US election top global risk no matter which candidate wins: Report

The world’s leading global political risk research and consulting firm has ranked the US 2024 presidential election as the greatest risk threatening the world in the new year.

The 2024 US presidential election will pose the greatest political risk to the world this year no matter who wins, the Eurasia Group said on Monday.

The political risk consultancy organization’s annual analysis cited the November 5 election as a test of “American democracy to a degree the nation hasn’t experienced in 150 years,” a reference to the 1861 to 1865 US Civil War.

It said, “The United States is already the world’s most divided and dysfunctional advanced industrial democracy. The 2024 election will exacerbate this problem no matter who wins,” adding that, “With the outcome of the vote essentially a coin toss (at least for now), the only certainty is continued damage to America’s social fabric, political institutions and international standing.”

Former US President Donald Trump, who is currently the Republican front-runner, could lose again to Biden, prompting the real estate mogul once more to allege massive fraud and “incite widespread intimidation campaigns” against US election officials and workers, the report said.

Also, if Biden is re-elected for a second term and Trump goes to jail on one of the myriad cases in which he is charged, the US could face an “unprecedented political crisis”, although large-scale violence remains unlikely, it said.

Meanwhile, the Biden campaign has pitched the 2024 election as a struggle to save democracy against Trump, whose supporters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in hopes of turning the election results.

However, if Biden loses to Trump in 2024, he is expected to concede. But many Democrats will also view Trump as illegitimate and some will refuse to confirm his victory citing the constitutional prohibition against anyone who has “engaged in insurrection” taking office, the Eurasia Group said.

Also, if Trump is re-elected for a second term, he is expected to “weaponize” the US government to go after rivals and crush dissent, the Eurasia Group added.

After the risk posed by the US election, the Eurasia Group ranked the US-linked Israeli-Palestine conflict in the Middle East as the second greatest global risk in 2024, with the Israeli regime’s months-long genocidal war on the Gaza Strip “likely to be only the first phase in an expanding conflict.”

Also, the US-led West’s proxy war by Ukraine against Russian troops in Donbas was cited by the Eurasia Group as the third greatest risk in 2024.

The Eurasia Group concluded by predicting that the Kiev leadership will continue to call on its forces to fight the stronger Russian troops on its eastern borders, likely facing another political and military blow from Moscow in 2024, especially if America elects Trump, who opposes the continuation of Washington’s all-out support to Kiev.

Ian Arthur Bremmer, an American political scientist, author, and entrepreneur, is the founder and president of the Eurasia Group