From India to Indonesia, 2024 is Asia’s election year. But how much will anything change?

Modi’s on course for a third term, Jokowi’s lining up a new political dynasty and the opposition in both Pakistan and Bangladesh have been hamstrung

Rights advocates say it reflects the creep of authoritarianism across Asia – with established, elderly leaders likely to be the biggest winners

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Election workers stack ballot boxes last month at a warehouse in South Sumatra. More than 200 million Indonesians will be eligible to vote in the presidential elections on February 14. Photo: AFP

Aidan Jones,Amrit Dhillon,Tom HussainandAmy Sood

Published: 9:30am, 6 Jan 2024Updated: 5:13pm, 8 Jan 2024

Last October, an Indonesian court ruling allowed the eldest son of outgoing President Joko Widodo to run for vice-president in next month’s polls despite him being 36 years old – four years short of the legal threshold to bid for high office.

The ruling revealed the “irony” of hard-won democratic principles being shunted aside in favour of the narrow interests of those given a mandate by the people, according to Amalinda Saviriani, an Indonesian student leader during the long protest years against former dictator Suharto, who resigned in 1998.

“We have these formal institutions of democracy,” she told This Week in Asia. “But it all depends on who has the power … and how they choose to adjust and change these things.”

Indonesian President Joko Widodo speaks at a summit last month. After a decade in power, the immensely popular leader will be stepping down this year. His son is running for vice-president. Photo: EPA-EFE

Hundreds of millions of voters will cast their ballots in Asia this year, as a quirk of the electoral calendar brings perhaps the largest-ever democratic exercise to the world’s most populous region.

Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia and India will vote – in that order – for a collage of mostly elderly incumbents, would-be autocrats, dynasts and veteran political schemers.