More than 50 countries are holding national elections in 2026, putting well over a billion people within reach of a ballot box.

But the number alone gives a misleading picture.

A competitive election that removed Hungary’s government after 16 years is not equivalent to a parliamentary vote in North Korea. Haiti’s announced election date does not mean authorities can safely open polling stations. Russia will elect a national legislature, but opposition restrictions, media control and planned voting in occupied Ukrainian territory raise fundamental questions about the process.

Some votes determine powerful presidencies. Others select parliaments that produce a prime minister. A few are being held under military governments or incomplete political transitions.

The International Foundation for Electoral Systems expects approximately 80 executive or legislative elections across 60 countries and territories during 2026. Its Election Guide counted 44 such contests completed by the middle of July.

This report uses a narrower definition: nationwide presidential and legislative elections in sovereign states, plus separate entries for Kosovo and the Palestinian territories. It excludes municipal and regional elections, party primaries, referendums, national by-elections and elections in overseas dependencies.

Dates and even the existence of some elections remain subject to change.

Hungary produced the year’s political earthquake

Europe’s most consequential completed election brought an end to Viktor Orbán’s 16 years in power.

Péter Magyar’s centre-right, pro-European Tisza party won a landslide on April 12, securing the two-thirds parliamentary majority needed to amend Hungary’s constitution. Orbán conceded after a campaign conducted within a political system his government had spent years reshaping to its advantage.

The result matters beyond Hungary.

Orbán had become a central figure in the international populist right and the European Union’s most persistent internal opponent on Ukraine, relations with Russia, migration and the rule of law. Hungary frequently delayed or weakened collective European decisions while maintaining close relations with Moscow and the Trump movement.

The new government has already begun dismantling elements of Orbán’s institutional system. Parliament approved constitutional changes in July aimed at removing the Orbán-era president and imposing political reforms. The Associated Press described the election as a landslide that gave Magyar sufficient power to make constitutional changes.

The deeper test is whether a democratic election can reverse institutional capture without allowing the winner’s supermajority to become another form of concentrated power.

Latin America has moved sharply to the right

Three elections have altered Latin America’s political direction.

Costa Rica elected Laura Fernández in February. She ran as the successor to conservative former president Rodrigo Chaves and won 48 per cent, comfortably clearing the threshold required to avoid a runoff.

In Colombia, conservative outsider Abelardo de la Espriella narrowly defeated progressive senator Iván Cepeda. De la Espriella had the endorsement of U.S. President Donald Trump and campaigned against outgoing President Gustavo Petro’s security and peace policies.

Peru then elected Keiko Fujimori on her fourth attempt. She defeated leftist Roberto Sánchez by approximately 49,600 votes out of more than 18 million valid ballots—a margin of roughly 0.27 percentage points. Peru’s official count gave Fujimori 50.135 per cent.

Her victory returns the Fujimori name to the presidency more than two decades after her father, Alberto Fujimori, left office amid an authoritarian collapse and corruption scandal. The result also restores Peru’s bicameral Congress, with voters electing a new Senate and Chamber of Deputies.

Together, the results suggest a regional backlash against incumbent governments, crime, institutional instability and unsuccessful negotiations with armed groups. They do not necessarily demonstrate a single ideological wave: each contest was driven by distinct domestic failures.

The region’s largest country, Brazil, will provide the more decisive test in October.

Brazil: Lula, Bolsonaro’s political heir and the direction of a continent

Brazil will elect its president and National Congress on October 4, with a presidential runoff on October 25 if no candidate wins a majority of valid votes.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is seeking another term. Former president Jair Bolsonaro remains ineligible to run after electoral authorities barred him from office until 2030 for abusing political power and attacking confidence in the voting system.

That has shifted attention to Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the former president’s eldest son, as a possible or expected standard-bearer for the Brazilian right. Goiás Governor Ronaldo Caiado has also presented himself as a third option.

The election will decide more than who governs Brazil.

At stake are Amazon protection, Brazil’s relationship with China and the United States, the political future of Bolsonarismo, the independence of institutions that prosecuted the January 2023 attacks in Brasília and the durability of Latin America’s rightward shift.

It also presents an unusual generational contest: Lula would be pursuing a fourth non-consecutive presidential term, while the strongest right-wing brand may pass from Bolsonaro to his son.

Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court is publishing the official election timetable and rules.

Israel’s first national judgment on nearly three years of war

Israel’s election on October 27 may be the most internationally consequential vote remaining in 2026.

Parliament moved to dissolve itself in July as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu struggled to hold his coalition together. The election will be Israel’s first since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack and the prolonged wars and regional confrontations that followed.

Voters will be judging:

  • The government’s failure to prevent the October 7 attack
  • The conduct and human cost of the Gaza war
  • The fate of remaining hostages
  • Relations with the United States
  • Settlement expansion and the future of the West Bank
  • The military-service exemption sought by ultra-Orthodox parties
  • Netanyahu’s corruption trial
  • Attempts to weaken judicial, prosecutorial and media oversight

Former military chief Gadi Eisenkot has emerged as a major opposition figure. His personal loss—his son was killed while serving in Gaza—gives his campaign an authority that is difficult for Netanyahu to dismiss as detached from the war.

Netanyahu remains a formidable political survivor. Israel’s proportional system also means the largest party does not automatically form the government; the decisive question is which bloc can assemble at least 61 seats.

The election could produce another Netanyahu government, a broad anti-Netanyahu coalition or another period of deadlock. Any result will affect Gaza, Iran, the Palestinian territories and Washington’s Middle East policy.

The Associated Press reported that Parliament’s dissolution came as Israel approached the third anniversary of the attack and Netanyahu faced a renewed fight for political survival.

The United States: a midterm election with global consequences

Americans will elect the entire House of Representatives and approximately one-third of the Senate on November 3.

No president is being elected, but the midterms will determine whether Donald Trump retains a workable congressional majority for the second half of his term.

Control of either chamber would affect:

  • Federal spending and taxation
  • Immigration enforcement
  • Military and financial support for allies
  • Investigations of the administration
  • Judicial and executive appointments
  • Impeachment proceedings
  • Trade and tariff policy
  • Congressional certification procedures ahead of 2028

American midterms normally function as a referendum on the sitting president. In 2026, the stakes are heightened by disputes over executive power, election administration and the administration’s efforts to change federal voting rules.

The decentralized American system means the election will actually consist of hundreds of state-administered contests, but the House and Senate are national institutions and the cumulative result will alter American foreign and domestic policy.

Haiti has an election date—but may not have an election

Haiti’s transitional authorities scheduled presidential and legislative elections for August 30, with a possible second round on December 6.

If held credibly, they would begin restoring national institutions in a country that has operated without elected national lawmakers and has not held a presidential election in a decade.

The problem is physical control.

Armed groups dominate large areas, including much of Port-au-Prince. People have been displaced, candidates and election workers face severe security risks, and some communities may be inaccessible.

In May, Prime Minister Didier Fils-Aimé said voting would occur when armed gangs had been defeated—a condition that made the August timetable appear increasingly doubtful. Independent analysis has questioned whether elections conducted without territorial access would create legitimacy or merely formalize another weak government.

Haiti is therefore one of the year’s most important elections even if no ballots are cast. Whether the date survives will reveal whether the international security mission and transitional government have created enough order for meaningful civilian politics.

The August 30 date should be treated as tentative, not a promise.

Palestine: the first legislative vote since 2006?

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has scheduled legislative elections for November 28, potentially the first such vote since Hamas won in 2006.

The announcement immediately raises difficult questions:

  • Can voting occur in Gaza amid destruction, displacement and Israeli military control?
  • Will Israel permit voting in East Jerusalem?
  • Can Hamas participate, and under what conditions?
  • Will rival Palestinian factions accept the result?
  • Can candidates campaign freely in both Gaza and the West Bank?
  • Who will provide election security?
  • Would Israel, the United States and European governments recognize a government involving Hamas?

A successful election could give Palestinian institutions a legitimacy they have lacked for years. A partial or tightly controlled vote could deepen the division between Gaza and the West Bank.

The parliamentary election is supposed to precede a presidential election in 2027. Abbas, now in his 90s, was elected to a four-year term in 2005 and has remained in office without another presidential vote.

For that reason, the election’s importance lies not only in who wins. It is a test of whether a unified Palestinian political system still exists.

South Sudan is promising its first national election

South Sudan has announced presidential and legislative elections for December 22—its first national vote since becoming independent in 2011.

The country’s transition has already been extended repeatedly. Political violence, displacement, incomplete constitutional work, weak institutions and continuing tension between President Salva Kiir and rival Riek Machar all threaten the timetable.

Authorities insist the election will proceed. The lack of a completed permanent constitution, reliable census and secure political environment raises doubts about whether it can be inclusive or credible.

Another postponement would extend an unelected transition. A badly administered vote could trigger renewed conflict.

South Sudan therefore presents a choice between two risks: voting before institutions are ready or delaying democracy yet again.

Bangladesh voted after revolution—but without its former governing party

Bangladesh held parliamentary elections on February 12 following the 2024 uprising that drove Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina from power.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party won a commanding majority. Jamaat-e-Islami became the second-largest force, while Hasina’s Awami League—previously the country’s dominant party—was barred from participating.

The vote restored elected government after a caretaker period and approved constitutional changes through a simultaneous referendum. Yet excluding the party that had governed since 2009 complicates claims of a fully inclusive democratic reset.

Bangladesh’s election is interesting precisely because both interpretations contain truth: it ended an unelected transition and reflected the uprising against Hasina, but it did so without the previous governing party on the ballot.

Zambia will test a celebrated democratic transition

Zambia votes for president and Parliament on August 13.

President Hakainde Hichilema won office in 2021 after years as an opposition leader, defeating an incumbent who accepted the result. That transition made Zambia an important democratic success story in southern Africa.

Hichilema now has to defend his own record.

His government points to debt restructuring, improved foreign reserves and new mining investment. Critics cite living costs, electricity shortages and a narrowing tolerance for opposition activity.

The election will test whether Zambia can preserve competitive transfers of power while managing debt, copper wealth and pressure on civil liberties. The Electoral Commission of Zambia has set out the formal timetable.

Russia will vote while continuing its war

Russia is scheduled to elect the State Duma on September 20.

The result is unlikely to threaten President Vladimir Putin’s control. Genuine opposition has been constrained by imprisonment, exile, disqualification, censorship and the designation of organizations as extremist or foreign agents.

The more consequential issue may be where Russia attempts to administer the vote.

Plans to include occupied Ukrainian territory would turn the election into another instrument for asserting annexation. Ukraine and most Western governments would not recognize voting conducted under occupation as legitimate.

The Russian contest therefore matters less as a competition for power than as evidence of how electoral machinery can be used to reinforce wartime territorial claims.

Myanmar’s phased election did not end military rule

Myanmar’s military-organized parliamentary voting extended into January after beginning in phases.

Large areas affected by civil war could not participate normally, and major democratic forces were excluded or dismantled after the 2021 coup.

The military presented the process as a return to constitutional government. Its opponents regarded it as an attempt to convert battlefield and administrative control into electoral legitimacy.

Myanmar illustrates why the existence of ballots cannot be the only measure of an election. Candidate access, territorial coverage, freedom from coercion and the possibility of the government losing are equally important.

The following list covers direct national presidential and legislative elections. Dates through July 19 are completed; later dates are scheduled or expected as of July 20.

January

  • Benin — January 11: National Assembly
  • Myanmar — January 11 and 25: Later phases of parliamentary voting
  • Uganda — January 15: President and Parliament
  • Portugal — January 18: First round of presidential election

February

  • Costa Rica — February 1: President and Legislative Assembly
  • Japan — February 8: House of Representatives
  • Portugal — February 8: Presidential runoff
  • Thailand — February 8: House of Representatives
  • Barbados — February 11: House of Assembly
  • Bangladesh — February 12: Parliament
  • Laos — February 22: National Assembly

March

  • Nepal — March 5: House of Representatives
  • Colombia — March 8: House of Representatives and Senate
  • North Korea — March 15: Supreme People’s Assembly
  • Republic of the Congo — March 15: President
  • Vietnam — March 15: National Assembly
  • Slovenia — March 22: National Assembly
  • Denmark — March 24: Parliament

April

  • Djibouti — April 10: President
  • Benin — April 12: President
  • Hungary — April 12: National Assembly
  • Peru — April 12–13: President, Senate and Chamber of Deputies
  • Bulgaria — April 19: National Assembly
  • Antigua and Barbuda — April 30: House of Representatives

May

  • Bahamas — May 12: House of Assembly
  • Cape Verde — May 17: National Assembly
  • Cyprus — May 24: House of Representatives
  • Malta — May 30: Parliament
  • Colombia — May 31: First round of presidential election
  • Guinea — May 31: National Assembly

June

  • Ethiopia — June 1: House of Peoples’ Representatives
  • Armenia — June 7: National Assembly
  • Kosovo — June 7: Assembly
  • Peru — June 7: Presidential runoff
  • Colombia — June 21: Presidential runoff

July

  • Algeria — July 2: People’s National Assembly
  • São Tomé and Príncipe — July 19: President

August

  • Zambia — August 13: President and National Assembly
  • Kazakhstan — August 23: Newly constituted national legislature, the Kurultai
  • Haiti — August 30: President, Chamber of Deputies and Senate; increasingly uncertain

September

  • Sweden — September 13: Parliament
  • Russia — September 20: State Duma
  • Morocco — September 23: House of Representatives
  • São Tomé and Príncipe — September 27: National Assembly

October

  • Latvia — October 3: Parliament
  • Bosnia and Herzegovina — October 4: Tripartite presidency and House of Representatives
  • Brazil — October 4: President, Chamber of Deputies and Senate
  • Czech Republic — October 9–10: First round of elections for part of the Senate
  • Brazil — October 25: Possible presidential runoff
  • Israel — October 27: Knesset

November

  • United States — November 3: House of Representatives and part of the Senate
  • New Zealand — November 7: Parliament
  • Bulgaria — November 8: President
  • Cape Verde — November 15: President
  • Palestinian territories — November 28: Legislative Council
  • Czech Republic: Senate runoff where required

December

  • Gambia — December 5: President
  • Guinea-Bissau — December 6: President and National People’s Assembly
  • Haiti — December 6: Tentative second round
  • South Sudan — December 22: President and national legislature

Expected in 2026, but no firm date

  • Cameroon: National Assembly
  • Fiji: Parliament; constitutionally possible timing may extend into early 2027
  • Somalia: Parliament

National selections not decided by a direct nationwide vote

Several countries are also choosing national officeholders indirectly in 2026. These are important but are not equivalent to general elections.

  • India: Members of the Rajya Sabha are being elected in several rounds by state legislators.
  • Estonia: Parliament or a subsequent electoral college will select the president.
  • France: Part of the Senate will be renewed through an indirect electoral college.
  • Hungary: Parliament is expected to choose a president following the removal of the Orbán-era officeholder.
  • Kosovo: Parliament is due to select a president.
  • Laos, Myanmar, North Korea and Vietnam: Legislatures selected national executives after tightly controlled parliamentary processes.
  • Iraq: Parliament selected the country’s president.
  • Iran: The Assembly of Experts selected a supreme leader following the death of the previous officeholder.

The volume of voting is less important than five recurring questions.

First, can elections actually remove governments? Hungary demonstrated that even a heavily tilted system can produce a transfer of power. Russia and North Korea offer no comparable uncertainty.

Second, can voting occur across the claimed territory? That question hangs over Haiti, Palestine, Somalia and South Sudan.

Third, will defeated parties accept the outcome? Peru’s margin was exceptionally small, while American election administration remains intensely contested.

Fourth, will voters continue punishing incumbents? Results in Hungary, Colombia and other countries suggest a powerful anti-establishment mood, but Brazil and Israel will provide larger tests.

Finally, can elections repair institutions—or merely redistribute control over them? Winning a vote is only the beginning. Hungary’s new supermajority, Bangladesh’s post-uprising government and any future Haitian or South Sudanese administration will be judged by whether they build systems capable of surviving the next election.

That is the real global story of 2026.

The year contains dozens of election days, but the decisive democratic measure comes afterward: whether the winner can govern, whether the loser can remain free and whether citizens will be allowed to make a different choice next time.

Calendar current as of July 20, 2026. Dates described as tentative, expected or undated may change. Referendums, local elections, party primaries, by-elections and elections in non-sovereign dependencies were excluded.