The Last Week's Journal

In 2024 Australians observed some of their closest politically cultural relatives vote for a change of direction. Most notably in July when the UK public voted against Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party, in a landslide victory for Keir Starmer’s Labour Party. And in November when the U.S voted to take control of the White House away from The Democrats and return the power of the executive office to President-Elect Donald Trump. Meanwhile in Canada, questions of Justin Trudeau’s staying power are being asked as the nation heads towards an election in October.

With an election due in the first half of 2025 there is no doubt that Australian Prime Minister Anothony Albanese has noticed this anti-incumbent trend and will be keen to find a way to break free from the same fate as his political peers. Some pundits have been quick to predict that this trend will also claim Albanese as a victim. However, rather than through good campaigning or good governance, his most valuable tool may be the Australian electoral system, in particular it’s mandatory voting laws.

The driving force that has worked against sitting leaders since the COVID-19 pandemic has been inflation. An issue that Australia has not been immune from, nor an issue that Albanese and his Australian Labor Party has been able to dodge criticism over. The global reality is that most voters vote with their wallet, and when they start to feel financially worse off, motivation is lost to support their sitting government’s direction.

Inflation has been the common key election topic across all elections in 2024. Alongside the swings against incumbents, inflation as a hot topic has been the second common denominator across elections. Opposition parties have worked hard to brand incumbent leaders and governments with their inflation results.

In the 2024 U.S election the Trump campaign recognised the opportunity to connect their opposition to inflation and worked hard to paint Kamala Harris as the incumbent candidate in an election where there was none. By successfully holding Harris responsible for the negative perceptions of the Biden administration’s economic results, the Trump campaign team were able to make themselves victorious. While the Republican’s only increased their own vote tally by 3 million, the more consequential impact was a loss of 6 million votes for the democrats.

The GOP’s success in making Kamala Harris the incumbent proved to be vital in their campaign’s success and was the kay that many analysists have pointed to as the deciding factor of the election. Some pundits have even made the case that the view by voters that Harris was the incumbent was the sole reason for her defeat and that once she was viewed as the incumbent the rest of the campaign was inconsequential for either party.

This U.S result was an echo of what had occurred in the UK months prior, when the Labour Party won government with less votes than they had earned in their losing 2019 election campaign. Once again the more consequential movement was the loss of votes for the incumbent government, who earned less than half the votes that they had won in 2019.

This trend indicates that the current has not resulted from voters defecting to opposing candidates and parties, but has rather demotivated usual supporters from showing up to the polls. And in the cases of the U.K. and U.S, election campaigns are often less about winning voters from your opposition but rather winning over voters who would have otherwise stay at home. Therefore, the Labour Party and GOP did not win by purely expanding their own supporter base and show themselves to be worthy of their vote. Rather they successfully convinced millions of voters that their incumbent leaders weren’t worthy of their vote either.

However, unlike most world leaders running for re-election, Albanese does not have to worry about voters staying home. Australia’s mandatory voting policy for all eligible voters means that the impact of demotivated voter base is likely to be less impactful on The ALP’s re-election hopes. In the context of an Australian election, it is not enough for an opposition party to convince voters that the ruling government is headed in the wrong direction. Which has been an easy task for oppositions over the last year thanks to high global inflation. Peter Dutton’s led Liberal Party of Australia will need to go a step further and appeal to voters that they have a better strategy for Australia’s future. The global anti-incumbent trend has resulted from poorer voter turnout for sitting leaders and their parties rather than support for opposition. Thanks to mandatory voting, in Australia voter turnout is consistent

The successful opposition campaigns of 2024 were little about the new vision of the challengers. They were rather focused on the failure of the incumbent party and the sentiment of dissatisfaction in government. But in an electoral system that mandates all eligible parties show up to the polls, Albanese can count on the votes of those who can’t stomach his opposition. Despite what they think of his government’s performance, or how impacted they may be by the difficult economic climate. These voters are likely to hold their nose and cast their ballot and vote for the incumbent.

These voters that Anthony Albanese can depend on, are voters that don’t exist in most other elections around the world. In other democracies such as the previously cited U.S and U.K, voters who feel left behind by the sitting leaders and feel dissatisfied with the alternative choice stay home.

Ultimately, like the rest of the world leaders who have sought re-election since the spike in global inflation rates, Anthony Albanese will have his economic record put on trial. However, to look at the unfavourable electoral trend for incumbents and predict the same fate for Albanese may be reductive. Furthermore, the Australian 2025 election may provide an example of how even across democracies with similar political cultures and hot issues, the nuances in their systems of democracy can be all the difference.