Joshua Kurlantzick
As I have noted in many prior articles, despite the wave of Gen Z protests that have swept through Asia in recent years and carried over to other parts of the globe (from Togo to Madagascar to the Caribbean), in the past year most of the youth protests led to minimal results at the ballot box, at least in Asia.
Since the beginning of the year, voters in Thailand chose a conservative, pro-military party to lead the new ruling coalition, while the progressive People’s Party, the party most aligned with the Gen Z demonstrators that rocked Bangkok several years ago, underperformed its predicted results. In Japan, recent elections resulted in a massive victory for the Liberal Democratic Party, the ultimate establishment party. And in February in Bangladesh, where in June and July 2024 student-led protests had ousted Sheikh Hasina and her increasingly authoritarian Awami League government, the leading Gen Z party won six seats in national elections. Meanwhile, the Awami League’s establishment counterpart, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, dominated voting and controls parliament.
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