows to save South Africa

South Africa’s elections this week should provide a great opportunity for the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) and its leader John Steenhuisen, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, the African National Congress (ANC), Nelson Mandela’s party in power for the past 30 years, showed little success. South African unemployment is among the highest in the world, the economy has barely grown and infrastructure is crumbling.

The DA, the country’s second largest party, enjoys greater popularity in the Western Cape. According to pre-election polls, the party received about a fifth of the vote in the last general election in 2019. Despite campaign missteps and the DA’s attempts to broaden its support, Steenhuisen could still secure a parliamentary majority.

Some recent polls show that support for the ANC is as low as 40 per cent. Such a rate could make it difficult to form a coalition with smaller parties.

Despite Steenhuisen’s promise to dismiss the ANC, he still has not ruled out a post-election deal if it does not allow Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and former president Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) into government. The EFF reportedly plans to nationalise industry and confiscate land owned by whites.

I’m not ruling out anything depending on what the election results are going forward.

Read more HERE

[bluebean09]

The most stupid thing my country could possibly do right now is try to boycott the elections. It is exactly what they are doing right now. Fuck this shit. This will not help with anything, only make things worse

[doculicious]

Nikki "Anti-Black People" Haley lost the 2024 New Hampshire presidential primary. Nevada and the U.S. Virgin Islands each have their Republican Caucus on February 8. February 24 will be the South Carolina Republican Primary. I don't expect Nikki Haley to win her home state of South Carolina.

Her comments in New Hampshire in 2023 about the Civil War and Slavery during the days of Kwanzaa (December 26 to January 1) were a dog whistle to get certain voters in the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire Primary January 2024. As the governor of South Carolina where she was born and grew up in she saw firsthand that the American Civil War was about Slavery. For years she has gone by Civil War battlefieds, Confederate monuments, Dixie flags, slave plantations and slave cabins in South Carolina. She might have even stumbled upon a Klan rally once by accident. Her father taught at an HBCU (Historically Black College or University) in South Carolina. A result of the USA not wanting black students at white colleges in the 1800 and 1900s. White schools still don't want black students in this new century. I digress. Maybe she didn't like that growing up it was black students tuition and fees that were paying the bills at her house.

Hating black people does not stop you from being president of the USA. Take your pick of past racist presidents and those who owned slaves. The problem with her is that she is South Asian and wants to further their ability to come to America like her parents did. You can't do that if you are in basic denial of factual history of the USA that she in South Carolina can see every single day.

I am sure that while she campaigning in New Hampshire she did not stop and visit the African Burying Ground Memorial Park in Portsmouth New Hampshire. Slavery started in the North and ended in the South.

[beeclops]

hey fun fact: Elon Musk - the white pro-Apartheid South African man who endorsed Donald Trump for a second term in the 2024 election, and a staunch supporter of deporting millions of "illegal immigrants" - came to America as an "illegal immigrant" himself, btw.

Whatever you do, PLEASE TOTALLY DO NOT SHARE THIS to him far and wide across other social media platforms! It would totally trigger him like a little manchild!

[mapsontheweb]

South African general election results in 2019 and 2024. Largest party by municipality.

by bezzleford

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Rachel Savage at The Guardian:

Final results from Wednesday’s seismic South Africa elections have confirmed that the African National Congress (ANC) party has lost its majority for the first time in 30 years of full democracy, firing the starting gun on unprecedented coalition talks. The ANC, which led the fight to free South Africa from apartheid, won just 159 seats in the 400-member national assembly on a vote share of just over 40%. High unemployment, power cuts, violent crime and crumbling infrastructure have contributed to a haemorrhaging of support for the former liberation movement. The pro-business Democratic Alliance (DA) won 87 seats, uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) – a new party led by President Cyril Ramaphosa’s bitter rival, the former president Jacob Zuma – took 58, and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a Marxist-Leninist party led by the ousted ANC youth leader Julius Malema, took 39.

The ANC also lost its majority in three provinces: Northern Cape; Gauteng, which is home to the commercial centre Johannesburg and the capital, Pretoria; and KwaZulu-Natal, where MK was the largest party. “What this election has made plain is that the people of South Africa expect their leaders to work together to meet their needs,” Ramaphosa told an audience of politicians, diplomats and civil society leaders after the official results announcement, as thunder rumbled outside. “They expect the parties for which they have voted to find common ground, to overcome their differences, to act and work together for the good of everyone.” Ramaphosa also joked, to laughter from the crowd, that he wished it was true when the electoral commission chair accidentally said that he was announcing the 2029 election results. The president faces questions about his future, though, as the ANC turns to the task of coalition building. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Zuma’s MK party said they had boycotted the election results event.

Zuma had warned before the results announcement that it should not go ahead, saying “people would be provoked”, raising the spectre of the deadly riots that broke out when he was sent to prison in 2021. The position of Ramaphosa was not on the table during the coalition talks that will now take place, the general secretary of the ANC said before the final results were announced. ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula told a press conference at the election results centre: “If you come to us with a demand that Ramaphosa must step down as the president, that is not going to happen … It’s a no-go area. You come to us with that demand, forget it.” MK leaders have said they will not work with the ANC while it is led by Ramaphosa, who Zuma is hell-bent on exacting revenge against. Zuma was president from 2009 to 2018 and was forced to resign by the ANC amid corruption allegations, which he denies.

[...] A tie-up with the DA could be favoured by the more business-friendly wing of the ANC. However, such a coalition would face criticisms from the many black South Africans who see the white-led DA as favouring the interests of white people, which the DA denies. Some analysts have said that bringing in a third, black-led party could help the ANC head off those criticisms. DA leaders have said a coalition is an option, as well as a “confidence and supply” arrangement with an ANC minority government and staying in opposition. Another option for the ANC, and one that is likely to be preferred by the left wing of the party, is to link up with the EFF. That option would need another partner to clear the 50% needed, however. Often mentioned is the Inkatha Freedom party (IFP), which took 17 seats, and, like the MK, gets most of its support from Zulu people.

For the first time since the end of Apartheid in South Africa, the African National Congress won’t have a majority. The ANC, however, will continue to have the most seats, and need to form a coalition, likely with either the Democratic Alliance (DA) or the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and/or uMkhonto weSizwe (MK).

[ptseti]

This is what the brother was talking about..the LEFt doing the bidding of the GOP. This was posted on SM by African Stream. Mark you they are correct but this is not a Kamla/biden issue, it's a US issue.

This was the CAPTION to this photo:

Will Kamala Harris be the new Democratic nominee for the 2024 US presidential elections? Joe Biden has given his endorsement… but what is she really like as a candidate? For the past four years, she has served as vice president of the United States, the first Black (and Asian) woman to occupy this position. Yet, compared to another Black lady VP in the Americas, she seems not to have her people’s best interests at heart. Let us compare Kamala Harris’ record to one of her neighbours to the south, Francia Márquez, vice president of Colombia. Kamala Harris, throughout her career, has consistently sided with the racist, capitalist, imperialist system. Her career as a prosecutor was built off of the war on drugs and strict policies targeting the Black and Brown working class. She is a strong supporter of Israel and has spoken more than once at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the largest pro-Israel lobbying group in the US. The country she represents as vice president is sending billions of dollars to Israel, as Tel Aviv bombs Gaza to ruins and kills thousands. Francia Márquez, the first Afro-Colombian vice president, is part of a long tradition of grassroots Black liberation and environmental justice activism. Unlike Harris, she represents the interests of the African diaspora and oppressed peoples worldwide. The government she represents has restored relations with Venezuela, strengthened ties with the African continent and stood in solidarity with Palestinians facing an Israeli onslaught. Comparing Harris and Márquez in this way reveals why radical politics matter more than just shallow representation without commitment to the people. Do you think Kamala Harris would make a good pick for president of the United States?

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Jaryn Crouson

Professors connected to anti-Israel protests head programs that received millions of taxpayer dollars, according to a report released Wednesday by government transparency group Open The Books.

The Department of Education has spent $283 million on foreign studies grants since 2020, with over $22.1 million going towards programs studying the Middle East, Open The Books found. The study analyzed the top three grant recipients, Indiana University, Columbia University and Georgetown University, and found that each highlighted anti-Israel professors as distinguished staff in their programs.

“These universities all have multibillion dollar endowments,” Amber Todoroff, deputy policy editor at Open The Books, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “They get tax breaks, government-backed student loans, and enormous sums through federal grants and contracts. Through these Title VI grants, they’re getting funding specifically for departments that have hosted radical professors, instigating shameful protests nationwide. It’s high time Congress takes a closer look at how this money is being spent, and, with so many new ways to learn languages and international culture, if it’s even necessary at all.”

Universities received these funds in the form of two different grants: National Resource Centers grants, which go directly to departmental programs, and Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) grants, which can be used to give students fellowships to study foreign regions or languages, according to Open The Books.

Columbia received $2.8 million in FLAS grants from 2020 to 2024, according to the report. Its program is meant to “examine transnational connections, develop Islamic studies, and deepen specialist expertise on the region,” according to Columbia’s 2018 grant proposal.

The 2018 application mentioned Joseph Massad, a professor in the Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies department, as a selling point for the university’s program, noting that his classes “focus on the modern history, gender, political economy, international relations, politics and culture of the region.” The university received $653,632 in an FLAS grant in the 2022-2023 school year that was used in part to fund a fellowship for a student to take Massad’s “Gender and Sexuality in the Arab World” class, according to Open The Books.

Massad was alleged by students to be biased “against both Israel and the West” in his classes, according to Open The Books, citing nonprofit group Middle East Forum. The professor published an article the day after Hamas’ attack in 2023 calling it a “stunning victory,” and he gave a talk at the university in 2002 titled “On Zionism and Jewish Supremacy.”

Columbia experienced intense anti-Israel campus protests during the spring semester that resulted in over 100 arrests and multiple safety concerns. (RELATED: Many Pro-Palestinian Protesters Remain In ‘Good Standing’ At Columbia)

🧵On October 8, Professor Joseph Massad described the Oct. 7 brutal terror attack as “awesome” and a “stunning victory.” He also happens to be the chair of an important academic approval Committee. Watch as @Columbia President claims: “he is no longer a chair of that… pic.twitter.com/rRU32HQnTv — House Committee on Education & the Workforce (@EdWorkforceCmte) April 17, 2024

Indiana University raked in $2.84 million in federal grants from 2020 to 2023 for its Middle East program, and touted professor Abdulkader Sinno its 2018 grant application for his specialization in “the evolution and outcomes of civil wars, ethnic strife and other territorial conflicts; Muslim representation in Western liberal democracies; Islamist parties’ participation in elections,” according the report. Sinno reportedly served as a faculty advisor for the university’s Palestinian Solidarity Committee, which was involved in hosting an “anti-Israel counter protest” where members confronted participants of a Hillel demonstration.

Sinno attempted to sidestep university policies to host the pro-Palestinian speaker Miko Peled for the organization, booking the speaker as an academic event rather than student event, according to the university’s students newspaper, the Indiana Daily Student. The decision led to a two-semester suspension from teaching and a year suspension from advising student groups, according to Open The Books.

Even after the suspension, Sinno gave a speech at an “alternative” graduation for anti-Israel activists during which he praised them for being part of a “proud tradition” and said that their protesting showed “empathy and caring,” according to WFYI.

More than 50 protesters were arrested on Indiana University’s campus in April after a clash with police that left multiple injured, according to Fox 59.

Georgetown received $2.64 million from the Department of Education from 2020 to 2023 in FLAS funding, and it named Associate Professor and Director of Georgetown’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies Dr. Fida Adely in its 2018 grant proposal, the report found. Adely is a member of the Faculty for Justice in Palestine’s National Advisory Board, according to Open The Books, which is a group that “encourages academic and cultural boycotts of Israel and Israeli academic institutions,” according to its website.

Hundreds rallied on Georgetown’s campus during the spring semester, hosting an encampment that lasted more than a week and scuffled with police, according to the university’s student newspaper, The Hoya. Adely participated in an October rally, calling on the university to divest from Israel-linked companies, according to a separate student paper, The Georgetown Voice.

“By funding schools that teach radical ideologies and practice a far-Left DEI philosophy, controversial professors and administrators are also gaining access to a vast ecosystem of tax dollars, and influence over impressionable young people,” the report concluded. “These funds can be used to advance their research, build their standing as credentialed academics, gain tenure, and impact international policy discussions. Meanwhile, our national interest in these grants comes into considerable question. Are we encouraging more professionals who will be credible in these fields and represent U.S. interests, or more folks who are determined to ‘dismantle’ the ‘settler colonialism’ they see all around them?”

Columbia, Georgetown, Indiana University, Massad, Sinno and Adely did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

[noelcollection]

An American Voice

Since the events of 2020, we have attempted to be more active and reach out to LSU Shreveport campus. This action of outreach is meant to help student, faculty, and campus personnel be aware of a rare and unique resource that is available to them, and any visiting persons to the campus. We have just started our 2024 J.S. Noel Collection Pop-up Exhibits, we aim to highlight a vary small section of the James Smith Noel Collection that might interest various research. This time we focused on one person, Paul Laurence Dunbar.

Paul Laurence Dunbar was born in June in 1872 after the United States’ Civil War, his parents were former slaves. He was born and raised in Dayton, Ohio; and started writing from a young age. He wrote is first poem at the age of 6 and read it aloud at the age of nine for a local church congregation, “An Easter Ode.” Dunbar was 16 when he published two poems in the Dayton’s newspaper The Herald; “Our Martyred Soldiers” and “On the River” in 1888. A few years later he would write and edit Dayton’s first weekly African-American newspaper, The Tattler. Paul L. Dunbar worked with two brothers that were his high-school acquaintances to print the paper that lasted six weeks. Those brothers were Wilbur and Orville Wright, the fathers of American aviation. Dunbar was the only African-American student at Central High School in Dayton.

Dunbar’s parents had been slaves in Kentucky, following the emancipation, his mother moved to Ohio, and his father escaped before the Civil War ended. Joshua Dunbar went to Massachusetts and volunteered with the 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. His parents, Matilda and Joshua, were married on Christmas Eve and Paul L. Dunbar arrived six months later. His parents had a troubled union, they separated after the birth on Paul’s sister; but his father would pass away in August in 1885 when Paul was only 13 years old. His mother played a key role in his education, she hoped her son would become a minister. He was elected president of his high school’s literary society which lead to him to become editor of the school newspaper and debate club member.

Paul Laurence Dunbar finished school in 1891 and took a job as an elevator operator to earn money for college where he hoped to study law. Dunbar had continued to write and soon a collection of poems he wanted to publish. He revisited the Wright brothers, but they no longer had a printing faculty and lead his to the United Brethren Publishing House in 1893. Oak and Ivy was soon published and he busied himself selling copies as he operated the elevator. The book contained two sections, Oak with its traditional verse; and Ivy was written in dialect.

His literary talents were recognized and Attorney Charles A. Thatcher offered to pay for college; however, his interest in law had shift to his writing. Dunbar had been encouraged by the sell of his poetry, and Thatcher helped by arranging for Dunbar to do readings in a nearby city. Psychiatrist Henry A. Tobey also took an interest and assisted in distributing Dunbar’s first book. The two contained to support Dunbar through the publication of his second collection of verse, Major and Minors, in 1896. While he was consistent at publishing, he was a reckless spender resulting in debt. He was a traditional struggling artist as he tried to support himself and his mother.

There was hope in the summer of 1896 when his second book received a positive review in Harper’s Weekly, William Dean Howells brought national attention to his poems; calling them “honest thinking and true feeling” and praising his dialectic poems. There was a growing appreciation for folk culture and black dialect. His popular works were written in the “Negro dialect” that is commonly associated with the antebellum South; though he also wrote in the Midwestern dialect that he grew-up hearing. Dunbar would write in various styles, including conversational English in poetry and novels. He is considered to be the first important African American sonnet writer. His use of the “Black dialect” in writing has been criticized as pan-handling to readers.

Dunbar was a diverse writer, he experimented with poetry, short stories, novels, plays, and a musical. He even ventured beyond the lens of the lives of African Americans and attempted to explore the struggles of a white minister. The Uncalled, Dunbar’s first novel, held similar names and themes of Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and was not well favored. It was with his venture into novel writing that he dared to cross the “color line” with his first novel which focused solely on white society. He continued to try to capture white culture but the critics found them lacking.

He moved past novel writing and began to work with two composers, Dunbar wrote the lyrics for the first musical that would be preformed by an all African-American cast on Broadway; In Dahomey. Beyond his writing career, Dunbar was also active the early civil rights movements happening in 1897. He married after a trip to the United Kingdom in 1898, Alice Ruth Moore was also a poet and teacher from New Orleans. She also published a collection of short stories, and they wrote companion poems together. There was a play in 2001 based on their relationship.

Dunbar had taken a traditional job with the Library of Congress in D.C. and with his wife in tow they moved there. However, with his wife’s urging, he left his job to focus on his writings and his public readings. This also allowed him to attend Howard University for a time. However, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1900 and his doctors suggested that drinking whisky would alleviate the symptoms. They also moved to the cold dry mountains of Colorado for his health. This resulted in trouble in Paul and Alice’s marriage, they separated in 1902 but never formally divorced.

Dunbar returned to his hometown of Dayton, Ohio in 1904 to be with his mother, his health continued to decline and depression consumed his mind. Paul Laurence Dunbar died from tuberculosis at age 33 on February 9, 1906 and was interred in Dayton.

Dunbar did not become one of the forgotten poets of literature, his use of dialect in his poetry allowed for his works to remain relevant and important in poetic criticism. We of the James Smith Noel Collection at LSU Shreveport are proud to retain and maintain a small collection of his works and show case their importance.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Ron Kapeas

Published: Jan 8, 2024

JTA — In a speech marking Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, Rep. Ritchie Torres likened protesters who have celebrated Hamas’s October 7 massacres to white people in the Jim Crow era who celebrated after the lynching of Black people.

“I was profoundly shaken not only by October 7, but by the aftermath,” Torres, a Black Bronx Democrat, said Friday in a speech at Central Synagogue, a prominent Reform congregation in midtown Manhattan. “I found it utterly horrifying. To see fellow Americans openly cheering and celebrating the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. And for me, the aftermath of October 7 revealed a barbarity of the American heart that reminded me of an earlier and darker time in our nation’s history, a time when the public mobs of Jim Crow would openly celebrate the lynching of African Americans.”

Protests have proliferated since October 7, when Hamas terrorists murdered some 1,200 people, kidnapped around 240 and brutalized thousands more in an invasion from Gaza. They have grown as Israel has waged a war in Gaza to eliminate the terror group, and especially as casualties mounted: So far, close to 25,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, which does not differentiate between fighters and non-combatants and is also believed to tally civilians killed by errant rockets fired by terror groups.

A number of the protests have decried the October 7 violence on Israelis, but others have skated over the initial massacres or have embraced Hamas and described its atrocities as resistance.

Torres, a member of the progressive caucus in Congress, has garnered a reputation as an unstinting supporter of Israel. He has duked it out online with fellow progressives in debates over Israel, a dynamic that has only intensified since October 7. Torres is heavily funded by AIPAC and donors aligned with the pro-Israel lobby, and spoke at a massive rally for Israel in Washington on November 14.

In his speech, Torres alluded to the controversies that assailed elite universities after the presidents of Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania told Congress that calls to commit genocide against Jews did not necessarily violate the schools’ codes of conduct. The ensuing uproar drove Harvard’s and Penn’s presidents to resign.

“What we’ve seen in the aftermath of October 7, is appalling silence and indifference and cowardice from so called leaders in our society from institutions that we once respected and admired,” he said. “And if we as a society cannot bring ourselves to condemn the murder of innocents with moral clarity, then we must ask, what are we becoming as a society? What does that reveal about the depths of antisemitism in the American soul?”

I had the honor of delivering the annual MLK sermon at Central Synagogue.  My speech touches on a range of topics and themes: October 7th, Jim Crow, Leo Frank, MLK, Elie Wiesel, silence, indifference, moral clarity, nonviolence, Israel, Am Yisrael Chai, Hatikvah, and hope. pic.twitter.com/stxqxzgyLi — Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) January 16, 2024

Central is a locus for some of the city’s wealthiest liberal Jewish families, many of whom are also firm supporters of Israel. Dr. Shonni Silverberg, the synagogue president, introduced Torres as a champion of progressive priorities as well as an advocate for Israel, and noted that he is the first openly LGBTQ representative elected from the Bronx.

“Ritchie remains steadfastly focused on the priorities of his South Bronx constituents, expanding access to safe and affordable housing, rebuilding New York economically and ensuring that no child goes hungry and that all receive a good education,” she said. “But he has also shown himself both in and out of Congress to be a great friend of the American Jewish community and Israel.”

--

==

I was shocked, but not surprised. Shocked at how openly, how loudly and how quickly pro-Hamas, pro-terrorism supporters emerged from their Postcolonial Studies, Gender Studies, Intersectional Feminism Studies and other fraudulent sewers in the ivory towers long before Israel ever fired a shot back.

I was not surprised, however, since antisemitism is a cornerstone of Intersectionality, as I posted about more than two years ago:

I naïvely expected that they'd go, "whoa, we didn't mean it like that, that's not what we were after," the standard No True Scotman tactic to distance their enlightened antisemitism from the antisemitism of murderous Islamic jihadists.

But they went the other way and leaned into it, cheering it on, while others tried to gaslight everyone with the usual array of denials that they weren't saying what they were openly saying, and that anyway, if they were saying it, that's not what they meant.

[darkmaga-returns]

With Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Iran joining the BRICS at the beginning of 2024, the group now embodies a group of influential states on the international stage, representing 46% of the world’s population and 29% of global GDP. While 2024 is synonymous with an important electoral year for several BRICS members, further enlargements could take place in the coming years. Are we heading for an alternative international order? What are the strategic advantages of the BRICS+? Can they embody the voice of the global South? Interview with Jean-Joseph Boillot, Associate Research Fellow at IRIS, specialised in the Indian economy and the emerging world.

A new mandate for Vladimir Putin in Russia, a historic setback for the African National Congress (ANC) in the South African elections, a narrow victory for Narendra Modi in India, new elections to come in Iran following the death of Ebrahim Raissi and in Ethiopia… 2024 is a pivotal electoral year for many BRICS+ countries. Should we expect any repercussions from these elections on the international agenda of the BRICS+ states?

Quite possibly, as the BRICS+ are a fairly heterogeneous group. All it takes, as we saw in Argentina, is for Javier Milei, a pro-American liberal, to be elected to leave this group. But what is interesting is to see that, even with the Indian elections, the results of which returned Narendra Modi with a small majority, most of the countries of the so-called ‘Global South’ are fundamentally united, with a strong internal consensus to finally free themselves from the Western international order known as Bretton Woods. So, with one or two exceptions, there can be changes of government without undermining this very strong consensus. And while some would like to see the BRICS+ as a confrontational anti-Western club, in reality it is clear that, with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt joining the group recently, the consensus is more along the lines of multi-alignment, rather like India, which has recently moved closer to the United States without severing its relations with Russia, for example. For the time being at least, elections in the developing world do not seem to be challenging this majority consensus in the South, and I am not talking about fake elections like the one in Russia with the election of Putin.

Since the expansion of the BRICS+ at the beginning of 2024, what analysis can be made of the group’s economic expansion? What are its strengths and strategic advantages?