Unofficial results indicate that Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto, a polarizing candidate who has been accused of human rights abuses and whose connections to a past dictator have worried some Indonesians, has won the presidential election in Indonesia.
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The result sparks concern among those who fear for the future of democracy in Indonesia, though it is too early to know the true repercussions of the election. The outcome, however, could prove to be the latest example of a broader trend this century. Autocracies – governments in which one person possesses unlimited power – are on the rise.
“The world is far into what’s widely called a democratic recession, which started back in the mid-2000s,” says Thomas Carothers, a senior fellow and democracy specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an independent think tank that analyzes global issues.
The percentage of countries with closed autocracies has fluctuated somewhat in the 21st century, but more recently the share has either gone up or stayed the same each year from 2018-2022, according to March 2023 assessment by the independent research institute V-Dem, with analysis by Our World in Data. Meanwhile, the percentage of electoral democracies – political systems that hold meaningful, free and fair elections with multiple political parties – has gone down.
Taking a longer view, there are far fewer........