Allianz chief executive Oliver Bäte has lifted the insurance giant’s Risk Barometer to a five-year high, warning “the political elite” have lost touch with the working class and risk losing power to populists in the many elections slated for 2024.
“You’ve seen recent elections in the Netherlands, you’ve seen it in France, and societies are polarizing because our leaders are not addressing the needs of the people,” said Bäte, referring to Dutch elections which saw anti-mass migration populist Geert Wilders place first and the increasing unpopularity of France’s globalists president, Emmanuel Macron.
“Italy elected a party with neo-fascist roots, Hungary re-elected Viktor Orbán, and the far-right Sweden Democrats took over 20 percent of the votes in a general election,” the German continued.
“We have an increasing detachment of the political elite from the working class and the people that actually go to work every day, and that, I see as the number one risk for our societies,” he added.
The Allianz boss urged the “elite” to remember that “a lot of people are going to vote” this year, not only in the United States and the United Kingdom but in roughly 40 nations worldwide.
“[W]e need to make sure that they vote for the right things and are not just venting anger,” he warned.
Bloomberg has adopted a similar tone to Bäte in terms of the need to ensure people vote for “the right things”, recently publishing an article suggesting elections represent “a threat to democracy,” because voters may elect Donald Trump and other populists.
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