A Collapsed Roof Just Toppled a Government
Two years ago, a train station roof collapsed in Serbia, part of China’s Belt and Road. This week, the movement it sparked brought down a government. Serbia wasn’t alone. In the past week, more than 230 million people voted in Serbia, Brazil and Israel, with turnout near historic highs. Lula’s win keeps Brazil tilting towards the Global South and complicates America’s hunt for rare earths. Serbia’s new leaders could pull the country closer to Europe. And Israel shows something rare: whoever wins, its geopolitics barely changes. Together, these elections point to a world where voters punish corruption, not ideology, and where every ballot can redraw the map.
Expert Perspective: Analysis by Abishur Prakash ("Mr. Geopolitics"), one of the world's leading geopolitical speakers and author of six books, advising companies on the fractured world. Prakash delivers keynotes in Toronto, NYC, London, Dubai, Warsaw, and worldwide.
Full transcript: Abishur Prakash ("Mr. Geopolitics") on the elections in Brazil, Serbia and Israel (plus the US midterms)
Almost two years ago, in Serbia, a train station roof collapsed. The collapse killed 16 people, and it triggered a wave of protests against government corruption and government incompetence. This train station was part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, linking Belgrade with Budapest.
Now, two years later, what occurred at that train station has triggered a political uprising in Serbia. In fact, the movement that began because of that roof collapse has morphed into the same movement that just won the Serbian elections. This is a new chapter for Serbia.
But Serbia is not alone. In the past week, over 230 million people across Serbia, Brazil and Israel have cast their ballots in elections that have geopolitical consequences far beyond the borders of these nations. National politics is literally redrawing the geopolitical map.
Let’s start with what’s not so obvious at the big-picture level, which is that in all three of these elections, voter turnout has been near historic. In Israel, voter turnout passed 70% by 8 p.m. In Brazil, voter turnout neared 80%. In Serbia, it reached 70%. This is unheard of in modern times. In fact, in Serbia’s case, it’s the biggest voter turnout since the breakup of Yugoslavia.
People are showing up. Voters are showing up in these elections, and this may very well be a sign of what’s to come, not just in these three countries, but across the world. And if you look at each individual election, it’s clear that there are serious geopolitical shifts taking place.
Brazil
Let’s start with Brazil. Lula has won. Flávio Bolsonaro has left the country and arrived in Miami. But this election is not just about the fact that the former Brazilian president is detained, that his son was running, and that the incumbent has won. It’s not just a showdown between the left and the right.
What Lula’s victory means is that Brazil will keep moving closer and closer to the Global South. Brazil’s tilt towards BRICS, towards China, Russia, India and other emerging powers, is not going to be reversed. Compare that to Javier Milei, who, when he became president of Argentina, outright rejected BRICS membership and reoriented Argentina back towards the United States. That may have been on the table with a Bolsonaro in power. Lula’s victory solidified Brazil’s orientation towards the Global South.
And that comes with a big challenge for the United States, which has been seeking to build critical mineral supply chains that are independent of China. One of the geographies the US has been eyeing is Brazil, as Brazil has some of the largest rare earth reserves in the world. In fact, according to some, it’s the second largest in the world after China.
If Bolsonaro had won, that connection would have become a lot easier. The use of Brazilian rare earths, and access to them, would have become a lot easier. But in the current Brazilian climate, led by Lula, the Brazilian government is clashing with America on trade and tariffs, and it’s setting its own conditions for US access to Brazilian rare earths. That climate now continues. So America faces a new challenge in how it sources rare earths from Brazil, with a government that is not backing down or bending the knee.
And then there’s the fact that Brazil has been a leader of Latin America. This election breaks seven consecutive conservative victories throughout the region. Countries across Latin America, when they’ve held national elections, have swung to the right. Yet Brazil, in this election, has swung to the left. That now fractures Latin America between left and right.
Against the backdrop of that fracturing, there is the growing probability of the US striking Cuba. That is going to force countries like Brazil and Argentina to pick sides between the US and Cuba, and it’s going to cloud the geopolitical climate even more. It’s also likely to have a knock-on effect where Brazil and the US drift further and further apart. That’s Brazil.
Serbia
In Serbia, a similar set of shifts has taken place. The incumbent, in power for almost 14 years, has lost power to a student-led group. That group’s origins lie in the 2024 roof collapse in Serbia, at a train station built as part of China’s BRI. The collapse was blamed on corruption, government incompetence, a lack of oversight, and a failure to follow construction laws. That has now come back in a way few expected.
The new government is being introduced not through the lens of left or right, but through the lens of anti-corruption. In Serbia, people turned out in massive numbers, not to vote left or right, or extreme left or extreme right. The majority voted on a stance of anti-corruption and anti-graft. That’s a very different logic when it comes to voting.
And by voting in this new government, they could be pushing Serbia towards a new geopolitical orientation. Under the previous government, Serbia was aligned with Europe to a certain degree, but also kept the door open to Russia and China. In fact, Serbia was one of the few countries that continued to communicate with Russia and the Kremlin after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Serbia’s president even travelled to Russia for the World War II parade, against the wishes of Europe, at a time when Serbia is negotiating to formally join the EU. The new government may see closer ties with Brussels, rather than continuing to build the relationship with Russia and China. So Serbia could tilt away from Moscow and Beijing, towards Western Europe.
Tied to that, the Serbian election comes months after the Hungarian election, which saw Viktor Orbán ousted and Péter Magyar come into power, with a new party governing the nation.
So what’s taking place in Serbia, with young voters marching on a platform of anti-corruption, is a sign that voters in Serbia, in Hungary and elsewhere are fed up with established leaders who treat the state as an extension of themselves, who treat the state and its governance structures as something beyond the rule of law. Voters are coming out in droves, and Serbia is the first sign of this.
Israel
Then there’s Israel, and the results are still coming in. As I record this video, it’s October 28th at 4 p.m. Eastern, and the Netanyahu bloc has the lead but may not gain a majority. That means he will have to build a coalition, as he has in the past.
But Israel is in a very interesting position as a political entity. In other nations, national politics is correlated with geopolitics. If a government is elected with different foreign policy ideas, with different ideas about trade, as we’re seeing in the US, that government moves in a different direction. National politics defines the foreign policy of nations, and it can shift from candidate to candidate, president to president, prime minister to prime minister.
However, in Israel’s case, Netanyahu’s main opposition is a former general. That means that in Israel, national politics is not defining geopolitics. They’re disconnected. Israel’s foreign policy will not fundamentally change because a new prime minister is elected or because Prime Minister Netanyahu loses power. In fact, Israel’s foreign policy may very well continue, from Gaza to Lebanon to Yemen, and, of course, the situation with Iran.
So in other nations, it’s clear that political change, like Lula’s new term in Brazil or the student-led movement in Serbia, threatens to reorient and reshape the geopolitics of the nation. But in Israel, regardless of who wins, the geopolitics doesn’t really change.
Adding to that, if Bolsonaro had won in Brazil, and if the previous government had kept power in Serbia, those two nations were quite strong supporters of Israel. The new governments are not as strong supporters. So Israel, because of elections elsewhere, is losing key allies and supporters.
The big picture
If you take all of this to a global level, what these elections represent is a fracturing of politics across the world. We may very well see voters across Europe, Asia, the Americas and Africa, first, turn out in huge numbers, in numbers we haven’t seen before, at least in modern times. And second, they may show up not on the basis of being right-leaning or left-leaning, but on the basis of wanting more jobs, updating the education system, stamping out corruption and graft, and questioning where all the money has gone. That could be the new battle cry of voters across the world, and these three elections point to that happening more and more.
All of this is to say that what has taken place in Brazil and Serbia, and what is taking place in Israel, is not isolated. And while the spotlight across the globe is on the US midterms, and what they mean for the rest of Donald Trump’s second term, these three elections are actually redrawing the geopolitical map. If other nations follow suit, we are truly in for a period of extraordinary change.
I hope today’s video resonated with you. Don’t forget to hit like and subscribe, and leave your comments below on whether you think these elections in Serbia, Brazil and Israel are significant, or if you think they’re not, why. Talk soon.
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