WHAT WAS CLAIMED
Former World Economic Forum head Klaus Schwab said elections are no longer needed because the results can be predicted.
OUR VERDICT
Misleading. Mr Schwab prefaced the comment by saying this was a fear that people had raised with him regarding the predictive power of future technology.
AAP FACTCHECK - A video clip that appears to show former World Economic Forum boss Klaus Schwab suggesting democratic elections are redundant has been edited to remove key context.
The clip misleadingly omits Mr Schwab saying this was a fear that he had heard regarding the hypothetical future predictive power of digital technology - not his own views on democracy.
The claim is included in a video titled "10 Dark Authoritarian Quotes from the World Economic Forum" that has spread on Facebook and other social media platforms.
The video consists of 10 short clips of people claimed to be connected with the World Economic Forum (WEF), a non-governmental organisation that convenes high-profile discussion events for global decision-makers and business leaders.
One clip, captioned "09. No elections", shows Mr Schwab on stage with Google co-founder Sergey Brin at WEF's annual meeting in Davos in 2017.
"You do not even have to have elections anymore because you can already predict, and afterwards you can say, 'Why do we need elections, because we know what the result will be?'" Mr Schwab says in the video (timestamp four seconds).
However, the full video of the discussion shows Mr Schwab was not advocating for elections to be abolished, but noting this was a potential risk of technological advancement.
"We don't know yet how the technology will look like, but one fear which I have heard is that technology now is, and digital technologies mainly, have an analytical power [and] now we go into a predictive power…" Mr Schwab says during the discussion (timestamp 9:45).
"But then the next step could be to go into prescriptive mode, which means you do not even have to have elections anymore because you can already predict, and afterwards you can say, 'why do we need elections?' because we know what the result will be."
He then asks Mr Brin: "Can you imagine such a world?"
Mr Brin responds by saying it is a "profound" question that depends on future human values.
"Well, you might then further ask, 'well why do we need to have elected leaders at all, because you might as well have all the decisions made'…" the tech entrepreneur says.
"You're venturing into, I think, profound questions."
At no point during the discussion does Mr Schwab propose or endorse abolishing democratic elections, or that their outcome is currently predictable.
The WEF has been a frequent target of misinformation and conspiracy theories.
Mr Schwab founded the WEF in 1971 and led the organisation until he resigned as chairman in 2025 following allegations of financial and governance misconduct.
A WEF investigation subsequently cleared him of wrongdoing. In July, 2026, Reuters reported he was seeking an advisory role with the organisation.
Swiss executive Alois Zwinggi was appointed interim president and chief executive in February 2026.
USA Today, Lead Stories and PolitiFact also fact-checked a similar video clip and found it to be misleading.
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