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      Inflationary Wave Changes Political Terrain for Right-Wing Populists

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      The leaders of Turkey, Hungary and Brazil are all grappling with problems posed by the global rise in prices ahead of national elections.To all those who would pose a challenge to Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil’s coming presidential election, including the press, the Supreme Court and liberals, the embattled right-wing leader has an answer: “Only God removes me.”But Mr. Bolsonaro might be unseated by an unexpected problem that his political playbook has no easy answer for: inflation.Prices are climbing faster than they have in almost two decades in Brazil, a country with a relatively recent history of disastrous inflationary episodes. The currency has steadily declined in value, losing roughly 10 percent against the dollar in the last six months alone. And the economy, Latin America’s largest, slipped back into recession in the third quarter.That has upset people like Lucia Regina da Silva. A 65-year-old retired nursing assistant and former Bolsonaro supporter, she has watched over the last year as surging prices have eroded the purchasing power of her modest monthly pension.“I believed this government would improve our lives,” said Ms. da Silva on a recent morning as she pushed a mostly empty shopping cart — a few vegetables and some personal products were all she could afford — through the aisles of Campeão, a cheap supermarket chain in Rio de Janeiro. “But that was flawed.”Mr. Bolsonaro is among a generation of right-wing populists who, in the past decade and a half, have risen to power in democracies like Turkey, Brazil and Hungary, and whose reigns have coincided, at least at first, with periods of solid economic performance in those countries. They have remained in power by stoking nationalist passions and driving deep wedges into the electorate with hot-button cultural issues. Along the way, they have co-opted the news media and cowed opponents.Now these strongmen — including Mr. Bolsonaro, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey — are grappling with rising prices, even as they face national elections within the next two years. A new and unexpected peril, inflation is threatening to organize and animate political opposition in the countries of these three leaders in a way few would have predicted just a few months ago.In Hungary, where consumer prices are rising at their fastest pace since 2007, polls suggest that Mr. Orban will face his toughest election ever next year, as the cost of living and low wages become top concerns for voters.In Hungary, polls suggest that Prime Minister Viktor Orban will face his toughest election ever next year as the cost of living and low wages become top concerns.Pool photo by John ThysVoters in the nearby Czech Republic — which has faced rising inflation and soaring energy costs — just ousted Andrej Babis, the country’s billionaire right-wing populist prime minister, by a narrow margin.Mr. Bolsonaro’s standing, already damaged by his administration’s management of the Covid crisis, has tumbled, with polls showing him badly trailing his likely 2022 opponent, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.In anticipation, Mr. Bolsonaro has begun laying the groundwork to dispute the results of next year’s vote, which the polls suggest he would lose badly if it were held today. “I want to tell those who want to make me unelectable in Brazil, only God removes me,” he told a cheering crowd in São Paulo in September.But Mr. da Silva has already incorporated the economic crisis into his recent campaign. “The Bolsonaro government is responsible for inflation,” he said in an interview. “Inflation is out of control.”The situation is most dire in Turkey, where the unorthodox economic policies of President Erdogan have set off a full-on currency crisis. The value of the lira has collapsed roughly 45 percent this year. And prices are now rising at an official rate of more than 20 percent annually, with some unofficial estimates even higher.Countries with right-wing populist leaders aren’t the only ones reeling from inflation. In the United States, prices are rising at their fastest rate since 1982. And left-leaning populists, such as those in power in Argentina, are also contending with fierce inflationary currents, which have put them on the defensive.The upsurge represents a sudden break from the trend of sluggish growth and tepid inflation that dominated the global economy for roughly a dozen years before the pandemic hit. That low-growth backdrop allowed powerful central banks in the United States, the European Union and Britain to keep interest rates low. And those decisions had large implications for poorer countries around the world.That’s because the low-rate policies made by central banks such as the Federal Reserve reduce the returns investors in wealthy nations can make by buying safe government bonds in their home countries, pushing them into riskier investments in emerging markets that promise higher returns.Economists say that flow of money toward developing nations might have been an underappreciated element of the success right-wing populist leaders have enjoyed in recent years, as it provided a steadily favorable economic tailwind that coincided with their time in power.Turkey, which suffered a sharp recession in 2009, was able to rebound relatively quickly thanks to a surge of borrowing from foreign investors that supercharged growth. Mr. Bolsonaro’s election in 2018 coincided with a fresh push to lower interest rates from the Federal Reserve, which prompted U.S. investors to buy more emerging market debt and helped prop up the real.“Since the global financial recession, the global macroeconomic environment was a godsend to authoritarians,” said Daron Acemoglu, a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has studied the deterioration of democracies. “Essentially, with very low interest rates, it made many countries that had either weak democracies or semi-authoritarianism, or sometimes fully fledged authoritarianism, still attractive to foreign capital.”But as the global economy began to heal from the pandemic this year, a combination of supply chain disruptions, central bank money-printing and government spending aimed at juicing the recovery ignited a sharp rise in prices around the world. That prompted leaders in many developing countries to tweak their policies — and global investors to rethink their investments in those markets.Claudia Calich, the head of emerging market debt at M&G Investments in London, has invested in Turkish government bonds, denominated in lira, for years. But, Ms. Calich said, the increasing public pressure that Mr. Erdogan was putting on the country’s central bank to cut interest rates this year led the fund to sell its entire position.In Turkey, led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the value of the lira has lost about 45 percent this year, and prices are rising at an official rate of more than 20 percent annually.Burhan Ozbilici/Associated Press“As soon as we started seeing the changes this year going in the wrong direction, namely for further rate reductions, then we started getting worried about the currency,” Ms. Calich said. “That has been, so far, the wrong policy response. And yeah, we’ve been very happy to have exited that position.”There are few politically palatable options for emerging market countries dealing with an inflationary upsurge and weakening currencies. But for a number of reasons, the inflationary rise is especially tricky political terrain for populists like Messrs. Orban, Erdogan and Bolsonaro, who all face elections in 2022 or 2023.Their personalized approach to politics — and the fact that they have all been in office for years — makes it difficult for them to sidestep blame for the condition of the economy. At the same time, their brand of populism, which emphasizes nationalist rivalries and has been effective in the past, can seem out of touch to citizens whose standards of living are swiftly plummeting.The traditional remedy for inflation would call for some combination of higher interest rates from the central bank and skimpier government spending. But both moves would probably hurt economic growth and employment, at least in the short term, potentially worsening prospects of re-election.In Turkey, Mr. Erdogan — who has adopted an increasingly authoritarian leadership style since surviving a coup attempt in 2016 — has ruled out such a conventional response. In recent weeks, the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, essentially under Mr. Erdogan’s personal control, has repeatedly cut interest rates.Most observers think Mr. Erdogan has made a difficult situation much worse, with the prospect of more interest rate cuts and currency declines driving foreign investors to pull their money from Turkey.At the same time, the political winds also seem to be blowing against Mr. Erdogan. The worsening economic situation has prompted scattered street protests. Opposition politicians are calling for snap elections to deal with the crisis, while hammering Mr. Erdogan for what they call his disastrous management of the economy.Mr. Orban and Mr. Bolsonaro, both of whom once fashioned themselves as conservative budgeteers, have abandoned their previous positions. Instead, they are pushing a short-term surge of spending to provide an influx of cash to voters ahead of next year’s elections. It’s unclear that such an approach will help, however, as it is likely to make inflationary pressures worse.Sitting on a bench at a local farmers market in Budapest on a recent afternoon, Marton Varjai, 68, laughed at the $250 check Mr. Orban recently sent him, part of a payout his government authorized to all pensioners, who amount to roughly 20 percent of the population.Mr. Varjai earns a monthly pension of about $358, of which 85 percent goes to covering medicine and utilities. “The rest is what I have to live off,” he said, adding that he was concerned about his ability to make ends meet.Such sentiments are becoming an increasing focus for Hungarian voters. A recent study by Policy Solutions, a progressive think tank in Budapest, found that Hungarians are most concerned with the cost of living and low wages.“If these issues dominate the campaign, it’s not good for Fidesz,” said Andras Biro-Nagy, director of Policy Solutions, referring to Mr. Orban’s ruling party. More

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      Lula prepara un regreso. ¿Convencerá a Brasil?

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      El expresidente brasileño Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ha logrado dejar atrás una serie de acusaciones de corrupción y encabeza la lucha por la presidencia del año entrante.RECIFE, Brasil — El antiguo limpiabotas que llegó a la presidencia dejó el cargo hace poco más de una década con la popularidad de una estrella de rock. Era la encarnación de una nación que parecía estar en la cúspide de la grandeza.La caída de ese presidente, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, y de su país, Brasil, fue igual de dramática. Un escándalo de corrupción lo llevó a la cárcel y puso de manifiesto las irregularidades y los errores de cálculo que contribuyeron a frenar una era de prosperidad, abatiendo a la mayor economía de América Latina y poniendo en marcha un periodo de turbulencias políticas.Ahora Lula, como todos lo conocen, ha vuelto.Una serie de victorias judiciales lo han liberado y le han devuelto su derecho a postularse a la presidencia, lo que le ha permitido a da Silva volver a argumentar que él es el único camino a seguir para una nación que lucha contra el aumento del hambre, la pobreza y una división política cada vez más profunda.“Tenemos total certeza de que es posible reconstruir el país”, afirmó recientemente.Personas sin hogar hacían fila para recibir alimentos de los voluntarios de un grupo religioso en Sao Paulo. La cantidad de personas que vivía en pobreza en Brasil se triplicó de 9,7 millones en 2020 a 27 millones en 2021.Mauricio Lima para The New York TimesUn retorno al poder sería un regreso sorprendente para Da Silva, de 76 años, cuya épica carrera política ha sido paralela al destino de Brasil. Empezó como líder sindical y alcanzó la fama con el movimiento que puso fin a la dictadura brasileña de 1964 a 1985. Después de perder tres veces las elecciones presidenciales, ganó en 2002 y condujo a la nación a un periodo de abundancia económica y prestigio internacional, cuando Brasil fue elegido para dar una fiesta al mundo como anfitrión de la Copa Mundial y los Juegos Olímpicos.Los votantes le dan una amplia ventaja en la contienda presidencial del año entrante, señal de que para millones de personas el recuerdo de un Brasil próspero y en ascenso tiene más peso que su recelo ante la corrupción endémica que empañó el legado de Da Silva.El cálido recibimiento que le dieron los presidentes de España y Francia en un viaje reciente a Europa dejó en claro que otros líderes también podrían sentir nostalgia por el Brasil de antaño.Pero lograr una victoria podría depender de su capacidad para reformular el relato de por qué Brasil se derrumbó de forma tan espectacular tras su presidencia.Aunque millones de brasileños salieron de la pobreza y la desigualdad bajo su mandato, muchos de los proyectos que Da Silva puso en marcha, según los críticos, eran insostenibles, suponían un despilfarro y estaban contaminados por la corrupción.“No hicieron lo que era necesario para el país, sino lo que era necesario para mantenerse en el poder”, comentó Marina Silva, exministra de Medio Ambiente del gobierno de Da Silva, que dimitió por desacuerdos con el enfoque de gobierno del presidente. “El fin justificaba los medios”.Marina Silva, exministra de Medio Ambiente del gabinete de Lula Da Silva, renunció en 2009 tras desacuerdos con el enfoque del presidente.Gabriela Portilho para The New York TimesDa Silva no asumió ninguna responsabilidad por la recesión ni por el enorme escándalo de sobornos que golpeó a Brasil durante años después de que dejara el cargo. Y los brasileños volcaron su ira contra la sucesora elegida personalmente por Da Silva, Dilma Rousseff, que fue destituida en 2016 por el traslado indebido de fondos públicos en un intento por maquillar el estado de la economía antes de su reelección.Dos años después, el país eligió a Jair Bolsonaro, un excapitán del ejército de extrema derecha que se presentó como el polo opuesto a Da Silva, alabando la dictadura y prometiendo mano dura contra la corrupción y el crimen.Ahora, Bolsonaro se enfrenta a un torrente de escándalos, su gobierno está envuelto en investigaciones, su popularidad disminuye, y Da Silva se presenta como la salvación de Brasil.Para entender el potencial de Da Silva, por qué se desintegró y si su regreso podría ofrecer la estabilidad y el crecimiento que los brasileños ansían, ayuda visitar una pequeña comunidad portuaria de pescadores artesanales que Da Silva soñaba con convertir en un próspero centro manufacturero.‘La industria naval brasileña ha llegado para quedarse’Trabajadores del puerto restauran un barco en el astillero Atlântico Sul como parte del proyecto Puerto Suape.Mauricio Lima para The New York TimesCuando Da Silva asumió el cargo en 2003, la economía brasileña había logrado frenar la inflación y disfrutaba de un auge de materias primas, lo que le daba al gobierno un grado de flexibilidad fiscal muy inusual. De inmediato puso en marcha ambiciosos planes para recompensar al noreste, su lugar de nacimiento y un bastión electoral que alberga a poco más de una cuarta parte de la población del país, pero casi la mitad de sus pobres.Hijo de trabajadores agrícolas analfabetos, Da Silva, que creció en una pequeña choza sin electricidad ni cañerías, vio la oportunidad de transformar a las familias como la suya invirtiendo a manos llenas en industrias generadoras de empleo.El Banco Nacional de Desarrollo Económico y Social, gestionado por el gobierno, autorizó un préstamo de 1900 millones de dólares para un ferrocarril de 1754 kilómetros que conectaría el corazón agrícola con dos puertos, uno de ellos justo al sur de Recife, la ciudad más grande del noreste y la capital del estado de Pernambuco.El astillero Atlântico Sul, visto desde la isla abandonada de Tatuoca, que fue privatizada y cuyos residentes fueron retirados de sus hogares por las obras en el proyecto portuario de Suape. Mauricio Lima para The New York TimesJunto a la zona portuaria de Recife —en el extremo oriental del continente, con fácil acceso a los mercados europeos y africanos— se iniciaron dos proyectos de gran envergadura. Una nueva refinería señalaba la ambición de Brasil de convertirse en un gran productor de petróleo. Los planes para un astillero, Estaleiro Atlântico Sul, presumían que sería el mayor y más moderno del hemisferio sur.“La industria naval brasileña ha llegado para quedarse”, proclamó Da Silva en 2005, esbozando planes para una red de astilleros. “Brasil se está preparando para los próximos diez años: crecimiento crecimiento crecimiento”.El frenesí de la construcción fue bien recibido por los residentes de la isla de Tatuoca, una pequeña comunidad de pescadores artesanales de la zona. Las obras, dijeron, les permitieron mejorar sus chozas con lujos que antes habían estado fuera de su alcance.José Rodrigo da Silva, un extrabajador del puerto, pesca cerca de su casa en Suape.Mauricio Lima para The New York Times“Era una buena vida, con buenos muebles, televisores y equipos de música”, recordó José Rodrigo da Silva, un pescador nacido en la isla.El gobierno de Lula Da Silva creó un popurrí de aranceles e incentivos financieros para que los astilleros consiguieran contratos por miles de millones de dólares, asegurando así trabajo durante al menos dos décadas.“El plan era usar la industria naval para generar empleos en el nordeste”, dijo Nicole Terpins, presidenta del astillero cerca de Recife.Pero había muchos motivos para el escepticismo, comentó Ecio Costa, economista en la Universidad Federal de Pernambuco.Un trabajador del puerto en el astillero Atlântico Sul.Mauricio Lima para The New York Times“No había mano de obra capacitada, no había suministros”, dijo. “Para construir barcos hace falta toda una cadena de suministro, un sector tecnológico, y nada de eso sucede de la noche a la mañana”.Las 75 familias que vivían en la isla de Tatuoca empezaron a cuestionar los beneficios de la ampliación del puerto en 2009, cuando una draga empezó a arrancar trozos del lecho marino para dar cabida a grandes barcos.“Comenzó la devastación”, comentó el pescador Da Silva. “Desaparecieron los cangrejos, los peces, todo empezó a morir, y ya no teníamos forma de llegar a fin de mes”.En 2010, a los residentes de la isla les dijeron que serían desalojados para dar paso a la expansión de las operaciones de construcción naval. Todos acabaron por abandonar sus hogares en la isla a cambio de modestas pagas y simples casas adosadas en el territorio continental.“Muchos de los que vivían allí no sabían qué era una calle”, afirmó el pescador de 37 años. “Nos prohibieron volver a Tatuoca”.Un camino en la isla Tatuoca, que fue abandonada para dejar el paso libre al proyecto de Puerto Suape y el astillero Atlântico Sul.Mauricio Lima para The New York Times‘Podemos ser un gran país’El desplazamiento forzoso fue visto por casi todos como parte del precio que hay que pagar por el crecimiento de una nación en ascenso.Los empleos en Pernambuco de pronto eran abundantes, y más brasileños podían acceder a ellos. Las inversiones en educación y los nuevos programas de discriminación positiva permitieron que un número sin precedentes de brasileños negros fueran a la universidad.En 2007, el descubrimiento de vastas reservas de petróleo en alta mar llevó a un extasiado Da Silva a proclamar, en un discurso: “Dios es brasileño”.Ese año, el Banco de Desarrollo Brasileño emitió una las mayores líneas de crédito de su historia: 1200 millones de dólares para construir diez buques petroleros. El banco también financió con 252 millones de dólares la construcción del astillero Atlântico Sul, que el banco proyectaba emplearía a alrededor de 5000 personas y crearía 20.000 empleos indirectos.En el escenario internacional Lula Da Silva hacía olas.Ayudó a lanzar una alianza diplomática de las principales economías emergentes que incluía a China, India, Rusia y Sudáfrica. Argumentó ante Naciones Unidas que Brasil merecía más voz y un asiento permanente en el Consejo de Seguridad.Quizá lo que mejor capturó la sensación de posibilidad y euforia del momento fue cuando miles de brasileños estallaron en celebraciones de júbilo en octubre de 2009, después de que Brasil diera la sorpresa en el concurso para organizar los Juegos Olímpicos de 2016. Fue un logro supremo para Da Silva.“Nunca me he sentido más orgulloso de Brasil”, exclamó Da Silva. “Ahora vamos a demostrar al mundo que podemos ser un gran país”.Un grupo de personas se fotografió junto a los aros olímpicos cerca de la Arena de Voleibol Playa en la playa Copacabana durante las Olimpiadas de 2016.Mauricio Lima para The New York Times‘La corrupción se convirtió en un medio para gobernar’Da Silva dejó el cargo a finales de 2010 con un índice de aprobación del 80 por ciento y con Rousseff en posición para continuar su legado.Sin embargo, la mandataria empezó a flaquear cuando los precios de las materias primas cayeron y las facciones del Congreso, conocidas por operar de forma muy transaccional, empezaron a romper filas con el partido gobernante.Rousseff fue reelegida por un estrecho margen en 2014, cuando la economía entró a un periodo de contracción que pronto se convertiría en una profunda recesión. Ese año, las fuerzas del orden federales llevaron a cabo las primeras detenciones del mayor escándalo de corrupción de la historia del país.La presidenta Dilma Rousseff en 2014. Dos años más tarde fue sometida a juicio político, luego de una caída económica y los brasileños se indignaron por las acusaciones de corrupción contra el gobierno de su predecesor.Mauricio Lima para The New York TimesLa investigación sacó a la luz esquemas de sobornos en los que estaban implicados algunos de los políticos más poderosos del país y grandes empresas a las que se les habían concedido miles de millones en contratos gubernamentales. Entre ellas, el gigante petrolero estatal Petrobras —el principal cliente del astillero de Pernambuco— y el coloso de la construcción Odebrecht.Varias personalidades implicadas, entre ellas estrechos colaboradores de Da Silva, llegaron a acuerdos de colaboración con los fiscales a cambio de clemencia. Su cooperación puso de manifiesto el impresionante alcance de los delitos cometidos durante la presidencia de Da Silva, lo que condujo a acuerdos históricos con los fiscales de Brasil y Estados Unidos. Odebrecht aceptó pagar 3500 millones de dólares, el mayor acuerdo en un caso de corrupción extranjero investigado por el Departamento de Justicia de Estados Unidos, y Petrobras aceptó pagar 853 millones de dólares.Deltan Dallagnol, uno de los fiscales brasileños que dirigió la investigación, dijo en un correo electrónico que los gobiernos de Da Silva y Rousseff permitieron “un patrón de corrupción estructural y sistémica”. Añadió que los miles de millones de dólares que las empresas aceptaron devolver a las arcas del gobierno, así como el testimonio de los acusados que se sinceraron, demostraron “que la corrupción se convirtió en un medio para gobernar el país”.Los investigadores no tardaron en centrarse en Da Silva, que finalmente fue acusado en once causas penales relacionadas con supuestos sobornos y lavado de dinero.Lula Da Silva durante un mitin de campaña en São Paulo en 2017, antes de que fuera a prisión acusado de corrupción.Mauricio Lima para The New York TimesLas crisis política y económica coincidentes allanaron el camino para la destitución de Rousseff y se extendieron por todo el país, destruyendo varios sectores, entre ellos la incipiente industria de construcción naval.El astillero Atlântico Sul se vino abajo. Petrobras canceló de manera abrupta los pedidos de barcos. Su línea de crédito fue suspendida. Y los principales ejecutivos de las dos empresas que lo construyeron se encuentran entre los acusados de corrupción. De la noche a la mañana, miles de constructores navales fueron despedidos.Y no fue un caso aislado para nada, dijo Samuel Pessôa, economista de la Fundación Getulio Vargas en São Paulo.“Todas las iniciativas fracasaron”, dijo de los proyectos emblemáticos de la era Da Silva. “La corrupción no fue el factor principal; eran proyectos mal planeados y la desconexión entre los emprendimientos lanzados y las condiciones de la economía y la sociedad de Brasil”.Jair Bolsonaro en su oficina cuando era legislador federal en 2017. Detrás de él se encuentran los retratos de los líderes de Brasil durante la dictadura militar.Lalo de Almeida para The New York Times‘Prenderle fuego’Cuando los brasileños acudieron a las urnas en 2018, Da Silva estaba en la cárcel, condenado por aceptar renovaciones a un departamento frente al mar como soborno de parte de una empresa constructora.Los proyectos emblemáticos que había emprendido, como el ferrocarril en el noreste y los astilleros, se habían vuelto insolventes y habían quedado paralizados.Un índice de desempleo de dos dígitos y un número récord de homicidios en 2017 hicieron que el electorado se enfadara… y aceptara a un contendiente presidencial disruptivo.Bolsonaro, que había sido un legislador marginal durante décadas, canalizó la rabia de los votantes, presentándose como un político incorruptible. Derrotó fácilmente al candidato del Partido de los Trabajadores, consiguiendo un apoyo impresionante en las regiones pobres, incluida la base de Lula Da Silva en el noreste.El alcalde de Recife, João Campos, que pertenece a un partido de centroizquierda, dijo que tres años después, millones de votantes se han arrepentido de ese voto.Los trabajadores separan materiales para el reciclaje en el barrio Brasília Teimosa, una comunidad de bajos ingresos en Recife.Mauricio Lima para The New York Times“Es como si tuvieras una casa llena de ratas y cucarachas, y la solución que encuentras es prenderle fuego”, explicó Campos. “Eso es lo que hizo Brasil”.Desde que asumió el cargo en enero de 2019, Bolsonaro ha mantenido a Brasil en crisis, buscando peleas con aliados políticos y discutiendo con los jueces del Supremo Tribunal que supervisan las investigaciones sobre su gobierno y miembros de su familia.Bajo su mandato, el desempleo aumentó, millones volvieron a caer en la pobreza, la inflación volvió a ser de dos dígitos y la pandemia mató a más de 600.000 personas.Sondeos de opinión pública muestran que si la elección se realizara ahora, Bolsonaro perdería frente a todos sus posibles rivales.Una pancarta muestra a Bolsonaro como un demonio durante una protesta en julio que pedía enjuiciarlo por su manejo de la pandemia.Mauricio Lima para The New York TimesUn enfrentamiento entre ambos líderes realizado por la encuestadora Datafolha mostró que Da Silva —quien rehusó varios pedidos de entrevista— ganaba por un enorme 56 por ciento frente al 31 por ciento de Bolsonaro.Algunos de los casos penales contra Da Silva se han desbaratado en tanto los protagonistas de la cruzada anticorrupción cayeron en desgracia. Uno de los principales fue Sergio Moro, el juez detrás de la condena que mandó al expresidente a prisión.La imparcialidad de Moro fue cuestionada cuando se unió al gabinete de Bolsonaro como ministro de Justicia y después de que se filtraron mensajes intercambiados con fiscales durante la investigación que mostraban que les había brindado asesoría estratégica de manera ilegal.Al mancharse la reputación otrora intachable del exmagistrado, varias cortes, entre ellas la Suprema Corte de Brasil, emitieron una gran cantidad de fallos a favor de Da Silva. Los fallos, en gran parte procedimentales, no lo exculparon. Pero en la práctica básicamente le otorgaron un expediente legal limpio.Da Silva, a la derecha, de visita en un asentamiento del Movimiento de los Trabajadores Rurales Sin Tierra en el estado de Pernambuco en agosto. Mauricio Lima para The New York Times‘Nos dio prioridad’Ante el torrente de escándalos de la era de Bolsonaro, un electorado que antes estaba ansioso por crucificar a Da Silva y a su partido ha adoptado un enfoque más optimista, dijo John French, un profesor de Historia de la Universidad de Duke que escribió una biografía de Da Silva.“Se les acusó de no haber sido capaces de eliminar el dinero y la corrupción de un sistema político en el que eso siempre ha sido la esencia de la política”, expresó, argumentando que los votantes brasileños, en general, se han resignado al chanchullo político. “Si asumes que todo el mundo es corrupto, la pregunta es: ¿quién se preocupa realmente por ti? ¿Quién siente por ti? ¿Quién es capaz de hacer algo por ti, algo concreto?”.Esas preguntas han hecho que personas como José Rodrigo da Silva, el pescador, se mantengan fieles a Da Silva.El astillero en el que el pescador alguna vez se puso un uniforme con orgullo ahora está invadido de maleza. La oficina de contratación está cerrada y al letrero exterior le faltan varias letras. La empresa ha empezado a reparar barcos para pagar a los acreedores, pero no tiene planes de construirlos.Lleva en el paro desde 2017. Su factura de la luz tiene pagos atrasados de meses. Las aguas residuales sin tratar burbujean a menudo fuera de su casa. Pero sus ojos se iluminaron cuando habló del regreso del expresidente que comparte su apellido.“El periodo en el que más trabajé fue cuando él era presidente”, aseguró. “Todo el mundo roba. Pero él nos dio prioridad”.Lis Moriconi More

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      Bolsonaro Joins a Centrist Party in Brazil Ahead of 2022 Re-election Bid

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      President Jair Bolsonaro, who has not belonged to any political party for two years, is joining the centrist Liberals, they said on Wednesday.BRASILIA, Brazil — After going two years without belonging to a political party, President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil sealed an agreement with the centrist Liberal Party to back his 2022 re-election bid, according to a party statement released on Wednesday.The decision followed a meeting between Mr. Bolsonaro and the Liberal Party leader, Valdemar Costa Neto, in Brasília, the capital, the statement said. The president’s formal enrollment in the party’s ranks will take place on Nov. 22.Joining one of the parties that form part of the so-called Centrao group seems to signal that Mr. Bolsonaro, a right-wing populist, is shifting course from his 2018 campaign strategy, when he criticized the group’s old-school political practices.In early polls ahead of the October 2022 vote, Mr. Bolsonaro trails former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the leftist who led Brazil from 2003 to 2010.The Liberal Party, or P.L., is known along with other Centrao parties for ideological malleability, often exchanging support for government appointments and earmarks. Mr. Bolsonaro was affiliated with such parties during most of his seven terms as a federal lawmaker, but cast himself as a political outsider during his 2018 presidential campaign. He vowed then not to embrace the horse trading that benefited entrenched actors and enabled corruption.“It is very symbolic how Bolsonaro has started to play the traditional game of Brazilian politics,” said Maurício Santoro, a political science professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. “The P.L. is helping Bolsonaro survive.”When Mr. Bolsonaro ran in 2018, it was under the banner of the Social Liberal Party, which he left one year after his election victory amid disagreements with its leadership over funding and regional nominations. He set out to forge his own party, but failed to garner enough signatures and has been without a political home since.The presidential press office didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press to confirm the P.L.’s statement. Earlier Wednesday, Bolsonaro had said in a radio interview that there was a “99.9 percent chance” he would join the P.L.Reports that Mr. Bolsonaro was seeking a Centrao party to sponsor his re-election bid had already generated commentary from analysts that he was departing from his prior anti-establishment stance. As rumors of his agreement with the P.L. intensified this week, comments criticizing Mr. Costa Neto, the party leader, were deleted from the social media accounts of some of Mr. Bolsonaro’s family members.Mr. Bolsonaro himself has previously said that Mr. Costa Neto was corrupt, noted Carlos Melo, a political analyst and professor at Insper University in São Paulo. In 2012, Mr. Costa Neto, then a lawmaker, was convicted of corruption and money laundering in a vast vote-buying scandal that almost brought down Mr. da Silva’s administration. He served time in prison.Over the past year, Mr. Bolsonaro has turned to the Centrao for political shelter from increasing pressure on his administration, including more than 100 impeachment requests, a Senate investigation into his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and his plunging popularity. In August, he appointed a senator from the Centrao to be his chief of staff.“If you take away the Centrao, there’s the left,” the president told a small conservative news outlet, Jornal da Cidade Online, on Tuesday. “So where do I go?” More

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      in US Politics

      Trump may be gone, but Covid has not seen off populism

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      Politics booksTrump may be gone, but Covid has not seen off populism It is liberal fantasy to imagine that poor handing of the pandemic has lessened the allure of Modi and Bolsonaro. They are learning fast how to subvert votingJan-Werner MüllerMon 20 Sep 2021 05.00 EDTWhen the pandemic struck, newspaper opinion pages were full of pieces predicting the end of authoritarian populism. Surely Donald Trump, Narendra Modi and Jair Bolsonaro couldn’t survive their mishandling of Covid-19? Finally, people were waking up to the reality of what these leaders represented.Trump may not have lasted, but the expectation that the pandemic might see off populism is mistaken. Liberal observers have long assumed that populists are by definition incompetent demagogues. But populism is not all about promising simplistic solutions in a complex world and, contrary to a complacent liberal narrative, populist leaders are not incapable of correcting failed policies. The threat of authoritarian populism is compounded by the fact that these leaders are learning from each other – though what they are copying are not more effective strategies to combat the pandemic, but techniques for disabling democracy.When despairing about the rise of populism, liberals have been eager to identify underlying causes. And indeed, there are striking similarities in the way far-right populist leaders govern in different parts of the globe: Bolsonaro, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Jarosław Kaczyński, Viktor Orbán, Modi, and, as a hopefully historical example, Trump. But similar outcomes do not prove similar causes. Rather, the reason for the emergence of what we might as well call a far-right populist art of governance is that leaders can copy each other’s best (or worst) practices. They are busy perfecting the art of faking democracy: ballot boxes are not stuffed on election day, but between them we see voting rules manipulated, media outlets taken over by business leaders friendly to the government, and civil society systematically intimidated and therefore election outcomes are rarely in doubt. Liberals, meanwhile, are drastically underestimating their adversaries.Populist leaders are not all nearly as incompetent and irresponsible as Trump and Bolsonaro’s handling of Covid would suggest. Their core characteristic is not that they criticise elites or are angry with the establishment. Rather, what distinguishes them is the claim that they, and only they, represent what they often refer to as the “real people” or also the “silent majority”.At first sight, this might not sound particularly nefarious. And yet this claim has two consequences deeply damaging for democracy: rather obviously, populists assert that all other contenders for office are fundamentally illegitimate. This is never just a matter of disputes about policy, or even about values. Rather, populists allege that their rivals are simply corrupt, or “crooked” characters. More insidiously, the suggestion that there exists a “real people” implies that there are some who are not quite real – figures who just pretend to belong, who might undermine the polity in some form, or who are at best second-rate citizens.Obvious examples are minorities and, in particular, recent immigrants, who are suspected of not being truly loyal to the polity. Think of Modi’s policy of creating a register of genuine citizens. Ostensibly, this is about identifying illegal immigrants; but especially in combination with new refugee policies that effectively discriminate against Muslims, its actual message is all too clear to Hindu nationalists. Or think of Trumpists who would never really engage in argument with critics, but simply denounce the latter as “un-American”.Populists reduce political issues to questions of belonging, and then attack those who are said not to belong. That is not a matter of mere rhetoric. Sooner or later, the appeal to the real people – and the exclusion of supposedly fake people – will have effects on streets and squares: Trump rallies have been associated with a local increase in assaults. The concept of “trickle-down aggression” – coined by the feminist philosopher Kate Manne – captures this dynamic.Populist leaders present themselves as the great champions of empowering the people, and yet always exclude particular people. The shameless attempts by US Republicans to suppress the vote (and subvert election outcomes) are playing on the sense that the “real America” is white and Christian – and that black and brown people should not really be participating in politics in the first place. Meanwhile, Bolsonaro is gearing up to repeat Trump-style claims about a stolen election, should he lose the vote next year; he will have learned that, beyond casting doubt on the legitimacy of those not casting a ballot for you, bringing at least parts of the military to your side might be decisive.In Hungary, Orbán has long provided a model from which others can learn how to stretch laws to the limit in order to create pliable courts and media organisations. They can also study subtle tactics of how to mislead the EU and the Council of Europe long enough to entrench partisan advantages.When Poland’s Law and Justice Party returned to power in 2015, it could reach for Orbán’s manual of how to build an autocracy under the eyes of the EU. Like the Hungarian leader, it learned the lesson that, during its first time in office, it had wasted political capital on culture wars, instead of capturing independent institutions. To keep oneself in power, one must control the judiciary, the election system and TV in particular – once that has happened, one can wage culture wars and incite hatred against minorities to one’s heart’s content.None of this is to say that the new authoritarian systems are invincible, but we need to better understand their innovative techniques. Some are so dangerous because they are getting technologically more sophisticated: Pegasus spyware, the use of private companies to spread misinformation, or the extensive use of social media by leaders such as Modi (the world’s most tech-savvy populist) are only the most obvious instances. Still more dangerous than digital autocracy, though, is the ability of authoritarians to disable democracy, while at the same time advancing democratic-sounding justifications for their actions.What is happening in the US and the UK is a prime example. The push by the Johnson government to make the presentation of voter ID mandatory can look reasonable on paper: nobody is against the prevention of voter fraud. Northern Ireland already has such measures in place, as do countries on the continent. But, as we should have appreciated by now, legal measures can be deployed to, in effect, shrink the demos, the political body, for partisan purposes: minorities, the unemployed and especially the poor – lacking drivers’ licences and passports for travel abroad – are most likely not to have the time and resources to secure the required forms of ID. We have also learned the hard way that the staffing of election commissions is not some bureaucratic trifle (as Tom Stoppard observed long ago, “It’s not the voting that’s democracy, it’s the counting”), but can make the difference between keeping and losing democracy.‘We the people’: the battle to define populismRead moreWhy do populists so often get away with these kinds of measures? We have not grasped the extent to which they have succeeded in imposing their distorted understanding of basic democratic practices. The vast majority of those identifying as Republicans regard voting as a “privilege” tied to responsibilities, while Democrats respect it as an unconditional right.It is not true that masses of people are longing for strongmen and are turning away from democracy. But it has become easier to fake democracy. That is partly because defenders of democracy have not argued for its basic principles well, and partly because they keep underestimating their adversaries.TopicsPolitics booksUS politicsViktor OrbánCoronavirusPolandHungaryBrazilfeaturesReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      Bolsonaro Está Ficando Desesperado, e Não Há Dúvidas Sobre Suas Intenções

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      SÃO PAULO, Brasil — Há semanas, o presidente brasileiro Jair Bolsonaro tem incitado seus apoiadores a tomar as ruas. Por isso, no dia 7 de setembro, Dia da Independência, eu quase esperava ver hordas de pessoas armadas vestindo camisas verde-amarelas, algumas com chapéus de pele com chifres, invadindo o edifício do Supremo Tribunal Federal — nossa própria versão da invasão do Capitólio.Felizmente, não foi o que ocorreu. (A multidão acabou indo para casa, e ninguém tentou se sentar nas cadeiras dos juízes do Supremo.) Mas os brasileiros tiveram sua cota de caos e consternação.Para Bolsonaro, foi uma demonstração de força. Pela manhã, dirigindo-se a uma multidão de cerca de 400 mil pessoas em Brasília, ele disse que pretendia usar o tamanho do público como um “ultimato para todos os que estão na Praça dos Três Poderes.” À tarde, em um protesto em São Paulo com 125 mil pessoas, o presidente chamou as eleições de 2022 de “uma farsa” e afirmou que não irá mais cumprir as decisões de um dos juízes do Supremo. Seu propósito: “dizer aos canalhas”, urrou, “que nunca serei preso!”Parece ser parte de um plano. Ao comprar briga especificamente com o Supremo Tribunal Federal — que abriu inúmeras investigações sobre o presidente e seus aliados, incluindo seu papel em um esquema potencialmente corrupto de compra de vacinas e seus esforços para desacreditar o sistema de votação brasileiro — Bolsonaro está tentando semear uma crise institucional, com vistas a se manter no poder. No dia 9 de setembro ele tentou recuar um pouco, dizendo em uma carta que não teve “nenhuma intenção de agredir quaisquer dos poderes.” Mas suas ações são claras: ele está de fato ameaçando dar um golpe.Talvez essa seja a única saída para Bolsonaro. (Com exceção de governar propriamente o país, algo que aparentemente não lhe desperta o interesse.) Os atos bizarros do presidente, que está debilitado nas pesquisas e se vê ameaçado pela perspectiva de um impeachment, são um sinal de desespero. Mas isso não quer dizer necessariamente que não podem ter êxito.Bolsonaro tem bons motivos para se desesperar. A incompetência do governo em lidar com a pandemia de Covid-19 resultou na morte de 587 mil brasileiros; o país ostenta taxas históricas de desemprego e desigualdade econômica; e também sofre com uma crescente inflação, pobreza e fome. Ah, e temos uma enorme crise energética a caminho.Tudo isso cobrou um preço alto do prestígio de Bolsonaro junto aos brasileiros. Em julho, a taxa de reprovação do presidente subiu para 51 por cento, maior índice da história, de acordo com o Datafolha. E para as eleições presidenciais do ano que vem, a situação também não é muito favorável. Na verdade, as pesquisas indicam que ele vai perder. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, ex-presidente de centro-esquerda, está superando Bolsonaro com certa folga. Se as coisas continuarem como estão, Bolsonaro perde para todos os possíveis adversários no segundo turno.Isso explica a avidez do presidente em promover acusações infundadas de fraude no sistema eletrônico de votação do Brasil. “Não tem como comprovar que as eleições foram ou não foram fraudadas,” ele declarou sobre eleições passadas (inclusive a que ele venceu), durante uma transmissão pela TV que durou duas horas, em julho, enquanto falhava em fornecer quaisquer provas para apoiar suas alegações. Ele ameaçou repetidamente cancelar as eleições se o sistema de votação atual continuar em vigor — e embora o Congresso tenha recentemente rejeitado sua proposta de emitir recibos impressos, continua a lançar dúvidas sobre o sistema eleitoral. (Parece familiar? Alguém?)E tem também a corrupção. Há um número crescente de acusações de corrupção contra o presidente e dois de seus filhos, que também detêm cargos públicos. (Um deles é senador e o outro é vereador do Rio de Janeiro.) Promotores sugerem que a família Bolsonaro participou de um esquema conhecido como “rachadinha,” que consiste em contratar familiares ou pessoas próximas como funcionários e embolsar uma parte de seus salários.Para Bolsonaro, que foi eleito em parte com a promessa de acabar com a corrupção, essas investigações lançam uma pesada sombra. Diante desse cenário de inépcia e escândalo, os eventos de 7 de setembro foram uma tentativa de distrair e desviar a atenção pública — e, é claro, de cimentar a discórdia.Os esforços para destituir Bolsonaro por meios parlamentares estão empacados. Ainda que a oposição tenha apresentado 137 pedidos de impeachment, o processo precisa ser iniciado pelo presidente da Câmara dos Deputados, Arthur Lira, que não parece inclinado a aceitá-los. (Isso não é nada surpreendente: Lira é um dos líderes de um conjunto de partidos de centro-direita conhecido como “Centrão,” a quem Bolsonaro distribuiu cargos importantes no governo, na esperança de se blindar contra processos de impeachment.) Apenas enormes manifestações populares são capazes de quebrar o impasse.Não há tempo a perder. Os protestos da semana passada não foram um simples espetáculo político. Foram mais um passo para fortalecer a posição de Bolsonaro para uma eventual tomada de poder antes das eleições do ano que vem. Ele não conseguiu exatamente o que queria — os números, ainda que expressivos, foram muito menores do que os organizadores esperavam — mas ele vai continuar tentando.O 7 de setembro agora marca um outro momento emblemático na história do Brasil — quando os objetivos totalitários do nosso presidente se tornaram inequívocos. Para a nossa jovem democracia, pode ser uma questão de vida ou morte.Vanessa Barbara é a editora do sítio literário A Hortaliça, autora de dois romances e dois livros de não-ficção em português, e escritora de opinião do The New York Times. More

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      in Elections

      After Brazil’s Independence Day, It’s Clear What Bolsonaro Wants

      by

      SÃO PAULO, Brazil — For weeks, President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil has been urging his supporters to take to the streets. So on Sept. 7, Brazil’s Independence Day, I was half expecting to see mobs of armed people in yellow-and-green jerseys, some of them wearing furry hats and horns, storming the Supreme Court building — our very own imitation of the Capitol riot.Fortunately, that was not what happened. (The crowds eventually went home, and no one tried to sit in the Supreme Court justices’ chairs.) But Brazilians were not spared chaos and consternation.For Mr. Bolsonaro, it was a show of force. In the morning, addressing a crowd of around 400,000 people in Brasília, he said he intended to use the size of the crowd as an “ultimatum for everyone” in the three branches of government. In the afternoon, at a demonstration in São Paulo of 125,000 people, the president called the elections coming in 2022 “a farce” and said that he will no longer abide by rulings from one of the Supreme Court justices. “I’m letting the scoundrels know,” he bellowed, “I’ll never be imprisoned!”It seems to be part of a plan. By picking a fight in particular with the Supreme Court — which has opened several investigations of him and his allies, including of his role in a potentially corrupt vaccine procurement scheme and his efforts to discredit Brazil’s voting system — Mr. Bolsonaro is attempting to sow the seeds of an institutional crisis, with a view to retaining power. On Sept. 9 he tried to back down a little, saying in a written statement that he “never intended to attack any branch of government.” But his actions are plain: He is effectively threatening a coup.Perhaps that’s the only way out for Mr. Bolsonaro. (Apart from properly governing the country, something that apparently doesn’t interest him.) The antics of the president, struggling in the polls and menaced by the prospect of impeachment, are a sign of desperation. But that doesn’t mean they can’t succeed.Mr. Bolsonaro has good reason to be desperate. The government’s mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in the deaths of 587,000 Brazilians; the country faces record rates of unemployment and economic inequality; and it’s also afflicted by soaring inflation, poverty and hunger. Oh, and there’s a huge energy crisis on the way, too.That has taken its toll on Mr. Bolsonaro’s standing with Brazilians. In July, his disapproval rating rose to 51 percent, its highest-ever mark, according to Datafolha Institute. And ahead of next year’s presidential elections, things are not looking rosy. In fact, polling suggests he’s going to lose. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the center-left politician and former president, is comfortably outstripping Mr. Bolsonaro. As things stand, Mr. Bolsonaro would lose to all possible rivals in a second-round runoff.This explains Mr. Bolsonaro’s eagerness to push unfounded claims of fraud in Brazil’s electronic voting system. “There’s no way of proving whether the elections were rigged or not,” he said about past elections (including the one he won), during a two-hour TV broadcast in July, while failing to provide any evidence to support his allegations. He has repeatedly threatened to call off the elections if the current voting system remains in place — and although Congress recently rejected his proposal to require paper receipts, he continues to cast doubt on the voting process. (Sound familiar, anyone?)Then there’s the corruption. A growing number of corruption accusations have been made against the president and two of his sons, who both hold public office. (One is a senator; the other sits on Rio de Janeiro’s City Council.) Prosecutors have suggested that the Bolsonaro family took part in a scheme known as “rachadinha,” which involves hiring close associates or family members as employees and then pocketing a portion of their salary.For Mr. Bolsonaro, who was elected in part for his promise to rout out corruption, these investigations cast a long shadow. Against this backdrop of ineptitude and scandal, the events of Sept. 7 were an attempt to distract and divert attention — and, of course, to cement divisions.Efforts to remove Mr. Bolsonaro by parliamentary means are stalled. Though the opposition has so far filed 137 impeachment requests, the process must be initiated by the speaker of the lower house, Arthur Lira, who does not seem inclined to accept them. (That’s not especially surprising: Mr. Lira is a leader of a cluster of center-right parties, known as the “centrão,” to whom Mr. Bolsonaro has handed out important government positions, in the hope of shielding himself from impeachment proceedings.) Only enormous public protests can break the impasse.There’s no time to lose. The demonstrations last week were not simply political showmanship. They were yet another move to strengthen Mr. Bolsonaro’s position for an eventual power grab ahead of next year’s elections. He didn’t get exactly what he wanted — the numbers, though substantial, were far less than organizers hoped for — but he will keep trying.Sept. 7 now marks another signal moment in Brazil’s history — when the totalitarian aims of our president became unmistakably clear. For our young democracy, it could be a matter of life or death.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: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      in World Politics

      Democracy Is Down but Not Out

      by

      Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarussian dictator, snatches a dissident from midair. Military strongman Assimi Goita launches another coup in Mali. Benjamin Netanyahu escalates a military conflict to save his own political skin in Israel. In the United States, the Republican Party launches a full-court press to suppress the vote.

      Authoritarianism, like war, makes headlines. It’s hard for democracy to compete against political crackdowns, military coups and unhinged pronouncements. Sure, democracies engage in periodic elections and produce landmark pieces of legislation. But what makes democracy, like peace, successful is not the unexpected rupture, such as the election of Barack Obama, but the boring quotidian. Citizens express their opinions in public meetings. Lawmakers receive constituents in their offices. Potholes get fixed. That’s not exactly clickbait.

      Because the absence of war doesn’t make headlines, as Stephen Pinker has argued, the news media amplifies the impression that violence is omnipresent and constantly escalating when it splashes mass murder, genocide and war crimes on the front page. Peace may well be prevalent, but it isn’t newsworthy.

      Russia Ramps Up Pressure Against Kremlin Critics

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      The same can be said about democracy, which has been suffering for some time from bad press. Democracies have been dragged down by corruption, hijacked by authoritarian politicians, associated with unpopular economic reforms and proven incapable (so far) of addressing major global problems like the climate crisis. After a brief surge in popularity in the immediate post-Cold War period, democracy according to the general consensus has been in retreat.

      Judging from recent quantitative assessments, the retreat has become a rout. The title of the latest Freedom House survey, for instance, is “Democracy Under Siege.” The report details how freedom around the world has eroded for the last 15 years, with 2020 featuring the greatest decline yet. The Economist Intelligence Unit, which produces a Democracy Index every year, promoted its 2020 report with the headline, “Global Democracy Has a Very Bad Year.” The authoritarian responses to the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the worst showing so far for the model, with the average global score plummeting from the previous year. Meanwhile, the Rule of Law Index for 2020 also registered a drop for the third year in a row.

      If we extrapolate from the current trend lines, democracy will be gone in a couple of decades, melted away like the polar ice. But it’s always dangerous to make such extrapolations given history’s tendency to move in cycles not straight lines. So, let’s look at some reasons why democracy might be in for a comeback.

      The Pandemic Recedes in America

      Much of the reason for democracy’s dismal record in 2020 was the expansion of executive power and state controls in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Some of those power grabs, such as Vladimir Putin’s constitutional changes in Russia, are still in place. Some countries, like India and Brazil, are still struggling with both COVID-19 and powerful authoritarian leaders.

      But even with the continued high rate of infection in a number of countries, the overall trajectory of the disease is downward. Since peaking in late April, the reported number of global cases has dropped nearly by half. So, two trend lines are now intersecting: the lifting of pandemic restrictions and the backlash against hapless authoritarians.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Americans, for instance, are coming to terms with both the retreat of COVID and the removal of Donald Trump from the White House, Facebook and Twitter. The Biden administration is undoing many of Trump’s undemocratic moves, including those imposed during the pandemic around immigration and refugees. The attempts by the Republican Party to tamp down voter turnout proved spectacularly unsuccessful in 2020, which despite the pandemic featured the largest-ever increase in votes from one election to the next. In terms of the voting-age population, you have to go back to 1960 to find an election with a higher percentage turnout than the 62% rate in 2020.

      This surge in voters helped put Joe Biden over the top. It has also motivated the Republican Party to redouble its efforts, this time at the state level, to suppress the vote. It is doing so under the false narrative that electoral fraud is widespread and that President Biden’s victory is somehow illegitimate. And it is setting the stage to orchestrate an authentic election theft in 2024.

      The backlash against these anti-democratic moves has been encouraging, however. When the state of Georgia passed its voting restrictions in April, pressure from voting rights advocates forced prominent Georgia corporations like Coca-Cola and Delta to reverse themselves and come out against the bill (though only after the bill had already passed). Major League Baseball pulled its all-star game from Atlanta, and Hollywood has also threatened a boycott.

      These moves motivated Texas-based companies to protest that state’s version of voting restrictions before the legislature scheduled a vote. None of that stopped Texas Republicans from pushing ahead with the bill. So, last weekend, Texas Democrats had to deploy the nuclear option of walking out of the chamber to stop the vote suppression bill from passing. These courageous Texans, up against a powerful and determined state Republican Party, are now looking to the federal government to safeguard voting rights.

      At the federal level, the Democrats have put forward for the second time a comprehensive voting reform bill, the For the People Act, to expand access, reduce corruption and limit the impact of money on politics. The House approved a version of this bill in 2019, but it died in the Republican-controlled Senate. The House passed the reboot in March, but it again faces a difficult road to passage in the Senate because filibuster rules require at least 60 votes to pass and Democrats can muster only 50 (plus the vice-president’s).

      A failure to find “10 good Republicans” for this bill, the cadre that Senator Joe Manchin naively expected to step forward to pass legislation creating a commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill, may finally push the Democrats to scrap or at least significantly modify the filibuster rules, which were famously used to block further enfranchisement of African-Americans in the 20th century.

      High voter turnout and efforts to secure voting rights are not the only signs of a healthy US democracy. Last year, the largest civic protests in US history took place as tens of millions of Americans expressed their disgust with police violence in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Civic organizations stepped forward to fight the pandemic and ensure more equitable access to vaccines. Young people, in particular, are engaged in large numbers on the climate crisis, gun control and reproductive health. After a long winter of discontent under Trump, perhaps it’s time for an “American Spring.”

      Mixed Record Elsewhere for Democracy

      Europe, meanwhile, is coming out of the pandemic in slightly stronger shape politically. The budget compromise that took place at the end of 2020, which ended up providing considerable relief to the economically disadvantaged countries of the southern tier, effectively saved the European Union from disintegrating out of a lack of solidarity. Alas, the compromise also watered down the EU’s criticism of its easternmost members, particularly Poland and Hungary, for their violations of the bloc’s commitments to human rights and rule of law.

      But there’s hope on the horizon here as well. Eastern Europe appears to be on the verge of a political sea change. Voters brought down Bulgaria’s right-wing populist leader Boyko Borissov in elections in April, and the new caretaker government has begun to dismantle his political system of cronyism. In Slovenia, tens of thousands of protesters have massed in the capital of Ljubljana, the largest demonstration in years, to demand the resignation of the Trump-like prime minister Janez Jansa. The near-total ban on abortion orchestrated by the right-wing government in Poland has motivated mass protests by women throughout the country, and even “Polish grannies” have mobilized in support of a free press and the rule of law. A finally united opposition in Hungary, meanwhile, is catching up in the polls to Prime Minister Viktor Orban ahead of elections next year.

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      The far right, with their contempt for human rights, free media, rule of law and political checks and balances, are the greatest threat to democracy within democracies. Fortunately, they are not doing very well in Western Europe either. The anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland has witnessed a significant drop in support in Germany, while Lega in Italy has also declined in popularity. Golden Dawn has disappeared from the scene in Greece. Vox is still the third most popular party in Spain, but it hasn’t managed to rise much above 15% in the polls, which is the same story for the Sweden Democrats (stuck at around 19%). Only in France and Finland are the far-right parties continuing to prosper. Marine Le Pen currently leads the polls against French President Emmanuel Macron ahead of next year’s election, while the Finns Party leads by a couple of percentage points in the polls but with elections not likely before 2023.

      Elsewhere in the world, the pandemic may result in more political casualties for far-right populists, as they get caught in the ebbing of the Trump wave. Brazilians are protesting throughout the country under the banner of impeaching Jair Bolsonaro, a president who, like Trump, has compiled a spectacularly poor record in dealing with COVID-19. Bolsonaro’s approval rating has fallen to a new low under 25%. The still-popular former leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, recently cleared by the courts to run again for office, appears to be assembling a broad political coalition to oust Bolsonaro in the elections set for next year.

      Hard-right leader Ivan Duque has achieved the distinction of being the least popular leader in Colombian history. Politically, it doesn’t matter so much, since he can’t run again for president in next year’s election. But the public’s disgust with the violence in Colombia and the economic inequality exacerbated by the pandemic will likely apply as well to any of his would-be hard-right successors.

      The extraordinary mishandling of the pandemic in India has had a similar effect on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity, which has also recently fallen to a new low. However, after seven years in office, he remains quite popular, with a 63% approval rating.

      Modi’s Teflon reputation speaks to the fragility of democracy in many parts of the world. Many voters are attracted to right-wing nationalists like Modi — Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, Nayib Bukele in El Salvador — who promise to “get the job done” regardless of the political and economic costs. Such leaders can rapidly turn a democratic country into a putatively democratic one, which makes the step into authentic authoritarianism that much easier.

      The coups in Mali and Myanmar, China’s crackdown in Hong Kong, the enduring miseries in North Korea, Venezuela and Eritrea — these are all reminders that, however fragile democracy might be in formally democratic states, politics can always get a lot worse.

      Lukashenko: Strong or Weak?

      Take the example of Belarus, where Alexander Lukashenko has ruled supreme since 1994. Thanks to his own ruthlessness and the patronage of neighboring Russia, Lukashenko has weathered mass protests that would have ousted leaders of weaker disposition.

      His latest outrage was to order the grounding of a Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania as it was flying over Belarus — just so that he could apprehend a young dissident, Roman Protasevich, and his Russian girlfriend, Sofia Sapega. Virtually everyone has decried this blatant violation of international laws and norms with the exception, of course, of Putin and others in the Russian president’s orbit. The editor of the Russian media conglomerate RT, Margarita Simonyan, tweeted, “Never did I think I would envy Belarus. But now I do. [Lukashenko] performed beautifully.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      Lukashenko indeed came across as all-powerful in this episode. But this is an illusion. Putin has not hesitated to assassinate his critics, even when they are living outside Russia. Lukashenko doesn’t have that kind of reach or audacity, so he has to wait until dissidents are within his own airspace to strike. I’d like to believe that the opposition in Belarus takes heart from this desperate move — is Lukashenko really so scared of a single dissident? —  and doubles down on its efforts to oust the tyrant.

      Outside of Putin and his toadies, Lukashenko doesn’t have many defenders. This elaborate effort to capture a dissident only further isolates the Belarussian strongman. Even putatively democratic states, like Poland and Hungary, have unequivocally denounced Lukashenko.

      Anti-democratic actions like the Ryanair stunt capture headlines in ways that pro-democratic efforts rarely do. Honestly, had you even heard of Roman Protasevich before this affair? Along with all the other depressing news of the day, from Texas to Mali, this brazen move suggests that democracy is teetering on the edge of an abyss.

      But all the patient organizing against the strongmen that doesn’t make it into the news will ultimately prove the fragility of tyranny. When it comes to anti-democrats like Lukashenko, they will one day discover that the military, the police and the party have abandoned them. And it will be they who teeter at the abyss, their hands scrabbling for a secure hold, when along comes democracy to give them a firm pat on the back.

      *[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      White House contacts Russia after hack of world’s largest meatpacking company

      by

      A ransomware attack against the world’s largest meatpacking company that has disrupted meat production in North America and Australia originated from a criminal organization probably based in Russia, the White House was informed on Tuesday.The attack on Brazil’s JBS caused its Australian operations to shut down on Monday and has stopped livestock slaughter at its plants in several US states.The ransomware attack follows one last month on Colonial Pipeline, the largest fuel pipeline in the United States, that crippled fuel delivery for several days in the US south-east.The White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said JBS had given details of the hack to the White House, that the United States had contacted Russia’s government about the matter and that the FBI was investigating.“The White House has offered assistance to JBS and our team at the Department of Agriculture have spoken to their leadership several times in the last day,” Jean-Pierre said.“JBS notified the administration that the ransom demand came from a criminal organization likely based in Russia. The White House is engaging directly with the Russian government on this matter and delivering the message that responsible states do not harbor ransomware criminals,” Jean-Pierre added.If the outages continue, US consumers could see higher meat prices during summer grilling season and meat exports could be disrupted at a time of strong demand from China.JBS said it suspended all affected systems and notified authorities. It said its backup servers were not affected.“On Sunday, May 30, JBS USA determined that it was the target of an organised cybersecurity attack, affecting some of the servers supporting its North American and Australian IT systems,” the company said in a Monday statement.“Resolution of the incident will take time, which may delay certain transactions with customers and suppliers,” the company’s statement said.The company, which has its North American operations headquartered in Greeley, Colorado, controls about 20% of the slaughtering capacity for US cattle and hogs, according to industry estimates.Two kill and fabrication shifts were canceled at JBS’s beef plant in Greeley due to the cyber-attack, representatives of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local 7 said in an email. JBS Beef in Cactus, Texas, also said on Facebook it would not run on Tuesday – updating an earlier post that had said the plant would run as normal.JBS Canada said in a Facebook post that shifts had been canceled at its plant in Brooks, Alberta, on Monday and one shift so far had been canceled on Tuesday.A representative in São Paulo said the company’s Brazilian operations were not affected. More