Analysis
Democratic Security
The Open Question of Rumen Radev
23 April 2026
5 June 2025
After a record number of voters went to the polls in 2024, elections in 2025 are testing whether democracy can still deliver – or be dismantled from within.
Elections are a foundation of democracy. Yet increasingly, they are being co-opted by those intent on undermining democracy itself.
Populists have weaponised elections to gain power and dismantle institutional safeguards, often governing for their base and not the wider citizenry. Examples from Poland, Slovakia and the US show how electoral integrity either serves as a democratic bulwark or is hollowed out to enable autocratic consolidation.
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