Irish Examiner view: Tenets of democracy to be tested in high stakes elections

Elections in Brazil, Serbia, Israel and the US will go far in deciding how the landscape of global politics will take shape in the near future

US president Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump after casting their early-voting ballots for the 2026 midterm elections at the Palm Beach County Library in West Palm Beach, Florida. Picture: Mark Schiefelbein/AP

Starting yesterday and across the next 10 days, the world will see four major elections which will indicate to us whether or nor the authoritarian right has gained ground or is slowly losing its appeal to pro-democracy forces.

Yesterday, the citizens of Brazil and Serbia went to the polls and began a sequence which could profoundly reshape global politics, driving the world further along its current autocratic arc or marking something of a return to democratic norms.

Tomorrow, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu will face his electorate, having enjoyed 19 of the past 30 years in power in Israel and overseen a prolonged period of regressive democracy and globally condemned human rights abuses, including accusations of genocide.

Then, on November 3, the imperial presidency of Donald Trump will face a reckoning and, if polling is accurate, is looking at a severe rebuke from American voters with at least one chamber of congress — possibly two — almost certain to fall to his Democrat opposition.

The outcomes of each of these elections will resonate powerfully across global politics and especially so across Europe, where in the coming 12 months, there will be massive elections in France, Spain, and Italy, in which the tenets of democracy will also be tested.

Yesterday in Serbia, the electorate went to the polls on a contest which could see the end of a 12-year run in office for the authoritarian Aleksander Vucic, who is facing a very unconventional challenge from a student-led protest movement fielding a slew of academic and technocratic candidates running on a simple slogan: “Serbia or Mafia?”

Brazil also went to the polls yesterday with a candidate from the far right heading the polls against the incumbent, socialist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Flavio Bolsanaro, the son of jailed former president Jair, has promised to change Brazil’s constitution, pardon his father, and rewrite environmental restrictions, a move which could doom the Amazon rainforest.

Both elections will have a pivotal regional influence and are likely to have a spillover effect in neighbouring territories and beyond.

By the time the votes in the US are counted next Tuesday week, the world could look like a vastly different place. Not alone are the four elections closely bunched together, but each has been heavily interwoven with the other.

Trump’s Make America Great Again movement, and Trump himself, has given Vucic, Netanyahu, and Bolsonaro open and vocal support, which in turn has led to support from them for Trump’s naked and unashamed watering down of America’s judicial and political systems.

Victory for Bolsonaro and Vucic in yesterday’s Brazilian and Serbian elections would bolster counterparts in other countries while, conversely, a win for their pro-democratic opponents would give hope and encouragement to their global allies.

The odds in each case are different, but the stakes are extremely high indeed.

Not by the book

Ireland has long been recognised globally as an education powerhouse and the standards here are accepted to be among the highest in the world.

Against that backdrop, news that students who have completed a diploma course in physical education — one available through a private college and costing many thousands in fees — have been unable to register with the Teaching Council here is very concerning.

At issue, as confirmed by education minister Hildegarde Naughton, is that students who completed the diploma in question from a Dublin institute between 2022 and 2025 have not met the Teaching Council’s requirements and therefore cannot teach.

While some of the affected students have now completed additional modules aimed at addressing shortfalls in their regular coursework, their situation has still not been regularised.

According to the minister recently, of the applicants assessed to date, the completion of these additional modules has not resulted in them achieving the necessary registration standards. The numbers involved are understood to be in double digits.

The minister has said that the Teaching Council will liaise with each individual student that contacts it to confirm whether or not any further proposed studies will satisfy identified shortfalls, while the Quality and Qualifications Ireland organisation has said it is aware of concerns about the information provided to learners about the course.

This is undoubtedly a worrying situation for all educators and students and needs to be addressed as a matter of some urgency.

Record breaker

Despite having to cope with two separate stormy weather events, the 48th annual Guinness Cork Jazz Festival was yet another massive success.

Huge crowds thronged the city for the annual extravaganza, which finally winds down tonight after four frenetic days of music and craic.

Not only were Corkonians intent on enjoying the citywide festival, but they were joined by thousands of others from across the island and abroad and pubs, restaurants, and hotels enjoyed a bumper weekend.

Although founded in modest circumstances in 1978 by the then manager of Cork Metropole Hotel — the late Jim Mountjoy, who needed to fill an October weekend gap in his calendar cause by a cancelled bridge tournament — the festival has gone on to become one of the world’s most renowned jazz festivals, drawing top global names in the genre to the city year-on-year.

What began as a local hotel initiative has grown to the point where superstars such as Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Oscar Peterson, Dave Brubeck, Buddy Rich, and Herbie Hancock all starred at the festival at some point in its 48-year history.

And this year, yet again, the festival set new records for attendances and money spent across the city, providing a much-needed boost for publicans, restaurateurs, hotels, B&Bs, and every other element of the food, accommodation and entertainment sectors.

It has survived global financial crashes, storms, and worldwide pandemics and, this year, once again, proved the point that people just love letting their hair down. And no better place to do so than Cork.