processes of democratic backsliding have been driven, to a significant extent, by democratically elected governments that exploit legal and constitutional vulnerabilities to weaken checks on the executive and reduce the conditions for genuinely free political competition. Therefore, democratic erosion begins at the ballot box. This does not mean that voting for conservative parties is equivalent to voting against democracy. Such a conclusion would be mistaken and political

Data published by the World Health Organization shows that between 2015 and 2050, the proportion of the world's population over the age of 60 will rise from 12% to 22%. In absolute terms, this corresponds to an increase from nearly 1 billion to more than 2.1 billion individuals. Even more significant is the fact that, since 2020, people over 60 have outnumbered children under five, marking a historic inversion of the age pyramid.