This week, India's BJP under Narendra Modi has won the general elections but lost its absolute majority. The populist BJP will have to head a coalition government to maintain power:
On the other side of the world, Donald Trump has become the first (former and possibly future) president to be convicted in a criminal court:
In Poland, former president Aleksander Kwaśniewski has told the Polish Press Agency (PAP) that he believes the Polish case shows that populism can be stopped. (In October 2023 the populist coalition headed by Law and Justice lost power in the general election - however, winning the popular vote.)
Kwaśniewski said that he believed that the wave of anti-democratic populism can be stopped and in that spirit he lends his support to Marek Belka, candidate in the EU parliamentary elections and former prime minister and former central bank chief.
It is common for the left (in Poland represented here by Kwaśniewski and Belka) to group together populist parties under a single heading "right-wing anti-democratic populists". However, the populist movements in the USA, Poland and India are quite different.
Although all three populist parties share a sympathy for religious influences on politics and hostility to democratic checks and balances, Poland's Law and Justice success was above all based on a very real 500+ program - a social benefits program that was popular and ... rather left-wing.
Sources: PAP, X
pt