Elections roundup: what changed in October 2026, and the votes still to come

October was the busiest month of the political year across the 47 countries tracked in the Politics Ledger. Three results stand out: a narrow incumbent win in Brazil, a hung Knesset in Israel and a parliamentary deadlock in Sweden. Together they show how much of the world’s politics now runs through close, fragmented contests rather than landslides.

Brazil: a fourth term for Lula, by less than four points

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won the 25 October runoff with 51.8% against Flávio Bolsonaro’s 48.2%, after trailing in the first round on 4 October. The margin is wider than his razor-thin 2022 win over Jair Bolsonaro, but it still leaves the country split almost down the middle. For markets the question is fiscal: Lula’s government has to keep spending commitments within the fiscal framework while Brazil’s central bank keeps policy rates among the highest in the G20 (see the Monetary Policy dashboard).

Israel: no bloc reaches 61

The 27 October Knesset election left no bloc with the 61 seats needed to govern. Likud finished first with 27 seats, and Arab-led lists took 18 to 19, which makes them pivotal to any arithmetic that excludes the right-wing bloc. Israel has now held six national elections since 2019. Each round of coalition-building delays budgets and leaves defense spending, which reached 8.8% of GDP in 2024 according to SIPRI data in the Defense Ledger, to be set by caretaker governments.

Sweden: a caretaker government after a failed vote

The Social Democrats finished first in the 13 September election with 99 seats, but neither bloc won a majority. On 15 October the Riksdag rejected Magdalena Andersson as prime minister by 248 votes to 99, leaving Ulf Kristersson in office as caretaker. Sweden’s rules allow four failed votes before a fresh election is forced, so the next few weeks matter.

The wider pattern

Across the 47 countries, eleven governments now rule without a majority in the lower house, and eight countries have had a change of leader in the past twelve months. That list includes Morocco, where Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri became the first woman to lead a government after her party, PAM, won 97 seats on 23 September; Colombia, where Abelardo de la Espriella replaced Gustavo Petro in August; and the United Kingdom, where Andy Burnham became prime minister in July after Keir Starmer resigned.

Not every vote was competitive. Russia’s September Duma election gave United Russia 349 of 450 seats on an official turnout of 59.8%, amid reports of pervasive irregularities and online-voting manipulation. Contests like these are flagged as not free or fair in the ledger’s results charts, so their headline numbers should not be compared directly with those from competitive elections.

What to watch next

• United States, 3 November 2026: midterm elections for all 435 House seats and 35 Senate seats. Republicans currently hold the House 218 to 214, so a handful of races decide control.
• South Africa, 4 November 2026: local government elections, the first big test for the parties in the national unity government.
• Spain, 29 November 2026: a snap general election after Pedro Sánchez dissolved the Cortes on 6 October.
• Nigeria, 16 January 2027: presidential and National Assembly elections in Africa’s most populous country.
• France, April 2027: the first round of the presidential election, with Emmanuel Macron unable to stand again.

Each of these countries has a political profile with its current leadership, seat counts and history. The election calendar in the Politics Ledger updates as dates are confirmed.