2024 Predictions

[paserbyp]

Making predictions is an unforgiving art. As Donald Trump showed in 2016, even outcomes that you might expect to be dead certainties may turn out to be wrong. Still, the mistakes can be revealing, more so than successful forecasts. Even faulty predictions can be helpful or entertaining.

So here’s an exercise to kick off the new year—and one to revisit later. I’ll set out what seem to me to be six safe predictions about politics in 2024. Individually, each might look blindingly obvious. But, collectively, will they all come to pass? My new-year challenge to you is to identify which of the following predictions (if any) will turn out to be untrue on December 31st 2024:

I. Vladimir Putin, on the back of “winning” another presidential election, remains ensconced as Russia’s dictator.

II. After an election contested in November by Donald Trump and Joe Biden, one of these two men is preparing to begin his second term as America’s president. (Supporters of the loser, meanwhile, are screaming about impending catastrophe.)

III. Narendra Modi, several months after a thumping springtime victory in India’s general election, is in his third five-year term as prime minister.

IV. Xi Jinping, a sprightly 71-year-old, remains the uncontested leader of China, despite a year of economic wobbles and underperformance.

V. Rishi Sunak has led the British Conservative Party to one of its most disastrous election results in history (or will soon do so, according to the polls). Sir Keir Starmer is Britain’s new prime minister (or polls say he soon will be).

VI. Binyamin Netanyahu, having been Israel’s prime minister for more than 16 years in all, is out of office and on trial for corruption.