Elections

In Iowa, Ron DeSantis warned supporters of a “malignant ideology” taking hold across the country, described children facing “indoctrination” and vowed to fight for conservative causes.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida kicked off his presidential campaign in Iowa on Tuesday with a sweeping denunciation of the “elites” that he said dominated American institutions, pitching himself as an unrepentant fighter who could reverse a tide of progressivism in boardrooms, the government and the military.“We must choose a path that will lead to a revival of American greatness,” Mr. DeSantis told supporters at an evangelical church in the suburbs of Des Moines.In a strident speech, he painted a dark picture of America, saying he would be a salve to a “malignant ideology” that was taking hold across the nation. He described children facing “indoctrination.” He mocked transgender athletes, denounced the “woke Olympics” of diversity programs and reveled in his battle with Disney.“It is time we impose our will on Washington, D.C.,” Mr. DeSantis said. “And you can’t do any of this if you don’t win.”The stop was the first in a three-state, 12-city tour that Mr. DeSantis’s team hopes can begin the arduous process of chipping away at former President Donald J. Trump’s advantage in early polls of the 2024 Republican primary race.Mr. DeSantis did not mention Mr. Trump by name in his speech. But he left little doubt about some of the areas in which he planned to draw contrasts with the former president in the coming months, including how each leader handled the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic more than three years ago and his ability to win in 2024.Later, in a news conference, he sharpened the contrast.“The former president is now attacking me saying that Cuomo did better handling Covid than Florida did,” Mr. DeSantis said, referring to former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, a Democrat. “I can tell you this. I could count the number of Republicans in this country on my hands that would rather have lived in New York under Cuomo than lived in Florida in our freedom zone.”“Hell, his whole family moved to Florida under my governorship, are you kidding me?” Mr. DeSantis added later of Mr. Trump.A prayer at Eternity Church in Clive, Iowa, before Mr. DeSantis’s first rally since he made his campaign official.Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesThe pastor at the Iowa church said the auditorium seated 600, and hundreds more were in spillover areas.Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesThe DeSantis campaign’s decision to hold its first in-person event at Eternity Church in Clive, a suburb of Des Moines, signaled the enduring importance of evangelical Christian voters in Iowa’s Republican caucuses, which begin the nominating process.Before the event, Mr. DeSantis and his wife, Casey DeSantis, had met privately with about 15 local pastors for a private prayer over his family and candidacy, according to a campaign aide.“As a pastor, it tells me they value the Christian vote,” Jesse Newman, the pastor of Eternity Church, said in an interview, referring to the DeSantis team’s decision to begin campaigning at the church. In his own brief address to the crowd, Mr. Newman prayed for Mr. DeSantis’s family and urged the Lord’s intervention in the “fight against globalism and socialism.”Mr. DeSantis was introduced by the state’s Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, who joked that her state was “the Florida of the north” for the similarly conservative agenda she has pushed.“They’re going to be here a lot,” Ms. Reynolds said of the DeSantis family.Mr. DeSantis entered the stage in a blazer, a blue button-down shirt and no tie, alongside Ms. DeSantis, who also addressed the crowd in a demonstration of the central role she is expected to play in the campaign. The pastor said the jam-packed auditorium seated 600, and campaign officials estimated the spillover crowd that filled the lobby and elsewhere on the complex was more than 1,000.In his speech, Mr. DeSantis made the argument that he had fought the left in Florida and won — both electorally and on a raft of policies that have been enacted during his tenure.Casey DeSantis, the governor’s wife, joined him onstage.Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesHe spoke about signing a six-week abortion ban, pressing for the death penalty for those convicted of sexually abusing children, and “even sending illegal aliens to Martha’s Vineyard.”Mr. DeSantis injected more bits of his biography into his emerging stump speech than he did during his pre-candidacy. He invoked his mother’s work as a nurse, his father’s installation of Nielsen ratings boxes and his own minimum-wage jobs.“I was given nothing,” Mr. DeSantis said.His cadence at times felt rushed. He pushed so quickly through his speech that sections were swallowed by the crowd’s applause, which did not slow him down.Mr. Trump, who has focused on Mr. DeSantis more than on all of his other rivals, is also set to visit Iowa on Wednesday and Thursday, meeting with local Republicans and faith leaders and holding a Fox News town hall event also in Clive.Mr. DeSantis has positioned himself to the right of Mr. Trump on some key issues, including abortion, as part of an effort to woo right-wing voters. In his news conference, he accused Mr. Trump of shifting to the left.“He’s not an orator, I don’t think,” said Matt Wells, a conservative activist who drove 120 miles from Washington, Iowa, to see Mr. DeSantis. “But you give him a question about policy and he’ll run with it. I have wanted someone for so long who, when they’re asked about policy, they have an answer for it right there.”Kenneth Wayne, a retired physician from Clive, cited Mr. DeSantis’s leadership skills, including his military service, as a selling point. He said he had read Mr. DeSantis’s book cover-to-cover.“I feel that this is a fellow who knows his own mind, who is not going to blow with the wind,” said Mr. Wayne, who was wearing a Vietnam veteran hat. “He’s of a solid conservative bent.”Mr. DeSantis has sought to differentiate himself from Mr. Trump on social issues, pointing to their stances on abortion and the governor’s clash with Disney, among other issues, as proof that he is the more conservative candidate in the race and that Mr. Trump has moved to the center.Mr. DeSantis has positioned himself to the right of Mr. Trump on some key issues. Rachel Mummey for The New York Times“I will be able to destroy leftism in this country,” Mr. DeSantis said on Fox News on Monday.It is part of a DeSantis pitch that, more broadly, centers on fulfilling the promises where Mr. Trump fell short, including winning the White House for a second term by appealing to Republicans and independents who say they can no longer support the former president.“There are a lot of voters that just aren’t going to ever vote for him,” Mr. DeSantis told reporters on Tuesday. “We just have to accept that.” More

Las crisis, incluidos los terremotos y la inflación, no impidieron la reelección de Recep Tayyip Erdogan. La votación se consideró libre, pero no justa, ya que Erdogan utilizó su poder para inclinar la balanza.ESTAMBUL — La reelección del presidente Recep Tayyip Erdogan le ha otorgado cinco años más para profundizar su impronta conservadora en la sociedad turca y hacer realidad su ambición de aumentar el poder económico y geopolítico del país.El Consejo Supremo Electoral de Turquía nombró a Erdogan vencedor después de una segunda vuelta electoral el domingo 28 de mayo. Ganó el 52,1 por ciento de los votos contra el candidato de la oposición, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, quien obtuvo el 47,9 por ciento con casi todos los votos escrutados, dijo el consejo.Las elecciones fueron seguidas de cerca por los aliados de Turquía en la OTAN, incluido Estados Unidos, que a menudo ha visto a Erdogan como un socio frustrante debido a su retórica antioccidental y sus estrechos vínculos con el presidente de Rusia, Vladimir Putin, los cuales han crecido desde la invasión rusa a Ucrania.Erdogan no ha dado indicios de que planee cambiar su política exterior, en la que ha buscado utilizar la ubicación de Turquía en la confluencia de Europa, Asia y Medio Oriente para expandir su influencia, o a nivel nacional, donde ha consolidado el poder en sus manos y respondió a una crisis inflacionaria con medidas poco convencionales que, según los economistas, exacerbaron el problema.En las elecciones lo desafió una oposición recientemente unida que calificó la votación como un momento decisivo para la democracia turca. El candidato de la oposición, Kilicdaroglu, se postuló como una figura anti-Erdogan y prometió restaurar las libertades civiles y mejorar los vínculos con Occidente. Se presentó a sí mismo como un candidato más en contacto con las luchas del ciudadano común.A continuación, algunas conclusiones:Las crisis perjudicaron, pero no abatieron a ErdoganEl candidato de la oposición, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a la derecha en esta pancarta en Estambul, se presentó como una figura anti-Erdogan.Sergey Ponomarev para The New York TimesEstas fueron las elecciones más desafiantes de los 20 años de Erdogan como el político más prominente de Turquía, como primer ministro desde 2003 y como presidente desde 2014. Antes de la votación, la mayoría de las encuestas apuntaban a una contienda reñida con Kilicdaroglu a la cabeza.Los analistas citaron varias razones por las que Erdogan podría tener problemas. La indignación por una dolorosa crisis del costo de vida puso a algunos votantes en su contra. Los fuertes terremotos de febrero acabaron con la vida de más de 50.000 personas y dañaron cientos de edificios en el sur de Turquía. Muchos sobrevivientes del terremoto se quejaron de la lenta respuesta inicial del gobierno, mientras que la destrucción planteó dudas sobre si la prisa de Erdogan por desarrollar el país había fomentado una construcción insegura.La oposición históricamente dividida de Turquía dejó de lado sus diferencias para unirse en apoyo a Kilicdaroglu y alegó que se requería un cambio para detener la caída del país hacia la autocracia.Pero Erdogan prevaleció, gracias al ferviente apoyo de una parte importante de la población y sus habilidades como político en campaña. Los conservadores religiosos que aprecian su expansión del papel del islam en la vida pública lo apoyaron e incluso muchos de los turcos indignados por la inflación afirmaron que no creían que la oposición pudiera gobernar mejor.El terremoto no tuvo un gran impacto sobre las eleccionesPersonas haciendo fila para la distribución de suministros tras los terremotos que sacudieron la ciudad de Antioquía, en febrero. La participación en las elecciones en las zonas afectadas por el sismo fue sorprendentemente alta.Sergey Ponomarev para The New York TimesErdogan llegó al poder hace 20 años en medio de la indignación por la desastrosa respuesta del gobierno a un terremoto cerca de Estambul en 1999 en el que murieron más de 17.000 personas. Es por eso que muchos esperaban que el terremoto de este año también perjudicara sus posibilidades.Pero hay pocos indicios de que eso haya sucedido.Erdogan salió victorioso en ocho de las 11 provincias afectadas por el terremoto de febrero. A su partido, el gobernante Partido de la Justicia y el Desarrollo, y a sus aliados políticos les fue incluso mejor, pues ganaron la mayoría de los votos en las elecciones parlamentarias simultáneas en todas menos una de las provincias afectadas por el terremoto.La participación en la zona del terremoto también fue alta, a pesar de las preocupaciones de que muchos votantes desplazados por la destrucción tendrían dificultades para regresar a casa, como se requería, para emitir sus votos. Aunque la participación en las 11 provincias afectadas por el terremoto fue inferior al 88,9 por ciento de los votantes aptos que emitieron su voto a nivel nacional, en ninguna de esas provincias la participación fue menor del 80 por ciento.Entrevistas con sobrevivientes del terremoto indicaron muchas razones por las que el desastre no había cambiado su perspectiva política. Algunos describieron el terremoto como un acto de Dios al que cualquier gobierno habría tenido problemas para responder. Otros cuyas casas fueron destruidas dijeron que tenían más fe en Erdogan para reconstruir las zonas afectadas que en su rival.Las advertencias sobre el terrorismo resonaron en los votantesSimpatizantes de Erdogan en Estambul el domingo. Erdogan hizo de la oposición a los militantes kurdos un tema clave de su campañaSergey Ponomarev para The New York TimesErdogan socavó a la oposición al retratar a sus líderes como débiles e incompetentes, pero una línea de ataque resultó ser especialmente potente: las acusaciones de que serían blandos con el terrorismo.El mandatario planteó esta idea a los votantes en diversas ocasiones, argumentando que la oposición había recibido el apoyo del principal partido prokurdo de Turquía. A menudo, el gobierno acusa a ese partido de colaborar con militantes de la minoría kurda de Turquía, quienes, buscando autonomía, han estado en guerra con el Estado turco por décadas.Erdogan llegó incluso a transmitir videos manipulados en sus mítines para mostrar a los líderes militantes cantando la canción de campaña de Kilicdaroglu. Muchos votantes le creyeron y dijeron en entrevistas que no confiaban en la oposición para mantener la seguridad del país.El voto fue libre pero no justoRecuento de votos en Estambul el domingo. El contrincante de la oposición no impugnó el recuento, pero dijo que la elección en general fue injusta.Sergey Ponomarev para The New York TimesLos observadores internacionales no reportaron problemas a gran escala con el proceso de recolección y conteo de votos, considerando el proceso libre.Sin embargo, señalaron las enormes ventajas que tenía Erdogan antes de que comenzara la votación, incluida su capacidad para liberar miles de millones de dólares en gastos estatales para tratar de compensar los efectos negativos de la inflación y otras tensiones económicas y la cobertura mediática abundante y positiva que recibió del canal financiado por el Estado.En las últimas horas del domingo, Kilicdaroglu no cuestionó el recuento de votos, pero les dijo a sus seguidores que las elecciones en general habían sido “uno de los procesos electorales más injustos de los últimos años”.Muchos en la oposición temen que la contienda reñida impulse a Erdogan a tomar medidas más agresivas contra sus oponentes políticos para evitar un reto así de difícil en el futuro.Erdogan ahora debe abordar los problemas económicosTurquía ha recurrido a sus reservas de divisas extranjeras mientras intenta estabilizar su propia moneda.Sergey Ponomarev para The New York TimesLos economistas advirtieron que Erdogan recurrió a tácticas costosas a corto plazo para aislar a los votantes de la inflación y evitar que el valor de la moneda nacional se hundiera aún más. Pero no puede seguir haciendo eso para siempre.Las reservas de divisas extranjeras han disminuido drásticamente, lo que significa que el país podría perder su capacidad para pagarles a los acreedores extranjeros. Y, debido a que gran parte de ese dinero se ha gastado para mantener estable la moneda turca, su valor podría desplomarse cuando se detenga ese gasto.Erdogan no dio indicios durante su campaña de que planeara modificar sus políticas económicas, a pesar de una inflación obstinadamente alta de dos dígitos que, según los economistas, se ha visto exacerbada por su insistencia en bajar las tasas de interés en lugar de incrementarlas para combatir la inflación, como recomienda la economía ortodoxa.Es por eso que, independientemente de las medidas que a Erdogan le gustaría priorizar al comienzo de su nuevo mandato, es probable que los riesgos de una crisis monetaria o una recesión exijan su atención.Gulsin Harman More

“The totalitarian phenomenon,” the French philosopher Jean-François Revel once noted, “is not to be understood without making an allowance for the thesis that some important part of every society consists of people who actively want tyranny: either to exercise it themselves or — much more mysteriously — to submit to it.”It’s an observation that should help guide our thinking about the re-election this week of Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey. And it should serve as a warning about other places — including the Republican Party — where autocratic leaders, seemingly incompetent in many respects, are returning to power through democratic means.That’s not quite the way Erdogan’s close-but-comfortable victory in Sunday’s runoff over the former civil servant Kemal Kilicdaroglu is being described in many analyses. The president, they say, has spent 20 years in power tilting every conceivable scale in his favor.Erdogan has used regulatory means and abused the criminal-justice system to effectively control the news media. He has exercised his presidential power to deliver subsidies, tax cuts, cheap loans and other handouts to favored constituencies. He has sought to criminalize an opposition party on specious grounds of links to terrorist groups. In December, a Turkish court effectively barred Erdogan’s most serious prospective rival, Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu of Istanbul, from politics by sentencing him to prison on charges of insulting public officials.Then, too, Kilicdaroglu was widely seen as a colorless and inept politician, promising a return to a status quo ante that many Turks remember, with no fondness, as a time of regular economic crises and a kind of repressive secularism.All of this is true, as far as it goes, and it helps underscore the worldwide phenomenon of what Fareed Zakaria aptly calls “free and unfair elections.” But it doesn’t go far enough.Turkey under Erdogan is in a dreadful state and has been for a long time. Inflation last year hit 85 percent and is still running north of 40 percent, thanks to Erdogan’s insistence on cutting interest rates in the teeth of rising prices. He has used a series of show trials — some based in fact, others pure fantasy — to eviscerate civil freedoms. February’s earthquakes, which took an estimated 50,000 lives and injured twice as many, were badly handled by the government and exposed the corruption of a system that cared more for patronage networks than for well-built buildings.Under normal political expectations, Erdogan should have paid the political price with a crushing electoral defeat. Not only did he survive, he increased his vote share in some of the towns worst hit by, and most neglected after, the earthquakes. “We love him,” explained a resident quoted in The Economist. “For the call to prayer, for our homes, for our headscarves.”That last line is telling, and not just because it gets to the importance of Erdogan’s Islamism as the secret of his success. It’s a rebuke to James Carville’s parochially American slogan, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Actually, no: It’s also God, tradition, values, identity, culture and the resentments that go with each. Only a denuded secular imagination fails to notice that there are things people care about more than their paychecks.There is also the matter of power. The classically liberal political tradition is based on the suspicion of power. The illiberal tradition is based on the exaltation of it. Erdogan, as the tribune of the Turkish Everyman, built himself an aesthetically grotesque, 1,100-room presidential palace for $615 million. Far from scandalizing his supporters, it seems to have delighted them. In it, they see not a sign of extravagance or waste, but the importance of the man and the movement to which they attach themselves and submit.All this is a reminder that political signals are often transmitted at frequencies that liberal ears have trouble hearing, much less decoding. To wonder how Erdogan could possibly be re-elected after so thoroughly wrecking his country’s economy and its institutions is akin to wondering how Vladimir Putin appears to retain considerable domestic support in the wake of his Ukraine debacle. Maybe what some critical mass of ordinary Russians want, at least at some subconscious level, isn’t an easy victory. It’s a unifying ordeal.Which brings us to another would-be strongman in his palace in Palm Beach. In November, I was sure that Donald Trump was, as I wrote, “finally finished.” How could any but his most slavish followers continue to support him after he had once again cost Republicans the Senate? Wouldn’t this latest proof of losing be the last straw for devotees who had been promised “so much winning”?Silly me. The Trump movement isn’t built on the prospect of winning. It’s built on a sense of belonging: of being heard and seen; of being a thorn in the side to those you sense despise you and whom you despise in turn; of submission for the sake of representation. All the rest — victory or defeat, prosperity or misery — is details.Erdogan defied expectation because he understood this. He won’t be the last populist leader to do so.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

Clashes in northern Kosovo that injured dozens of ethnic Serbs and NATO soldiers are the latest flare up in a long-running standoff between Kosovo and Serbia.Dozens of NATO peacekeepers were injured this week in northern Kosovo when they clashed with ethnic Serbs, raising fears of a larger escalation between Serbia and Kosovo.The violence came after Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leadership sent heavily armed security forces to take control of town municipal buildings, the latest turn in a dispute that has roots going back to the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s. Kosovo, where a majority of the population is ethnic Albanian and Muslim, declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, almost a decade after NATO’s bombing campaign that drove Serb forces, responsible for years of brutal mistreatment of ethnic Albanians, from Kosovo.Since then, the two countries have clashed over Kosovo’s treatment of its minority ethnic Serb population.The fighting in recent days — mostly skirmishes, but also some shooting — began when the Kosovan government deployed its security forces in several towns to install the ethnic Albanian mayors who had won in local elections last month. Local Serbs had mostly boycotted those votes.Each side has blamed the other for the fighting. NATO’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, called the recent clashes “unacceptable” on Tuesday and said that 700 reserve troops had been deployed to help the peacekeeping mission there, which included 3,800 troops before the conflict. In response to the violence, Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vucic, said in a statement released by his office that he had put the army on the highest level alert.Here is what we know.How did the violence start?The recent clashes were centered on four northern municipalities bordering Serbia that are home to much of Kosovo’s Serb minority.Serbian nationalists living in Kosovo, many of whom still regard the Serbian capital, Belgrade, as their true capital, have staged protests throughout the past decade to resist integrating with Kosovo.The boycott of local elections last month was prompted by a Serbian political party in Kosovo. In a statement posted to Facebook days before the election, the group dismissed the process as “undemocratic” and urged Serbs to stay home on voting day.“Serbs should watch with contempt all those who go out to participate in this illegal and illegitimate process that is against the interest of the Serbian people,” the post said.To ensure that the ethnic Albanians who won recent mayoral elections could take their posts, Kosovo’s central government last week sent in armed security forces to the area, a move that was condemned in unusually strong terms by the United States, Kosovo’s main international backer. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken on Friday accused Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leadership of “escalating tensions in the north and increasing instability.”Over the weekend, Serb protesters gathered outside municipal buildings in a number of Serbian-majority towns, facing off with Kosovo security forces and troops from a NATO-led peacekeeping mission called KFOR.A total of 30 NATO peacekeepers, including 19 Italians and 11 Hungarians, suffered injuries in the clashes. More than 50 Serbs were treated for injuries, Mr. Vucic said.The NATO mission’s commander, Maj. Gen. Angelo Michele Ristuccia, in a statement urged both sides to “take full responsibility for what happened and prevent any further escalation.”A total of 30 NATO peacekeepers, including 19 Italians and 11 Hungarians, suffered injuries in the clashes.Georgi Licovski/EPA, via ShutterstockTensions in the region had been building since the elections last month.In a televised statement early Tuesday, Mr. Vucic blamed Kosovo’s prime minister, Albin Kurti, for fueling hostilities. He also criticized NATO’s peacekeeping mission, saying it had failed to protect the Serbian population and was enabling the “illegal and forceful takeover” of the majority-Serbian municipalities by the Kosovan government.Mr. Kurti, Kosovo’s prime minister, applauded the NATO forces, saying they had been trying to curb the “violent extremism” in the streets. “In a democracy there is no place for fascist violence,” he said in a statement on Twitter. “Citizens of all ethnicities have a right to full & unencumbered service of their elected officials,” he added.What’s behind the conflict?The latest escalation is part of a dispute over the status of Kosovo, which declared its independence 15 years ago, almost a decade after NATO’s 78-day bombing campaign in 1999 that drove Serb forces, then engaged in brutal mistreatment of ethnic Albanians, from Kosovo.While an independent Kosovo has been recognized by the United States and many European countries, Serbia — as well as its key allies, Russia and China — still refuses to recognize Kosovo’s independence. It has called the split a violation of U.N. resolution 1244 that dates back to 1999 and the end of the Kosovo war.President Vucic and other Serbian leaders claim Kosovo as being the “heart” of their country, in part, because it houses many revered Orthodox Christian sites. Mr. Vucic has ruled out recognizing Kosovo and vowed to “protect” ethnic Serbs.Troops from the NATO-led peacekeeping mission secure an area near Zvecan, on Tuesday. Armend Nimani/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSerbian nationalists in Kosovo have been joined by more moderate Serbs in demanding the implementation of a 2013 deal brokered by the European Union that calls for a measure of self-rule for Serb-dominated municipalities in the north, a provision Kosovo has reneged on.In February, leaders of Kosovo and Serbia tentatively accepted a peace deal, which was mediated by the European Union and rejected by nationalists on both sides. It has not been formally signed.What is the regional backdrop to the tensions?Tensions between the two ethnic communities have flared regularly over the past decade, making the region a hub of unpredictable violence.Clashes erupted last July in response to a new law that would require ethnic Serbs living in Kosovo to switch from Serbian license plates to Kosovar ones. The recent escalation of hostilities comes as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has absorbed the attention of Kosovo’s important allies, the United States and the European Union.Serbia, a candidate to join the European Union, has been a close partner with Moscow for centuries. While it voted in favor of a U.N. resolution condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Serbia has refused to join sanctions imposed on Moscow by Western countries.“Serbs are fighting for their rights in northern Kosovo,” Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia said on Monday during a visit to Kenya. “A big explosion is looming in the heart of Europe,” he said.Joe Orovic More

In winning another term as Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan was propelled to victory in part by the fervent support of an often underappreciated constituency — conservative religious women.Ten years ago, Emine Kilic, was focused on raising her two children at home in Istanbul when she decided to set up her own clothing company to help support her family.Her business, started with an interest-free government-backed loan for female entrepreneurs, now employs 60 people and exports to 15 countries, said Ms. Kilic, who has an elementary-school education. She credited a powerful motivator who inspired her to transform her life — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — calling him a champion for women.“Thanks to my president, I became the boss of my own company,” said Ms. Kilic, 38. She said she had voted for him for years and did so again to help him secure another presidential term on Sunday.To beat back the most serious political threat to his two-decade tenure as Turkey’s dominant politician, Mr. Erdogan counted on the fervent support of an often underappreciated constituency: conservative religious women.Across Turkey, devout women, both professionals and those who don’t work outside the home, not only turned out to vote for Mr. Erdogan in large numbers, but also coaxed their friends and relatives to do the same. Women are also active across the country in his governing Justice and Development Party, ranging from activists who spread party messages among their neighbors over tea to the dozens of women who represent the party in Parliament.Since arriving on the national stage in 2003 as an ambitious Islamist politician, Mr. Erdogan has sidelined Turkey’s secular elites.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesUniting these women and Mr. Erdogan is a shared conservative Muslim view of female roles in Turkish society, first as mothers and wives, second as members of the work force. In a staunchly secular country where women who covered their hair were long barred from universities and government jobs, many devout women view Mr. Erdogan as their protector because he pushed to loosen those rules.“Voting in Turkey, especially for our community, is not only about electing someone. It is making a decision about your life,” said Ozlem Zengin, a lawmaker and senior female member of Mr. Erdogan’s party.For many conservative women, the bitterness of having their ambitions limited by public expressions of their faith runs deep, even affecting the children of those who lived through it, she said. That resentment also fuels the tremendous gratitude toward Mr. Erdogan.“Erdogan is loved that much, because he changed people’s lives,” Ms. Zengin said.The electricity between Mr. Erdogan and his female supporters coursed through an Istanbul conference hall during a women’s rally two days before the May 28 runoff. Thousands of women, some with babies or children in tow, packed the hall, clapping and waiving their arms to campaign anthems and holding up their cellphone flashlights to welcome him onstage.“Women are the most important heroes in our struggle to serve the country,” Mr. Erdogan said, to rapturous applause.“Women are with you!” the crowd at a campaign rally chanted to Mr. Erdogan.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesHe reminded his audience that he had delivered on conservative causes, lifting head scarf bans and turning the Hagia Sofia, one of Turkey’s architectural treasures, from a museum into a mosque. And he made a new promise to seek retirement pay for women who do not work outside the home, garnering more cheers.“We will burst the ballot boxes,” Mr. Erdogan said. “Don’t just go by yourself. You must make sure your families, neighbors and distant relatives also go to the ballot box.”“The women are with you!” the crowd chanted.Mr. Erdogan’s loyal following among conservatives is rooted in Turkey’s history.Though a predominantly Muslim society, the country was founded in 1923 as a secular state. That gave the government oversight of religious institutions and the power to keep open displays of religiosity out of the public sphere.Some Turks treasure that secularism as a founding pillar of the republic. But it rankled many devout people, including women who felt that it made them second-class citizens. Some women had to remove their veils to attend university. Others wore wigs.In a staunchly secular country where women who covered their hair were long barred from universities and government jobs, many devout women view Mr. Erdogan as their protector.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesMs. Zengin, the lawmaker, said she had worked as a lawyer for 20 years without being allowed to even enter the courtroom because she covered her hair.“If you were a defendant or an aggrieved party, you could enter the courtroom, but not as a lawyer,” she said. “It was incomprehensible.”Since Mr. Erdogan arrived on the national stage in 2003 as an ambitious Islamist politician, he has sidelined Turkey’s secular elites and consolidated more power in his own hands. Along the way, he pushed to loosen head scarf restrictions.The restrictions were lifted on university campuses in 2008, and in 2013 four veiled women from Mr. Erdogan’s party became Parliament members, a first. Now, there are many more, and conservatives still thank Mr. Erdogan with their votes.“I feel like I have a debt to him,” said Eda Yurtseven, a kindergarten teacher. “I owe him a lot because now I can live freely.”Mr. Erdogan’s vision of the family remains conservative, holding sacrosanct the notion of marriage being only between a man and a woman, preferably with three children. His idea of personal freedom leaves little room for L.G.B.T.Q. people in Turkey.“We believe the family is sacred,” he said during the women’s rally. “We must take precautions now against these trends that are spreading like the plague.”Turkey’s Constitution grants equal rights to men and women, and its labor code bars gender-based discrimination. But women still earn 15.6 percent less than men on average, according to a United Nations report last year.Mr. Erdogan’s foes say he has acquired too much power and accuse him of pushing the country toward one-man rule.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesIn 2021, Mr. Erdogan shocked rights groups by withdrawing Turkey from an international treaty on preventing violence against women that he had signed in 2011. Women’s advocates consider the country’s domestic violence laws strong but say that physical and sexual abuse against women remains common and often goes unreported or is not properly investigated by the authorities.Female political representation has increased during Mr. Erdogan’s tenure, and women won about 120 seats in the 600-member Parliament in this month’s election. Still, the United Nations report said, most women work in campaigning, communications or support roles, not in high-level decision making.Mr. Erdogan has been a pioneer in tapping the power of devout, conservative women in grass-roots politics in Turkey, said Nur Sinem Kourou, a professor at Istanbul Kultur University who has studied his party’s women’s groups. Many work in their neighborhoods, she said, spreading party views through informal meetings or religious activities while gathering information to feed back to the party.“The fact that the women’s branches are on the ground every week, every day means that they analyze society very well,” Ms. Kourou said. “That data leads back to Erdogan’s speeches on TV.”Those activists remain fiercely loyal to Mr. Erdogan and consider him key to Turkey’s future, she added.“We have to protect him,” Ms. Kourou said, summarizing their views. “Erdogan protects us.”That bond means that Mr. Erdogan’s staunchest female supporters tend to give him a pass on the country’s problems, including a painful cost-of-living crisis, blaming instead other members of his party or foreign powers.Woman at a meeting of Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party in Istanbul. He pushed to loosen head scarf restrictions.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesMr. Erdogan’s foes say he has acquired too much power and accuse him of pushing the country toward one-man rule. But his vast control does not bother his loyalists. On the contrary, they say he needs it to do his job.Mina Murat, 26, said she voted for Mr. Erdogan and his party because they protected her right to cover her hair.“My teacher used to wear a wig over her head scarf in school,” she recalled. “Women couldn’t attend college and couldn’t get government jobs because of their head scarves.”Now, Ms. Murat works in a clothing store geared toward conservative women, with head scarves in a vast array of colors and patterns.“Now we can dress fashionably and conservatively,” she said. More

But the United Conservative Party will hold substantially fewer seats in the legislature, in an apparent rebuff of the politics of its outspoken leader.Voters in Alberta, the oil-rich western province that is a bastion of conservatism in Canada, kept its conservative government in power on Monday but substantially reduced the number of seats it holds in the legislature, data from Canada’s national broadcaster indicated.The result, while a win for conservatives, is likely to be seen as a rebuff of the politics of Danielle Smith, the hard-right leader of the United Conservative Party who has been Alberta’s premier for seven months. Ms. Smith came to power after the party effectively rejected a more moderate conservative, Jason Kenney, as premier over his refusal to end pandemic restrictions and vaccine mandates.That revolt, led by a socially conservative wing of the party, reflected the anger in Canada that also led to the formation of a truckers’ convoy that paralyzed Ottawa, the national capital, for nearly a month.The views of Ms. Smith, a former radio talk show host and newspaper columnist who previously led another conservative party, are firmly aligned with that faction. She has declared that the unvaccinated were the “most discriminated-against group” she’d seen in her lifetime and suggested that police officers who enforced pandemic measures had committed crimes. In May, a video surfaced of her likening people who chose to be vaccinated to Germans who came to support Hitler.She has previously stated that politicians on the right in the United States were her political models and floated ideas, like fees for services in public health care, that enjoy little support across the political spectrum.United Conservative Party supporters at an election night party in Calgary, Alberta, on Monday.Todd Korol/ReutersThe Canadian Broadcasting Corporation projected early Tuesday morning that Ms. Smith and the United Conservatives would be returned to power. But the broadcaster’s data also showed that the party was leading or had been elected in just 52 electoral constituencies, down from the 63 it held before the vote. Unless the final number of seats turns out to be substantially higher, it will be the slimmest margin of victory in Alberta’s history.Many political analysts said before election night that the conservatives would have won overwhelmingly under Mr. Kenney or another more moderate leader.In a victory speech, Ms. Smith said her first act when the legislature reconvenes would be to introduce a law requiring that any future personal or business tax increases be approved by voters in a referendum, suggesting that it would make the province more attractive to investors.“We are throwing our doors wide open for businesses, large and small,” she said.She went on to reject planned federal limits on the energy industry’s carbon emissions, saying that they would not be “inflicted” on the province.As anticipated, the United Conservatives were strongest in rural areas. The New Democratic Party, led by Rachel Notley, a lawyer and former premier, had a strong showing in Edmonton, the provincial capital and one of the most left-leaning parts of the province, as well as Calgary, the largest city, which generally supports the conservatives.Rachel Notley, the New Democratic Party leader, said that despite her party’s campaign shortcomings, she would continue to lead it.Amber Bracken/ReutersAs of early Tuesday, the New Democrats, a left-of-center party co-founded by organized labor, had been elected or were leading in 35 electoral districts, a gain of 11 seats.Ms. Smith’s victory will be a challenge for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. One of her first acts as premier was to introduce legislation that she said would allow the province to refuse to enforce federal laws, a measure that many legal experts believe to be unconstitutional.Under the United Conservatives, the future of the province’s carbon tax, which is deeply unpopular with the right, and other climate change measures may be in jeopardy. When the New Democrats held power in Alberta from 2015 to 2019, after an unprecedented victory that resulted from a fracturing of the conservatives into two parties, Ms. Notley agreed to introduce carbon taxes in exchange for Mr. Trudeau’s government purchasing an oil pipeline to the Pacific Coast to ensure its expansion.Canada’s oil and gas production, which is largely based in Alberta, accounts for 28 percent of the country’s carbon emissions.Mr. Trudeau has said that the federal government will enact caps on the sector’s emissions. Ms. Smith, on Tuesday morning, called the plan a “de facto cap on production” and promised to block the measure.The trucker protest in Ottawa last year. The views of Ms. Smith are aligned with the socially conservative wing of her party that sympathized with the protest.Brett Gundlock for The New York TimesThe New Democratic Party’s win in 2015 broke a string of conservative governments in Alberta dating to the Great Depression. But Ms. Notley’s victory coincided with a collapse in oil prices that cratered the province’s economy, sending the party’s approval ratings spiraling.On Tuesday morning, Ms. Notley said she accepted responsibility for the party’s campaign shortcomings but said that she would continue as its leader.“Although we did not achieve the result we wanted, we did achieve a major step toward it,” she told supporters. More

The former governor of New Jersey, who has been at times both a confidant and a rival of Donald Trump, will have some outside help in his effort to win the Republican primary.Allies of former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey have formed a super PAC to support him in the nascent Republican primary, as he makes preparations for a likely campaign kickoff in the next two weeks, according to an official with the group and others briefed on the matter.Mr. Christie’s candidacy is likely to to focus in part on drawing a stark contrast with former President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Christie supported Mr. Trump in 2016 and worked with him during his presidency, but they split over Mr. Trump’s claims on election night in 2020 that the race was stolen from him.People who have been close to Mr. Christie for years are leading the outside group, Tell It Like It Is, which is laying the groundwork for an imminent announcement, one of the people briefed on the matter said. Brian Jones, an aide who advised Senator John McCain’s presidential bid in 2008 and Mitt Romney’s in 2012, will run the effort.William P. Palatucci, a longtime adviser to Mr. Christie and a Republican National Committee member, will be the chair. Another long-serving adviser to Mr. Christie, Russ Schriefer, will oversee messaging as a senior adviser; and Brent Seaborn, a veteran data guru, will focus on voter targeting. Maria Comella, an adviser who also was chief of staff to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, and Mike DuHaime, Mr. Christie’s top political strategist in 2016, are expected to run an eventual campaign if Mr. Christie announces as expected. Anthony Scaramucci, the hedge fund adviser who served for less than two weeks as a communications director in the Trump White House and has become a vocal Trump critic, has said he will support Mr. Christie if he runs. Mr. Christie “is willing to confront the hard truths that currently threaten the future of the Republican Party,” Mr. Jones said in a statement. “Now more than ever we need leaders that have the courage to say not what we want to hear but what we need to hear.”Chris Christie is focusing his effort in the 2024 race on New Hampshire, where he held a town hall recently at New England College.Charles Krupa/Associated PressMr. Christie has said recently that he would run if he believed he could win, but he had indicated that there were organizational issues he needed to figure out. The existence of the super PAC and the pending announcement suggest those issues have been resolved.A Christie candidacy is seen as a long shot in a Republican Party that has been remade in Mr. Trump’s image eight years after Mr. Christie first ran for president. Mr. Trump vanquished him, and Mr. Christie dropped out after coming in sixth in New Hampshire, where he had staked his candidacy.A central challenge of this campaign will be explaining to voters his transformation. He endorsed Mr. Trump in 2016, helped him with debate prep and acted at times as an informal adviser during his presidency. Then, in the earliest hours of Nov. 4, 2020, Mr. Christie split with him when he questioned Mr. Trump’s declaration that there had been widespread fraud in the election.“We heard nothing today about any evidence,” Mr. Christie said in an appearance on ABC News. “This kind of thing, all it does is inflame without informing. And we cannot permit inflammation without information.”Since then, Mr. Christie has become a full-throated critic of Mr. Trump, talking as a former federal prosecutor about the former president’s legal travails and describing him as a loser who can no longer command the crowds he once did. Mr. Christie’s candidacy is being watched by donors who either like what he’s saying or see him as the best opportunity to damage Mr. Trump, particularly from a debate stage. And like some other candidates, such as former Vice President Mike Pence, Mr. Christie appears to be banking on the notion that there are enough vestiges of the old Republican Party to which he can appeal.While New Hampshire is seen as a potentially favorable state where Mr. Christie could make inroads, his advisers are not expected to hang his candidacy on a specific state. Instead, he is expected to try to get as much media attention as possible with an unconventional campaign that will travel to places where his message is most appealing.He will be coming into the 2024 race as the person with the most coherent case against Mr. Trump while arguing that the fight needs to be taken directly to the former president. Mr. Christie is hoping to tamp down some of the grievance that has seeped into the roots of political discourse in the Republican Party since Mr. Trump became the party’s nominee in 2016. Mr. Christie is approaching the race, allies say, with the goal of delivering a hopeful message. But Mr. Christie has also repeatedly taken shots at Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, the distant second to Mr. Trump in most public polls, describing Mr. DeSantis’s fight with Disney in particular as an overreach. “Where are we headed here now that, if you express disagreement in this country, the government is allowed to punish you? To me, that’s what I always thought liberals did. And now all of a sudden here we are participating in this with a Republican governor,” Mr. Christie said last month. More

Also, a rare daytime assault on Kyiv.Gay rights groups say hundreds of gay Ugandans have reached out to them in recent weeks seeking help.Abubaker Lubowa/ReutersUganda’s harsh new anti-gay lawThe president of Uganda signed a punitive anti-gay bill yesterday that includes the death penalty as a punishment, enshrining into law an intensifying crackdown on L.G.B.T.Q. people in the conservative East African nation.It calls for life imprisonment for anyone who engages in gay sex. Anyone who tries to have same-sex relations could be liable for up to a decade in prison. The law also decrees the death penalty for anyone convicted of “aggravated homosexuality,” which is partially defined as acts of same-sex relations with children or disabled people.Context: Homosexuality was already illegal in Uganda. But the new law — one of the world’s most restrictive anti-gay measures — calls for far stricter punishment and broadens the list of offenses.Reaction: Many L.G.B.T.Q. people have fled Uganda since the law was introduced in Parliament in March. “There’s fear that this law will embolden many Ugandans to take the law into their hands,” said Frank Mugisha, the most prominent gay rights activist in Uganda.Politics: President Yoweri Museveni has dismissed widespread calls — from the U.N., Western governments and civil society groups — not to impose the measure.Region: A growing number of African countries, including Kenya and Ghana, are considering passing similar or even stricter legislation.Patients and medical staff, including injured soldiers, sheltered in the basement of a hospital in Kyiv.Nicole Tung for The New York TimesA rare morning assault on KyivPowerful explosions ripped through Ukraine’s capital yesterday morning, just hours after Russia launched an overnight barrage. Frightened pedestrians hurried to get off the streets, and children wearing backpacks started to run and scream when booms resounded, a video showed.Ukraine said it shot down all 11 of the missiles that Russia fired. Falling debris caused some damage, and information about possible casualties was still being clarified.Russia has launched 16 attacks on Kyiv this month, but this was the first daytime strike there in many weeks. Ukrainian officials say that Moscow is adjusting its tactics to try to inflict maximum damage. So far, Ukrainian air defenses, reinforced by Western weapons, have largely thwarted the aerial attacks on Kyiv, limiting casualties and damage in the highly populated area.Details: More than 41,000 people took shelter in subway stations when air raid sirens sounded around 11 a.m., officials said. Parents raced to protect their children, and hospital workers huddled in shelters. A billboard that shows the pictures of Chinese astronauts.Mark Schiefelbein/Associated PressChina’s expanding space ambitionsChina plans to land a person on the moon by 2030, a government official said yesterday. The announcement came as three astronauts were preparing to launch today from Earth to China’s new space station, completed late last year.A lunar landing would be a significant achievement for China in its competition with the U.S. in space. No human has been on the moon since the U.S. Apollo missions in the 1960s and ’70s. NASA wants to put people on the moon again, with a target of 2025, but that plan, known as the Artemis program, has faced delays. A U.S. report last year warned that China could overtake the U.S.’s abilities in space by 2045.China in space: It is the only country to have successfully landed on the moon in the 21st century, and in 2019 it became the first to land a probe on the moon’s far side.THE LATEST NEWSAsia PacificFishermen maneuvered on a breakwater dike in Manila.Francis R Malasig/EPA, via ShutterstockTyphoon Mawar will most likely stay north of the Philippines, though it could cause heavy rains in some parts of the country. The impact on Taiwan, China and South Korea could be minimal.The police in New Delhi arrested a man for fatally stabbing a teenage girl, the BBC reports. A video that shows people watching the assault, which occurred in public, has provoked outrage.The Indian state of Sikkim is offering cash to encourage people to have babies, a sign of India’s uneven population growth.Around the WorldPrime Minister Pedro Sánchez leads a fragile coalition government.Pierre-Philippe Marcou/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPrime Minister Pedro Sánchez of Spain called for a snap election in July after his party suffered defeats in regional elections over the weekend.Analysts think the U.S. economy is well positioned to withstand the debt deal’s proposed budget cuts. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan may approve Sweden’s NATO membership bid now that he has been re-elected as Turkey’s leader.A Morning ReadIseto’s sake masters check and control the temperature of the alcohol with their hands, not thermometers.James Whitlow Delano for The New York TimesA travel writer used a 22-year-old guidebook to lead him through Tokyo on his search for bars and restaurants that express the city’s traditional eating and drinking culture. It took him to old stalwarts like Iseto, a sake den that’s operated out of the same wooden house since 1948.“The long-term survival of old-school places like Iseto is an accurate barometer of how much a city has been able to stay true to itself and resist the onslaught of the hot and new, often bywords for globalized sameness,” he writes.ARTS AND IDEASLessons from ‘Succession’Matthew Macfadyen and Sarah Snook in the “Succession” series finale.HBOWith the show’s finale on Sunday, viewers of HBO’s satire of the ultrawealthy learned the fate of the media empire of Logan Roy, the late tyrant. (Here’s a recap.)The final episodes were set against the backdrop of a country in crisis. But the Roys fanned those dark political forces for ratings — and then they backed a far-right presidential candidate. Indeed, our chief television critic writes that “Succession” has showed how the problems of the ultrawealthy affect all of us: “They have so much influence and so little sense of responsibility.”Are you a “Succession” superfan? Take our quiz. And if you already miss the show, here’s what to watch next.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookRyan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Maggie Ruggiero.The secret to great salmon: Add salt and wait.What to ReadIn “Yellowface” a white writer takes credit for her dead Asian American friend’s manuscript.HealthWhy does day drinking feel different?Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Reverberating sound (four letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you tomorrow. — AmeliaP.S. Yesterday was Memorial Day in the U.S., which honors those who have died in war.Write to us at [email protected] with any questions or suggestions. Thanks! More