Global Courant 2023-05-20 13:06:47
They hail from far corners of the globe, speak several languages, span the ideological spectrum, and range in age from 43 to 80. But one thing President Biden and the other leaders of the Group of 7 meeting in Japan this weekend have in common? At home they are not so popular.
For Mr. Biden and his counterparts of the world’s leading industrial powers, it is a time of democratic discontent in which voters seem perpetually dissatisfied with the presidents and prime ministers they have elected. Each leader is in trouble for different reasons, but their shared struggles highlight the fragility of free societies at a time of deep political and cultural division.
That’s what has turned this year’s summit in Hiroshima, Japan, into something of a “lonely hearts club,” in the words of one specialist, where unloved leaders can commiserate with their domestic problems and exchange ideas on how to get back on track. grace of the world. their voters. A few days away from home to engage colleagues on the world stage can be a welcome relief for battered leaders, a chance to show off and pose and play the part of statesman shaping the forces of history.
But their problems have a way of following them and can limit their options and influence. Mr Biden started his morning on the opening day of Friday’s three-day rally not with an extensive discussion of state affairs, but with a half-hour call back to Washington to check negotiations with Republicans on the more prosaic but profound issues arising from it. of expenses and debts. He ended the day by leaving the leaders’ gala dinner on Miyajima Island about 90 minutes early to take another call from home about spending talks.
“The result,” says Suzanne Maloney, director of the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institution, “is an environment in which the leaders of the world’s most powerful democracies face a world that is increasingly challenging, even as they shaky ground in the house. This can fuel doubt in our allies and overconfidence in our adversaries, making us all more vulnerable.”
Survey data compiled by Morning Consult indicated in recent days that the leaders of only four of the 22 major countries surveyed had approval ratings above 50 percent: Narendra Modi of India, Alain Berset of Switzerland, Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico and Anthony Albanese of Australia. Mr Modi, who is in Hiroshima as an observer, is the envy of the city with an approval rating of 78 per cent, although this is in a country where religious divisions are exploited for political gain and became the prime minister’s main political opponent from the country seated Parliament for libel.
In contrast, no G7 leader could muster the support of a majority. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, just elected last fall, fared best with an approval rating of 49 percent, according to Morning Consult, followed by Mr. Biden with 42 percent, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada with 39 percent, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany with 34 percent, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Great Britain with 33 percent and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan with 31 percent. President Emmanuel Macron of France followed the pack with a dismal 25 percent.
Mr Kishida managed to fare better with his cabinet’s approval rating, which reached 52 percent in a recent poll. That was the first time it crossed 50 percent in eight months, fueling speculation that he could call an emergency election to take advantage while he is ahead. But it was unclear whether the new poll marked the start of a period of more sustained support, or simply a deviation before sliding again.
“My instinct is that the low polls are more a reflection of the growing polarization in some of these societies,” said Michael Abramowitz, president of Freedom House, a Washington-based organization that encourages democracy around the world. “Biden could pave the streets with gold and half the country would disapprove. It is clear that democracies need to do better, but there is little evidence that authoritarians can do better.”
Disillusionment with the current leadership is proving to be a test of the staying power of democracy at a time when it has come under strain. Mr. Abramowitz’s group, which follows democracy from country to country, has found that freedom has receded around the world for 17 years in a row, amid rollbacks in places like Hungary and Poland. While former President Donald J. Trump has called for the “termination” of the US Constitution to return him to power, Biden often says he sees his mission as defending democracy.
Amidst the general sourness, each leader faces different problems. Mr Macron, who was re-elected last year with 58.5 percent of the vote, saw his support plummet when he pushed for an increase in the retirement age from 62 to 64, sparking violent street protests. A poll released this month found that Mr. Macron would lose a rematch to Marine Le Penthe far-right leader he defeated last year.
Similarly, if elections were held now, recent studies show that Mr Sunak’s Conservative Party would lose to Britain’s Labor Party, Mr Trudeau’s Liberal Party would lose to Canada’s Conservative Party and the Herr Scholz’s Social Democratic Party would lose to the Christian Democratic Union in Germany.
Some political veterans attribute the weakness of G7 leaders to economic anxiety following the Covid-19 pandemic. “There seems to be a wave of dissatisfaction sweeping through our democracies,” said Carl Bildt, a former Prime Minister of Sweden. “I think the return of inflation, which is long gone, may have something to do with this.”
Inflation has certainly undermined support for Biden, along with the crisis on the southwestern border, fears of urban crime, anger over government spending and concerns about the president’s age as he asks voters to give him a second term, leaving him in power until he is 86.
The best thing Mr. Biden has in store for him politically right now is the chance that he faces Mr. Trump again next year, a rematch that his strategists assume would incentivize Democrats and independents who are unenthusiastic about the president, but to be unrelentingly against. to the former president. Still, polls suggest the president can beat his predecessor a second time, and Mr Biden’s colleagues in Japan are deeply concerned about Trump’s return to power, recalling him as a disruptive, even dangerous power. .
This is not the first time the Group of 7 has found itself under water politically at home with its leaders. But John J. Kirton, director of the G7 research group at the University of Toronto and a longtime student of the block, said such breakouts typically occur when the leaders’ homelands are ravaged by severe recessions or stagflation, which is not the case now.
“In such low polls, the G7 summit becomes the ultimate lonely hearts club, when the leaders share their political pain, thereby bonding with each other and discussing what works in each country to get it and maybe they are back on track ,’ said Mr Kirton. “This is one way the summit serves as the committee to re-elect the existing leaders at home.”
But Mr Abramowitz argued that the political problems of the G7 leaders should be taken as proof that democracy works. “Unlike authoritarian leaders, Democratic leaders will be voted out if they don’t get the job done,” he said. “Accountability is a strength of democracies, not a weakness.”
