Frustration with Political Representation Leads to Violence

Frustration with established institutions of political representation around the globe is leading to the formation of extra-institutional political movements and resulting in a trend towards expanding political and politicised violence.

Directed towards candidates, representatives, and movements, political violence is the result of political goals being sought through alternative means. In contexts where there is an established and powerful non-state structure of organised violence, political violence expresses itself as intra-elite violence over access to political power.

In contrast, politicised violence, often directed toward marginalised groups, has expanded as a result of growing exclusionary and illiberal narratives.

India

India’s control of organised violence is largely robust but some provinces and regions have established and powerful non-state structures.

Electoral violence has been a consistent feature of India’s politics, especially in regions such as Jammu and Kashmir and the country’s northeastern states, in addition to the states where Maoist-Naxalite insurgency has had a strong presence. These extra-state groups, attempting to exert influence over the political system, violently attacks on polling stations. It may often involve clashes between rival political parties and voter intimidation.

Although, in recent years, the intensity and frequency of this violence have decreased, clashes between the supporters of various political parties were recorded during the 2024 election in the states of West Bengal and Bihar, leading to deaths and injuries. States reeling with armed conflict, such as Manipur, also reported instances of violent clashes and armed violence during the 2024 elections. There was a rerun of the election ordered for 11 polling stations.

Read more in our report on the 2024 Indian Election.

Indonesia

A notable instance of electoral processes descending into violence in Indonesia occurred in 2019, when former minister of defense and now the president Prabowo Subianto’s challenge to the election results sparked riots in Jakarta. The outburst demonstrated that when large segments of the population feel disenfranchised and believe they are not represented by the government, their frustration may escalate into violence as they seek to have their voices heard. In the lead-up to the 2024 elections, there was some apprehension regarding the potential for similar unrest.

Increased police presence during key moments played a preventative role, but there was also a significant political shift. Hard-right nationalist populism now widely viewed as discredited and ineffective while “Jokowiism”, soft-nationalist technocratic populism, has solidified itself as the dominant political paradigm in Indonesia. Importantly, the inclusion of Subianto in Jokowi’s (former president) second government likely played a pivotal role in reducing the chances of violence in the 2024 election, as many of Subianto’s followers felt their grievances were being addressed within the framework of the ruling government.

Read more in our report on the 2024 Indonesia Election.

Pakistan

Violence by non-state actors, such as armed militant groups, during 2024 general elections has been a recurrent trend in Pakistan.

The elections were marked by heightened tensions and violence, including attacks by the separatist insurgent groups on polling infrastructure. They also targeted political candidates, polling stations, and voters, resulting in multiple deaths and injuries. This has been most prominent in the politically marginalised regions and provinces beset with insurgencies, which have limited access to central political power structures.

It illustrates how a variety of military and militant groups vie for political power and control in a system with established and powerful non-state structures of organised violence.

Read more in our report on the 2024 Pakistan Election.

Mozambique

The historical context of prior fraudulent election results set the stage for heightened tensions between people in contested regions and the ruling party.

During the 2024 election campaign, violent confrontations erupted between FRELIMO supporters and opposition groups in key contested areas such as Nampula and Sofala, marked by widespread voter intimidation, especially in rural regions. This unrest culminated in the first nationwide protest against the disputed election results on 21 October.

State forces responded with violent repression, dispersing demonstrators with live ammunition in several cities and targeting journalists with tear gas canisters while they interviewed independent presidential candidate and anti-government protest leader Mondlane in Maputo. As violence escalated, high profile figures accused of escalating the protests, and citizens accused of participating, fled the country, and many sought refuge in South Africa and Malawi.

Read more in our report on the 2024 Mozambique Election.

South Africa

Due to xenophobic perceptions of minority groups and the complicity of media in stoking these underlying tensions, South Africa has had an unfortunate recent history in terms of (misplaced) political violence.

Many South Africans, especially the poor, blamed foreigners for taking jobs and resources, exacerbating tensions as Nigerian immigrants were unfairly associated with criminal activity. Political leaders and media also played a role in inflaming these sentiments, and the government’s inadequate response allowed the violence to escalate, culminating in 2019 widespread protests, strained diplomatic relations between South Africa and Nigeria as families fled and celebrities from across the continent boycotted the country.

The 2021 South African unrest, also known as the July riots or Zuma riots, was a wave of civil unrest that took place in the KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces. That was triggered by the imprisonment of former President Jacob Zuma for contempt of court. Protests against his incarceration led to widespread rioting and looting, much of which was attributed to individuals not necessarily supporting Zuma, but fueled by economic hardships, including job layoffs and inequality exacerbated by COVID-19 policies. It marked the worst violence South Africa had seen since the end of Apartheid.

Read more in our report on the 2024 South Africa Election.

Georgia

The Georgian election has been a focal point for Georgia’s transition towards greater authoritarianism through the expansion of state and extra-legal violence.

Pre-election, large-scale protests against the transparency of foreign influence bill had been met with excessive force from the police and security services, which served to disrupt demonstrators’ democratic right to express opposition to law-making.

Post-election, however, direct action, in the form of mass protest, against the manipulated result has become the only means of expressing political frustrations. The response to this protest was more than 300 cases of torture of arrested protestors, with targeted extra-legal violence towards journalists, opposition politicians and civil society activists, allegedly carried out by titushky, pro-government enforcers with no legal recourse to the state, Amnesty International reported.

It has greatly exceeded the levels of violence seen in the pre-election environment. This represents a shift from ruling party Georgian Dream’s subversion of democracy, to a clearer anti-democratic system of repression.

Read more in our report on the 2024 Georgia Election.

The United Kingdom

Despite an infamous 2021 report by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities arguing that the UK no longer has a rigged system for minorities, politicised violence has been directed against marginalised groups.

In the aftermath of the election, violent riots and anti-immigration demonstrations took place in 27 UK cities and towns sparked by a false claim that a Muslim asylum seeker was responsible for a triple murder in Southport, a tragic escalation associated with a wider misinformation environment that frames immigration as a threat to British culture.

Read more in our report on the 2024 United Kingdom Election.

The United States

The 2024 election was marred by heightened political violence. Presidential candidate Donald Trump was shot and wounded in his ear as a result of an assassination attempt on a open-air campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

Shortly after the election, 26 years old Luigi Mangione was arrested for the alleged shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. His alleged motivation was frustration with the exploitation and greed of the American private healthcare industry and the lack of political will to regulate it due to lobbying. Traditional media outlets were shocked to discover that Mangione swiftly became a social media folk hero, as his alleged motivation chimed with the experience of many American citizens.

These episodes became continuations of political violence in recent years in the US, the stark example of which is the 2020 January 6 Capitol insurrection, reflecting frustrations over political representation. Driven by false claims of widespread election fraud in the 2020 election, Trump supporters broke into on the US Capitol building to attempt to prevent the certification of the election results. The riots saw a range of groups, each influenced by conspiracy theories that portrayed a deep state as preventing authentic political representation.

Read more in our report on the 2024 United States Election.

Mexico

Political violence during the 2024 election in Mexico marked the worst period of electoral violence ever recorded in the country’s history, with 320 reported attacks on political candidates, including the assassination of at least 37 individuals.

This violence was primarily driven by intense intra-party rivalries and the involvement of organized crime groups, which sought to co-opt political figures to safeguard their criminal interests. These groups, often operating with impunity, have been particularly focused on local candidates, as their primary concern is securing influence in the regions where they conduct illicit activities.  

Such localized targeting not only destabilizes the electoral process but also severely undermines democracy in Mexico, fostering a climate of fear and preventing many potential candidates from entering the political arena. The involvement of criminal groups in politics serves to exacerbate the challenges facing the country’s fragile democratic institutions.

Read more in our report on the 2024 Mexico Election.