Comando Vermelho, one of Brazil’s largest criminal organizations, has so firmly installed itself in the Amazon that it has become a key partner of narcos and armed groups in Peru and Colombia. Since 2023, it has managed to best other rival criminal groups, such as Os Crías, Primeiro Comando da Capital and the Familia do Norte, and has started dominating local trafficking in Colombia’s Leticia, capital of the Amazonas department, and in the nearby Brazilian municipality of Tabatinga. Its control over the latter city, with a population of 120,000 and the largest in the three-country border region, is notorious.

The most blatant evidence of Comando Vermelho’s influence are the so-called decretados, a term used by the area’s public officials that has even become jocular slang among local young people. The word refers to victims of Comando Vermelho’s threats, and to a lesser extent, those of Primeiro Comando da Capital. Members of the groups use their WhatsApp and other social media accounts to post photos of their “enemies,” the majority of them underage. EL PAÍS learned that in 2024 alone, Leticia was home to at least 10 decretados.

It’s a scenario of urban violence that José David Elizalde, the head of a human rights governmental agency in the Colombian department of Amazonas admits, with near-resignation, has rendered remote areas essentially black holes for he and his 13 staff members. “For the past two years, my agency hasn’t gone past Leticia and Puerto Nariño,” he says. That’s not just because trips further into the jungle can be costly, but because the control exercised over the region by the armed group has gotten to the point that they review the cell phones of individuals that pass through their checkpoints. This has increased inhabitants’ fear when it comes to denouncing such groups’ activities.

Comando Vermelho also controls local trafficking in the region’s other Brazilian towns. Benjamin Constant, which is located 45 minutes by motorboat from Leticia and the Peruvian border, has only 26 military police for its 42,000 residents. The criminal group is active in five of its neighborhoods. “To cover the needs, we would require 60 police officers,” says a source from the Brazilian military police. “They recruit here because there is a lack of opportunities and they control the drug trafficking.”

In one of these neighborhoods, graffiti does not only declare the names of Brazilian gangs — it also proclaims those of evangelical churches. The religious organizations have become the safest exit route for young people who form part of delinquent groups. “They [Comando Vermelho] are big believers and think that the only way to change these young people is through God,” says a man who has been a pastor at one of these churches for four years. Seated on a white plastic chair in a small brick building covered in church posters, he says he joined the Comando Vermelho at the age of 15 and left the group 13 years ago. In the background, music plays. A woman sings, “If you can, raise your hands up, because we are going to say ‘saint, saint, saint.’ The Earth will hear what Heaven is saying. Raise your hands up, my God.”

“We have several young people who were part of the group. Sometimes, they call to ask if somebody is still here,” he says. “The church is the only way out of crime besides winding up in prison or winding up dead.” He’s not the only one who believes this. “These churches have arrived at an understanding with the leaders of the criminal organizations, according to which they will accept the exit of a member only if they demonstrate genuine faith and devotion,” reads a report published in July by the non-profit International Crisis Group.

When the former gang member refers to crime, he’s not just talking about drug trafficking. Peruvian, Colombian and Brazilian criminal groups have been diversifying into other activities that provide avenues to financial enrichment and at the same time, ways to launder drug money. The most visible of these are fishing, logging and above all, gold mining — all using illegal methods. Each produces their own earnings, but also allows criminals to launder trafficking money and hide drugs in cargo shipments. Comando Vermelho appears to be gaining status via criminal multi-tasking, and via the tri-border alliance with narcos that is gaining ground as the jungle loses.

In collaboration with the Foundation for Conservation and Sustainable Development.

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In 2024, more than 70 countries held general elections and almost half of the world’s population went to the polls.

The impressive series of elections offered us an exceptional laboratory to observe democracy’s state of health on a global scale. And the results confirm that the democratic model faces unprecedented challenges. In many cases, democratic systems are in decline, but this doesn’t mean that there haven’t been significant signs of resilience within this political system.

The United States has crudely exhibited the risk of plutocracy — the government of the rich — usurping democracy, while highly-polarized societies have seen growing political violence.

But in countries such as Senegal and Bangladesh, mobilized citizens and independent institutions have led to inspiring democratic victories overcoming authoritarian tendencies.

The struggle between democracy and its enemies will have a decisive impact on the future of the world, which is experiencing a turbulent transition phase. Following the wave of expansion that followed the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the main international studies agree that, in recent years, there’s been a phase of erosion in the democratic model. The final result of this struggle can only be the subject of speculation, but observing what happened in 2024 offered us important clues. While negative news is abundant and details both internal and external challenges, the positive news indicates that democracy can withstand tremendous attacks.

Below is an overview of the main trends in 2024.

Plutocracy

Among the countries that went to the polls in 2024 was the most powerful in the world: the United States. Regardless of ideological preferences, Donald Trump’s victory is a disturbing result for democracy, as he’s a candidate who refused to recognize the verdict of the previous elections (despite no evidence of fraud) and who encouraged an assault on the nation’s Congress.

Beyond Trump’s profile, the U.S. elections last November gave rise to other reasons for alarm. “The elections showed us that the state of democracy in the U.S. is worse than we imagined. Not so much because of the result, but because of what was evident in the process: the outrageous levels of polarization, the absolutely widespread use of disinformation and the grotesque role of money, which I would emphasize,” analyzes Kevin Casas-Zamora, secretary general of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA).

The expert points out “the absolute distortion that money creates in a democracy like the United States. [It has reached] a point where Mr. [Elon] Musk — after handing out checks for a million dollars to voters and spending $200 million on the campaign supporting Trump — has practically moved into the president-elect’s house while he names his Cabinet. You see the absolute shamelessness with which a very small and extraordinarily rich elite has taken over and has captured the political process in the United States,” says Casas-Zamora, who served as vice president of Costa Rica from 2006 until 2007.

Before his role in Trump’s campaign, Musk — the richest person in the world — also acquired one of the main platforms for digital public debate (X, then called Twitter) and turned it into a powerful propaganda machine in favor of his interests and those of his allies. The Musk-Trump alliance highlights the resurgent risk of collusion between the ultra-rich and politicians. This is the 21st century variant of the plague of plutocracy, which seriously endangers the future viability of democracy.

Foreign interference

If the U.S. highlights the risks that arise from within, countries such as Romania and Georgia underline the growing scope of foreign interference. Like the concept of plutocracy, malicious propaganda promoted by foreign powers isn’t new. Yet, its effectiveness in the era of digital platforms is unprecedented.

The Romanian judicial authorities have ordered a rerun of the presidential elections that took place this past December, after local intelligence services detected anomalous activity on TikTok — a Chinese-owned social media network — and a scheme “coordinated by a state actor” outside the country in favour of the nationalist, populist and pro-Russian candidate, Calin Georgescu, who achieved an astonishing result despite being a semi-unknown until not long before his participation.

Meanwhile in Georgia — which has been behind a strong democratic deterioration for years, according to respected independent organizations — the ruling party secured another victory that was criticised by the OSCE observer mission. It’s a pro-Russian party, led by a tycoon who amassed his fortune in Russia and who has frozen the process of Georgia potentially joining the European Union. This is despite the fact that the country has a strong pro-European majority, which makes the supposed electoral victory even more striking.

“Certainly, many elections were affected by disinformation campaigns. We’ve seen this in recent weeks, particularly in Eastern European countries… [foreign actors] have had an undeniable presence,” Casas-Zamora affirms. “Having said that, I think it’s very important to introduce a note of caution and a dose of humility into the debate: we don’t know exactly how much these types of campaigns determine the results, because establishing a direct causal link is very complex.”

Political violence

Another worrying element that surged in 2024 was political violence. “We’ve detected a certain increase in political violence around elections. We’ve monitored that, in at least 26 of the 75 elections that were held this past year, there was some kind of manifestation of violence,” says Gerardo Berthin, vice president of International Programs at Freedom House, a think tank based in Washington, D.C. “First of all, we can mention the assassination attempts on Trump. But there were physical attacks in other cases, also against those who work in the organization of elections,” Berthin adds.

Here appears the worst face of the consequences of unbridled polarization, which tends to exacerbate tempers, delegitimize electoral processes, or even dehumanize political adversaries. And polarization — even without directly inciting violence — creates a breeding ground for it.

Discontent

The 2024 electoral cycle resulted in a notable number of defeats for candidates and parties in power, as well as the rise of radical alternatives. “In the West, 2024 has been the year of unrest,” says Cristina Monge, a political scientist and president of the Más Democracia association.

Far-right forces seem to have taken electoral advantage of this unrest in many countries. “The essential question in the air is whether the famous phrase ‘it’s the economy, stupid’ is still valid, or whether we’ve turned the page on that. Because, in many of these countries where unrest is detected, the macroeconomy has very good figures. It’s worth asking whether these good macroeconomic figures are hiding shortcomings, or whether this unrest also responds to other types of uncertainties, worries, or fears that don’t have to be incompatible with economic unrest, but which do reveal another type of concern,” says Monge.

Representation of women

“It hasn’t been a good year when it comes to the representation of women,” Casas-Zamora concludes. This has been growing throughout the 21st century, from a level close to 13% of female parliamentary representatives worldwide in 2000, to 27% at the beginning of 2024. This is according to data collected by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, an organization that provides information on the composition of parliaments around the world. By the end of 2024, however, the trend was broken.

“When you look at the numbers from the elections that have been held this year, the percentage of seats occupied by women fell by one percentage point. And, in terms of heads of state or government, there’s one more [woman] than there was a year ago. So, there’s been a stagnation,” Casas-Zamora points out.

This is only the most visible aspect of the difficulties in moving towards full gender parity. Beneath this lies the practice of discrimination, and also a disturbing tendency towards verbal aggression in the digital debate, which makes it more difficult for women to participate.

Consolidation of authoritarianism

Not only have disturbing trends been revealed in democracies with genuine electoral competitions. Several elections have also been held that have confirmed — via processes that have become farcical — the authoritarian drifts of certain nations.

Tunisia — once a democratic hope in North Africa — consolidated its regression by holding a shameful election, without real competition. Only 28% of eligible citizens voted. In El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele — another master in the use of social media — violated the Constitution to secure a second term, despite the prohibition of re-election. Ukraine — which should have held elections in 2024 — was unable to do so due to Russia’s aggression. Additionally, a multitude of authoritarian regimes deepened their democratic farce, from Russia to Venezuela.

Climate change

The experts consulted by EL PAÍS offer two observations on the subject of climate change in the global electoral context. “Despite the fact that the consequences of the phenomenon are increasingly evident on the planet, it’s still not the main issue when we talk about elections. We continue to completely disconnect the climate crisis from political issues, especially electoral ones,” Monge notes.

According to Casa-Zamora, the irony is that “14 national elections were affected to varying degrees by extreme weather events.” Climate change not only ravages the planet in general: it also has disruptive effects on electoral processes. However, despite its importance, it doesn’t seem to be central when it comes to choosing who to vote for.

Participation

In the electoral balance, not everything is bad news. One piece of good news is the notable level of turnout in the elections held in 2024. “This makes us think that people still have hope in the electoral process,” Berthin suggests.

According to IDEA data, the average turnout rate in the more than 70 national elections held was 61%, with a total of 1.6 billion voters. This figure shouldn’t eliminate the alarm about the widespread distrust in democratic institutions, but it’s certainly a cause for hope.

Alternation

Discontent as a force promoting political change is disturbing when it exclusively reflects citizen displeasure with the effectiveness of the management of democratic institutions. However, alternation is an essential feature of democracy. The possibility of removing rulers from power based on their poor management is the very soul of the model. The fact that this change has occurred in many cases is also a reflection of democratic vitality. Even though excessive volatility isn’t a good thing — with constant changes in government between groups that don’t agree on even basic policies related to essential issues — the long permanence in power of the same parties is potentially an even greater evil.

In some of the cases observed in 2024, there wasn’t an alternation, but rather a healthy reduction in the power of some rulers. In this sense, good democratic news has come from two important countries in the Global South: India and South Africa. In the former, after winning two absolute majorities and holding up a democratic record much-criticized by opponents and international think tanks, Prime Minister Narendra Modi suffered a considerable setback. He now has to govern as part of a coalition. Likewise, after decades in power, the African National Congress (ANC) has been punished at the polls by losing its absolute majority for the first time in 30 years. The ANC continues to govern today in South Africa, although it faces checks and balances due to its need for consistent support from other parties.

Resilience

In the face of the great risks that were evident in 2024, extraordinary episodes of democratic resilience also emerged. One admirable one is that of Senegal, a country in a region of Africa that has experienced numerous coups d’état. Despite the imprisonment of a prominent opposition leader and the attempts of the previous president to postpone the elections, the resistance of civic institutions and the mobilization of citizens managed to make everything flow along a democratic path. An opposition candidate ended up winning.

There was also good news in the face of external interference. In Moldova, a scheme similar to the one which supported the Romanian populist was detected. There was an attempt to promote the local pro-Russian candidate in the presidential elections; a BBC journalist even collected testimony regarding a plot to distribute payments in exchange for votes. In the end, despite everything, the pro-EU president — Maia Sandu — managed to win re-election.

There was also good news not directly linked to electoral processes, such as the resilience of democracy in South Korea, Bolivia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo in the face of coups. In the first case, there was an attempted self-coup by the now-departed president, who tried to introduce martial law. In the second, there was a coup attempt with military characteristics that seemed long forgotten in Latin America. And, in the third, an armed attack on institutions was repressed by the Armed Forces.

Another extraordinary episode occurred in Bangladesh. Months after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina secured a fifth consecutive term in a farcical election, a movement driven by student protests forced the collapse of the regime and the opening of a hopeful democratic transition.

In Georgia, mass demonstrations against moving the country away from the path towards EU membership are taking place day after day in the streets of Tbilisi. Despite the inability to displace the current government, it’s been an inspiring mobilization.

The electoral calendar for 2025 is much less striking when compared to the year that just ended. But the forces that seek to erode democracy from within and from without will continue to act with the enormous levers at their disposal. Democracies will have to work hard to design effective defence strategies.

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“If you wanted to save whales, you called Oprah. If you slept with a whale, you called us.” This biting remark from one of the producers of The Jerry Springer Show captures the essence of the most notorious program in American television history. Although it wasn’t a sexual encounter with a whale but rather with a Shetland pony in 1998 that became a turning point for the show.

The program pioneered what came to be known as “trash TV” and even found itself embroiled in a murder case that ended up in court. These shocking events are revisited in the new Netflix documentary Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action — a deep dive into the legacy of a program that TV Guide ranked as the worst show in television history. None of the participants interviewed in the documentary seem to have fully come to terms with their involvement in the Springer phenomenon.

In 1991, American television had one undisputed queen: Oprah Winfrey. Her talk show, filled with tearful confessions and low-stakes drama, commanded an audience of over 12 million viewers. From her perch at the top of the ratings, Oprah looked down on a sea of imitators whose only real distinction was the personality of their hosts. When The Jerry Springer Show debuted, expectations were modest at best. The host, Jerry Springer, was an affable figure with the demeanor of a college professor — the kind of neighbor who’d lend you his lawnmower without hesitation.

A former politician, Springer initially stuck to the formula of the time: sentimental stories of family reunions and personal triumphs. His show blended into the background of daytime television, offering the same fare that filled competing channels. But when NBC executives threatened to cancel the struggling program, Springer and his team made a Faustian bargain that would change television forever.

To breathe life into the failing show, the producers brought in Richard Dominick, a writer responsible for headlines about “Bigfoot’s love slave” and a toaster “possessed by the devil” in the tabloids Weekly World News and The Sun. He brought two transformative ideas that would define the show’s legacy.

The first was to elevate Jerry Springer’s on-screen persona by orchestrating raucous audience chants. Dominick instructed the crowd to leap to their feet and enthusiastically shout the host’s name as he entered. The now-iconic refrain of “Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!” became synonymous with the show.

The second idea was far more consequential: Dominick directed the production team — mostly young, ambitious newcomers eager to leave their mark on 1990s television — to ensure that the stories were “compelling with the sound off.” This mandate led to an explosion of on-set brawls and a surprising number of gratuitous nude scenes.

Springer placed unshakable trust in Dominick’s vision. The only limit was the absence of limits. In the Netflix documentary, Dominick admits, “If I could kill someone on television, I would execute them on television.”

Nothing better encapsulates the paradigm shift in The Jerry Springer Show than the infamous 1998 episode featuring Mark, a farmer from Missouri. Mark appeared on the show to introduce the audience to his partner of 10 years, the individual he had left his wife and children for. To the astonishment of viewers, the “lucky girl” turned out to be Pixel, a Shetland pony.

Mark declared his love for Pixel, detailing their intimate relationship and even plans for a wedding. As he spoke, the show displayed photos of Pixel dressed in women’s lingerie. “When it comes to sex, we make love. We don’t make fun of each other,” Mark said.

The episode aired only on the East Coast. All the networks censored it, and the press quickly took notice. Critics called it “the most vile and grotesque freak show that’s ever been on television.” The result? Everyone wanted to see it — a textbook case of the Streisand effect. Ratings skyrocketed, and for the first time, they beat Oprah.

The producers doubled down. Soon, a trans woman who had sawed off her own legs and two siblings in love discussing their pregnancy appeared on the show. The headlines grew increasingly sensational: “I Slept with 251 Men in 10 Hours!” “I Am a 14-Year-Old Prostitute!” “I Cut Off My Penis!” At NBC headquarters, executives toasted with champagne. Ratings soared, even as critics sharpened their knives. “Showing your soul is one thing; showing your penis is another,” quipped Oprah.

The executives knew that the show was trash, “but the rating were too good to resist,” according to the documentary. While the media blamed Springer for America’s moral collapse, viewers couldn’t look away. “Sometimes people just want to kick back, let their eyes glaze over and learn about a guy who desperately wants to marry his horse. What’s a better form of escapism than that?” Danielle J. Lindemann, author of True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us, told The Times

The increasingly controversial stories escalated to such levels of violence on set that a professional security team had to be hired. Chairs flew, teeth and nails followed, and women flaunted clumps of their rivals’ hair as trophies. More than one guest left the set directly for the hospital. This chaos brought Steve Wilkos, an ex-Marine, onto the show. His presence became so frequent that he eventually landed his own program.

None of the episodes were as violent as the one titled Klanfrontation, which pitted members of the Ku Klux Klan against the Jewish Defense League. The topic was particularly sensitive for Springer, the son of Holocaust survivors, born in London during the Blitz.

A moral man?

Springer was born in 1944 in a London Underground station used as a bomb shelter. His parents, German Jews, had fled to England during the Holocaust and later emigrated to the United States when Jerry was five. A brilliant student, he developed an early passion for politics, working on Robert F. Kennedy’s ill-fated 1968 presidential campaign. After earning a law degree, Springer launched a promising political career that was soon marred by scandal. In 1974, The Cincinnati Enquirer revealed that Springer had frequented brothels and had been clumsy enough to pay with personal checks.

The incident did not end his political career: rather than hide, he openly admitted it. Nor did it harm his relationship with Micki Velton, whom he had recently married. They stayed together for 30 years, keeping their private life out of the media. He also fiercely protected his daughter, Katie, who was blind, partially deaf in one ear, and born without nasal passages — she was her father’s staunchest defender. Springer became mayor of Cincinnati and, before transitioning to national television, was the most beloved presenter on local TV. His charisma allowed him to remain seemingly detached from the sensationalism that surrounded him. Yet, the man hailed on his program as “the hero of the United States” was not as pure as the moralistic homilies he delivered at the end of each show suggested.

The incident with the prostitutes was not an isolated case. One morning, Springer walked into the show’s office and apologized to his staff. They were baffled, but the press soon clarified the situation. A sex tape had surfaced, showing Springer with a stripper and her stepmother — two guests of the show who had conspired to trap and blackmail him. He attempted to suppress the scandal with money, but he couldn’t stop the footage becoming public. Once again, he confronted the fallout head-on. And, once again, he emerged even stronger.

The story that marked the lowest point of The Jerry Springer Show wasn’t necessarily the most scandalous. Nancy Campbell-Panitz appeared on the show hoping to win back her ex-husband Ralph, but upon arriving, she discovered he had married someone else, Ellen, just days earlier. Confronted by her ex, she stormed off the set. A producer chased after her, but she refused to continue with the circus. She knew that the next step would be a fight, rolling on the floor, pulling each other’s hair, and trading insults.

“If you don’t come back, we won’t pay for your return ticket,” they told her. It was a common trick to convince guests, and it worked because many of them came from humble backgrounds. The production team entertained the unsuspecting guests who believed that Springer would truly solve their problems. They provided a lavish experience: a limousine, first-class flights, unlimited access to alcohol, and any substances that would lower their inhibitions. It was a lifestyle the humble guests had never dreamed of.

Nancy didn’t care about the threats. She walked in the rain to the station, where a stranger took pity on her and gave her a ride home. When the show aired a couple of months later, it was just a bad memory, and she didn’t even watch it. Her ex-husband did, however, watching the broadcast in a bar while getting drunk. “I’m going to kill her,” he said as he continued drinking. The next day, her son received a call from the police: his mother had been murdered by her ex-husband. The police issued a warrant for the arrest of Ralph and Ellen Panitz. Ellen was acquitted, but Ralph was sentenced to life in prison. He had a history of domestic violence and prior complaints from Nancy, but no one on the show seemed to care.

Judge Nancy Donnellan, who sentenced Ralph Panitz condemned the role the show had played in the incident. She claimed that The Jerry Springer Show had manipulated them to escalate the humiliation. “To Jerry Springer and his producers, I ask you: are ratings more important than the dignity of human life?” she asked. Since the answer to Judge Donnellan’s question was undoubtedly yes, the show’s machinery continued without hesitation. To distance themselves from the scandal, the entire team traveled to Jamaica to record an episode at a swingers’ resort.

The show took its toll on everyone who worked on it. Dominick subjected them to a tight 20-hour daily schedule. Tobias Yoshimura, a producer since the first show, reached his lowest point when he produced the story of a prostitute who had been abused by her father since she was a teenager. She was going to confront him live, begging him to stop calling for her services and asked not to see him until the taping. They were put up in separate hotels under false names, but when Yoshimura went to visit her to finalize the details of the next day’s show, the father opened the door, covered only in a towel. That same day Yoshimura left the show, unable to deal with it any longer.

Frightened by the growing level of scandal, the network demanded a shift in tone, leading to Dominick’s departure from the show. At the time, competition was fierce, with many networks airing formats that would have been unimaginable a decade earlier — not just testimonial shows, but also reality TV with extreme premises. Trash TV had become embedded in American culture. As television historian David Bianculli put it, the show “was lapped not only by other programs but by real life.” After 27 years as America’s favorite guilty pleasure, The Jerry Springer Show came to an end in 2018. In many ways, the show offers more insight into the current political landscape in the United States than any study by a political scientist.

Jerry Springer, who died of cancer in 2023, never renounced the show that made him a millionaire, although he admitted that he would not watch it. “Television does not and must not create values, it’s merely a picture of all that’s out there — the good, the bad, the ugly,” he told Too Hot for TV. “Believe this: The politicians and companies that seek to control what each of us may watch are a far greater danger to America and our treasured freedom than any of our guests ever were or could be.”

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