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      Macron Faces an Angry France Alone

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      President Emmanuel Macron saw his decision to push through a change in the retirement age as necessary, but the price may be high.PARIS — “We have a president who makes use of a permanent coup d’état.” That was the verdict of Olivier Faure, the leader of the French Socialist Party, after President Emmanuel Macron rammed through a bill raising the retirement age in France to 64 from 62 without a full parliamentary vote this past week.In fact, Mr. Macron’s use of the “nuclear option,” as the France 24 TV network described it, was entirely legal under the French Constitution, crafted in 1958 for Charles de Gaulle and reflecting the general’s strong view that power should be centered in the president’s office, not among feuding lawmakers.But legality is one thing and legitimacy another. Mr. Macron may see his decision as necessary to cement his legacy as the leader who left France prepared to face the rest of the 21st century. But to many French people it looked like presidential diktat, a blot on his reputation and a blow to French democracy.Parliament has responded with two motions of no confidence in Mr. Macron’s government. They are unlikely to be upheld when the lawmakers vote on them next week because of political divisions in the opposition, but are the expression of a deep anger.Six years into his presidency, surrounded by brilliant technocrats, Mr. Macron cuts a lonely figure, his lofty silence conspicuous at this moment of turmoil.“He has managed to antagonize everyone by occupying the whole of the center,” said Jacques Rupnik, a political scientist. “Macron’s attitude seems to be: After me, the deluge.”This isolation was evident as two months of protests and strikes that left Paris strewn with garbage culminated on Thursday in the sudden panic of a government that had believed the pension vote was a slam dunk. Suddenly, the emperor’s doubts were exposed.Mr. Macron thought he could count on the center-right Republicans to vote for his plan in the National Assembly, Parliament’s lower house. Two of the most powerful members of his government — Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin — came from that party. The Republicans had advocated retirement even later, at 65.Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne, bottom left, with lawmakers at the National Assembly on Thursday. If the government falls in a no-confidence vote, she will no longer be prime minister.Alain Jocard/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesYet out of some mixture of political calculation in light of the waves of protest and spite toward the man who had undermined their party by building a new movement of the center, they began to desert Mr. Macron.Having his retirement overhaul fail was one risk that even Macron the risk taker could not take. He opted for a measure, known as the 49.3 after the relevant article of the Constitution, that allows certain bills to be passed without a vote. France’s retirement age will rise to 64, more in line with its European partners, unless the no-confidence motion passes.But what would have looked like a defining victory for Mr. Macron, even if the parliamentary vote in favor had been narrow, now looks like a Pyrrhic victory.Four more years in power stretch ahead of Mr. Macron, with “Mr. 49.3” stamped on his forehead. He made the French dream when he was elected at age 39 in 2017; how he can do so again is unclear.“The idea that we are not in a democracy has grown. It’s out there all the time on social media, part conspiracy theory, part expression of a deep anxiety,” said Nicolas Tenzer, an author who teaches political science at Sciences Po university. “And, of course, what Macron just did feeds that.”The government’s spokesman is Olivier Véran, who is also minister delegate for democratic renewal. There is a reason for that august title: a widespread belief that over the six years of the Macron presidency, French democracy has eroded.After the Yellow Vest protest movement erupted in 2018 over an increase in gas prices but also an elitism that Mr. Macron seemed to personify, the president went on a “listening tour.” It was an attempt to get closer to working people of whom he had seemed dismissive.Now, almost one year into his second term, that outreach seems distant. Mr. Macron scarcely laid the groundwork for his pension measure even though he knew well that it would touch a deep French nerve at a time of economic hardship. His push for later retirement was top-down, expedited at every turn and, in the end, ruthless.Outside the National Assembly, French Parliament’s lower house, on Friday. Mr. Macron thought he could count on center-right Republicans there to vote for his plan, but they began to desert him.Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe case for the overhaul was strong. It was not only to Mr. Macron that retirement at 62 looked untenable as lives grew longer. The math, over the longer term at least, simply does not add up in a system where the ratio of active workers to the retirees they are supporting through their payroll taxes keeps dropping.But in an anxious France, with many people struggling to pay their bills and unsure of their futures, Mr. Macron could not make the argument. In fact, he hardly seemed to try.Of course, the French attitude to a mighty presidency is notoriously ambiguous. On the one hand, the near-monarchical office seems to satisfy some French yearning for an all-powerful state — it was a French king, Louis XIV, who is said to have declared that the state was none other than himself. On the other, the presidency is resented for the extent of its authority.Mr. Macron seemed to capture this when he told his cabinet on Thursday, “Among you, I am not the one who risks his place or his seat.” If the government does fall in a vote of censure, Élisabeth Borne will no longer be prime minister, but Mr. Macron will still be president until 2027.“A permanent coup d’état,” Mr. Faure’s phrase, was also the title of a book that François Mitterrand wrote to describe the presidency of de Gaulle. That was before Mr. Mitterrand became president himself and in time came to enjoy all the pomp and power of his office. Mr. Macron has proved no more impervious to the temptations of the presidency than his predecessors.Protesters at a train station in Bordeaux, France, on Friday. Demonstrations and strikes over the pension bill have gone on for two months and continued after Mr. Macron’s decision to avoid a full vote.Philippe Lopez/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut times change, social hierarchies fall, and Mr. Macron’s exercise of his authority has stirred a strong resentment in a flatter French society at a moment of war-induced tension in Europe.“There is a rejection of the person,” Mr. Tenzer said. The daily newspaper Le Monde noted in an editorial that Mr. Macron ran the risk of “fostering a persistent bitterness, or even igniting sparks of violence.”In a way, Mr. Macron is the victim of his own remarkable success. Such are his political gifts that he has been elected to two terms in office — no French president had done this in two decades — and effectively destroyed the two political pillars of postwar France: the Socialist Party and the Gaullists.So he is resented by the center left and center right, even as he is loathed by the far left and the far right.Now in his final term, he must walk a lonely road. He has no obvious successor, and his Renaissance party is little more than a vehicle for his talents. This is the “deluge” of which Mr. Rupnik spoke: a vast political void looming in 2027.If Marine Le Pen of the far right is not to fill it, Mr. Macron the reformist must deliver the resilient, vibrant France for which he believes his much-contested reform was an essential foundation.A protester shot a firework at police officers in Paris on Friday.Julien De Rosa/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAurelien Breeden More

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      MC Millaray, la rapera adolescente mapuche que pide derechos indígenas con su música

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      La estrella en ascenso de la música en Chile tiene 16 años y utiliza sus rimas punzantes para transmitir cinco siglos de lucha del mayor grupo indígena del país.SANTIAGO — Justo antes de subir al escenario, la rapera, una adolescente indígena, tenía los ojos cerrados, respiró hondo y se tranquilizó.Su padre se acercó para sacar una lentejuela del párpado de su hija, pero ella, de 16 años, se encogió de hombros avergonzada. Entonces, Millaray Jara Collio, o MC Millaray, como se hace llamar la joven rapera, se volteó e irrumpió en el escenario con un rap vibrante sobre la presencia del ejército chileno en el territorio de los mapuches, el grupo indígena más numeroso del país.La actuación apasionada de MC Millaray sucedió durante un acto de campaña en Santiago, la capital de Chile, hace unos meses, y justo una semana antes de que el país votara sobre la adopción una nueva Constitución. De aprobarse, la carta magna habría garantizado algunos de los derechos de mayor alcance para los pueblos indígenas en todo el mundo.Aunque era demasiado joven para votar en el referéndum, MC Millaray fue una de los cientos de artistas que hicieron campaña a favor de la nueva ley fundamental.“Soy dos personas en una”, dijo tras su actuación. “A veces me siento como una niña pequeña; juego, me divierto, me río. Pero en el escenario todo lo que digo, lo digo rapeando. Me libera. Cuando tengo un micrófono en la mano, soy otra persona”.La nueva Constitución —que habría facultado a los más de dos millones de indígenas de Chile, el 80 por ciento de los cuales son mapuches, para gobernar sus propios territorios, tener más autonomía judicial y ser reconocidos como naciones autónomas dentro de Chile— fue rechazada de forma contundente en septiembre.Pero tras esa derrota, MC Millaray, una estrella en ascenso con más de 25.000 seguidores en Instagram, está más decidida que nunca a transmitir cinco siglos de lucha mapuche contra los colonizadores europeos.“Aquí no acaba el proceso”, dijo desafiante tras la votación. “Aquí empieza algo nuevo que podemos construir juntos”.MC Millaray actuando con su padre, Alexis Jara, durante un mitin político en agosto en apoyo de una nueva Constitución.MC Millaray saluda a una mujer mapuche tras su actuación en el mitin.Entre el español y el mapudungun, la lengua indígena que hablaba con su bisabuela materna, MC Millaray articula esa historia con una furia lírica trepidante.Sus canciones denuncian las injusticias medioambientales, anhelan la protección de la inocencia infantil y honran a los mapuches caídos. Por encima de todo, pide la devolución de las tierras ancestrales mapuches, conocidas como Wallmapu, que se extienden desde la costa del Pacífico chileno y sobre los Andes hasta la costa atlántica argentina.Su canción “Mi ser mapuche”, que salió el año pasado, combina trompetas con el “afafán”, un grito de guerra mapuche. Canta:Más de 500 años sin parar de luchar; hay tierras recuperadas pero son nuestras, nuestro hogar; seguimos resistiendo, no nos van a derrotar.Desde la llegada de los conquistadores españoles en el siglo XVI, la tierra que una vez controlaron los mapuches se ha visto sustancialmente mermada a lo largo de siglos de invasiones, traslados forzosos y compras. La pérdida de tierras ancestrales se aceleró en el siglo XIX, cuando Chile atrajo a emigrantes europeos para que se establecieran en el sur, prometiéndoles tierras que, según afirmaba, estaban desocupadas, pero que a menudo estaban pobladas por mapuches.Para algunos, es la mayor deuda pendiente de Chile. Para otros, es un impasse de siglos sin solución clara.“Para mí, sería un sueño recuperar el territorio”, dijo MC Millaray. “Quiero dar mi vida al weichán”, dijo, refiriéndose a la lucha por recuperar el Wallmapu y los valores tradicionales mapuches. “Quiero defender lo que es nuestro”.Millaray, que significa “flor de oro” en mapudungun, creció con su hermano y su hermana menores en La Pincoya, un barrio marginal de la periferia al norte de Santiago, donde las paredes están salpicadas de grafitis vibrantes y el hip-hop y el reguetón resuenan en las casas que se extienden por las laderas.La representación de una danza tradicional mapuche, el “purrún”, en un mitin político en agostoPortando una bandera con la estrella mapuche en Santiago.La zona tiene una fuerte tradición rapera. En la década de 1980 se formaron en el cercano poblado de Renca las Panteras Negras, uno de los primeros grupos de hip-hop de Chile, y Andi Millanao, más conocido como Portavoz, una de las estrellas del hip-hop más conocidas de Chile, escribió por primera vez su incendiario rap político en la vecina Conchalí.Millaray dice que cuando era niña lo que más esperaba era viajar todos los veranos al sur, a la comunidad de Carilao, en el municipio de Perquenco, para visitar a su bisabuela materna, y pasar las tardes nadando en un río cercano o recogiendo bayas de maqui en un tarro.“Cuando llego al Wallmapu, me llena de libertad y paz”, dice. “Aprendía acerca de lo que soy y represento, lo que corre por mis venas”, añadió, refiriéndose al tiempo que pasaba con su bisabuela. “Me di cuenta de lo poco que conocía a mi lucha”.En su casa en su barrio de Santiago, era la música lo que más captaba su atención, y acudía a los talleres de hip-hop que sus padres —dos raperos que se conocieron en un concierto en La Pincoya— organizaban para los niños del barrio. “Crecí en una familia rapera” , dijo Millaray. “Ellos fueron mi inspiración”.Una tarde, cuando tenía 5 años, su padre, Alexis Jara, quien ahora tiene 40, estaba ensayando para un evento, y su hija, a su lado en la cama, cantaba con él. Cuando actuó esa noche, Jara vio a su hija llorando entre el público, sintiéndose excluida.La subió al escenario y, lloriqueando y con los ojos hinchados, “Y se transformó —¡pah, pah!— empezó a rapear con tanta fuerza que me robó el protagonismo”, recuerda su padre. Cuando se le pasaron las lágrimas, la niña de 5 años se dirigió al público: “Represento a La Pincoya, ¡quiero ver manos en el aire!”.“Desde entonces nunca pudimos bajarla del escenario”, dijo su padre. “Ahora está todo al revés: ¡Yo le pido a mi hija que cantemos juntos!”.A la espera de los resultados del referéndum constitucional de septiembre. La nueva Constitución fue rechazada por el 62 por ciento de los votantes.Una protesta en Santiago tras conocerse los resultados.A los 7 años, Millaray ya había escrito y grabado su primer disco, Pequeña femenina, que grababa en CD para venderlos en los autobuses públicos mientras cantaba en los buses con su padre.Cuando ganaban suficiente dinero, los dos bajaban por la escalera trasera del autobús y se lo llevaban para jugar con máquinas de videojuegos o comprar dulces.Siguen actuando juntos: Jara, un enérgico torbellino de trenzas y ropa holgada, su hija, más tranquila y precisa con sus palabras. “Tic Tac”, la primera canción que escribieron juntos, sigue en su repertorio.Fue cuando aún estaba en primaria cuando recibió la sacudida que reforzaría su decisión de retomar la lucha de sus antepasados en su música, y en su vida.En noviembre de 2018, su profesora de historia le dijo a la clase que Camilo Catrillanca —un mapuche desarmado que murió ese mes por disparos de la policía en la comunidad de Temucuicui, en el sur del país— había merecido su destino.“No podía quedarme callada”, recuerda. “Me paré, llena de rabia, y dije: ‘No, nadie merece morir y menos por defender a su territorio’. En aquel momento defendí mis convicciones, y me cambió”.A finales de 2021 y en la primera parte de 2022, el conflicto en los territorios mapuches, donde el estado de excepción ha sido renovado periódicamente por gobiernos tanto de derecha como de izquierda, se encontraba en uno de sus periodos más tensos en décadas.Además de las sentadas pacíficas de activistas mapuches en terrenos de propiedad privada y en edificios del gobierno regional, se produjeron decenas de casos de incendios provocados, cuya autoría fue reivindicada por grupos de resistencia mapuches, así como ataques contra empresas forestales.En 2022 se registraron al menos siete muertes en la zona del conflicto, entre cuyas víctimas estaban activistas mapuches, un hombre que se dirigía a una ocupación de tierras y trabajadores forestales.En marzo, cuando la ministra del Interior de Chile visitó la comunidad de la que era oriundo Catrillanca, fue recibida con un crepitar de disparos y rápidamente sacada de allí en una furgoneta.Cuando no actúa, MC Millaray es Millaray Jara Collio.MC Millaray, vestida con el traje tradicional mapuche, habla con su madre, Claudia Collio, antes de subir al escenario en un mitin político.En las protestas a veces violentas contra la desigualdad económica que estallaron en todo Chile en octubre de 2019 —desencadenadas por un aumento de 30 pesos chilenos (4 centavos de dólar) en las tarifas del metro—, los símbolos y lemas mapuches eran omnipresentes.En la plaza principal de Santiago, los manifestantes fueron recibidos por un chemamüll, una estatua de madera tradicionalmente tallada por los mapuches para representar a los muertos. En las protestas, Millaray rapeaba o paseaba entre los manifestantes con su bandera azul pintada a mano con el Wünelfe, una estrella de ocho puntas sagrada en la iconografía mapuche.“Ahora somos más visibles que en cualquier momento de mi vida”, dijo Daniela Millaleo, de 37 años, una cantautora de Santiago a la que MC Millaray cuenta entre sus mayores inspiraciones. “Antes eran los mapuche que marchaban por nuestros derechos, pero ahora tanta gente siente nuestro dolor”.Tras su agotadora agenda de actuaciones en actos de campaña a favor del fallido esfuerzo constitucional —así como un viaje a Nueva York para cantar en Times Square como parte de la Semana del Clima de la ciudad de Nueva York— MC Millaray se centra ahora en grabar nuevo material.“Quiero llegar a un público más amplio, pero quiero que cada rima tenga un mensaje; no quiero hacer música solo por hacer música”, dijo. “No importa el estilo, siempre me pregunto qué más puedo decir”.“Quiero llegar a un público más amplio, pero quiero que cada rima tenga un mensaje; no quiero hacer música solo por hacer música”, dijo MC Millaray. 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      Teenage Rapper, Rooted in Mapuche Identity, Roars for Indigenous Rights

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      MC Millaray, 16, an emerging music star in Chile, uses her fierce lyrics to convey five centuries of struggles by the country’s largest Indigenous group against European colonizers.SANTIAGO, Chile — Just before taking the stage, the teenage Indigenous rapper took a deep breath and composed herself, eyes closed.Her father reached over to pick a sequin from his daughter’s eyelid, but the 16-year-old recoiled with an embarrassed shrug. Then Millaray Jara Collio, or MC Millaray as the young rapper calls herself, spun away and exploded onto the stage with an animated rap about the presence of Chile’s military in the territory of the Mapuche, the country’s largest Indigenous group.MC Millaray’s impassioned performance was delivered at a campaign event in Santiago, Chile’s capital, a few months ago, and just one week before the country would vote on a new constitution. If approved, the constitution would have guaranteed some of the most far-reaching rights for Indigenous people anywhere in the world.Although she was too young to vote in the referendum, MC Millaray was one of hundreds of artists who campaigned in favor of the new charter.“I’m two people in one,” she said after her performance. “Sometimes I feel like a little girl — I play, I have fun and I laugh. Onstage, I say everything through rap. It liberates me: When I get a microphone, I’m a different person.”The new constitution — which would have empowered Chile’s more than two million Indigenous people, 80 percent of whom are Mapuche, to govern their own territories, have more judicial autonomy and be recognized as distinct nations within Chile — was soundly defeated in September.But in the wake of that loss, MC Millaray, an emerging star with more than 25,000 followers on Instagram, is more determined than ever to convey five centuries of Mapuche struggles against European colonizers.“This is not the end,” she said defiantly in the vote’s aftermath. “It’s the beginning of something new that we can build together.”MC Millaray performing with her father, Alexis Jara, during a political rally in August in support of a new constitution.MC Millaray greeting a Mapuche elder after her performance at the rally.Slipping between Spanish and Mapudungun, the Indigenous language she would speak with her maternal great-grandmother, MC Millaray articulates that story with fast-paced, lyrical fury.Her songs decry environmental injustices, yearn for the protection of childhood innocence and honor fallen Mapuche. Above all, she calls for the return of Mapuche ancestral lands, known as Wallmapu, which stretch from Chile’s Pacific seaboard and over the Andes to Argentina’s Atlantic coast.​​Her single “Mi Ser Mapuche,” or “My Mapuche Self,” which came out this year, combines trumpets with the “afafan” — a Mapuche war cry. She sings:“More than 500 years without giving up the fight; there are lands we’ve recovered, but they’re ours, our home; we keep on resisting, they won’t defeat us.”Since the arrival of Spanish conquistadors in the 1500s, the land once controlled by the Mapuche has been substantially whittled down across centuries of invasion, forced removals and purchases. The loss of traditional land accelerated in the 19th century when Chile enticed European migrants to settle its south, promising to give them lands it claimed were unoccupied, but often were populated by the Mapuche.For some, it is Chile’s greatest unsettled debt. To others, it’s a centuries-old impasse without a clear solution.“For me it would be a dream to recover the territory,” MC Millaray said. “I want to give my life to the ‘weichán,’” she said, referring to the fight to regain Wallmapu and traditional Mapuche values. “I want to defend what’s ours.”Millaray, which means “flower of gold” in Mapudungun, grew up with her younger brother and sister in La Pincoya, a hardscrabble barrio on the northern fringes of Santiago, where the walls are splashed with colorful graffiti, and hip-hop and reggaeton blare from the ramshackle homes sprawling up the hillsides.The performance of a traditional Mapuche dance, the “purrun,” at a political rally in August.Carrying a flag with the Mapuche star in Santiago. The area has a strong rap tradition. In the 1980s the Panteras Negras, one of Chile’s first hip-hop groups, formed in nearby Renca, and Andi Millanao, better known as Portavoz, one of Chile’s best-known hip-hop stars, first penned his firebrand political rap in neighboring Conchalí.As a child, Millaray said she would look forward more than anything to traveling south each summer to the Carilao community in the municipality of Perquenco to visit her maternal great-grandmother, spending afternoons splashing in a nearby river or collecting maqui berries in a jar.“When I get to Wallmapu, I feel free and at peace,” she said. “I would learn about what I was and what I represent, what runs through my veins,” she added, referring to the time she spent with her great-grandmother. “I realized how little I knew my fight.”At home in her barrio in Santiago, it was music that most captured her attention, and she would attend the hip-hop workshops that her parents — two rappers who met at a throwdown in La Pincoya — would run for local children. “I grew up in a rap family,” said Millaray. “They were my inspiration.”One afternoon when she was 5, her father, Alexis Jara, now 40, was rehearsing for a show, with his daughter beside him on the bed mouthing along. When he performed that evening, Mr. Jara spotted his daughter sobbing in the crowd, feeling left out.He pulled her up onstage and, sniffling and puffy-eyed, “She transformed — pah! pah! — and started rapping with such force that she stole the limelight,” her father remembered. As her tears vanished, the 5-year-old addressed the crowd: “I represent La Pincoya, I want hands in the air!”“From that day on we never got her down from the stage,” her father said. “Now everything has turned on its head — it’s me asking to join her!”Awaiting the results of the constitutional referendum in September. The new constitution was rejected by 62 percent of voters.A protest in Santiago after the results were announced. By the time she was 7, Millaray had written and recorded her first album, “Pequeña Femenina,” or “Little Feminine,” which she burned onto CDs to sell on public buses while out busking with her father.When they had earned enough money, the two would jump down the back steps of the bus and take the money to play arcade games or buy candy.They still perform together — Mr. Jara an energetic whirl of braids and baggy clothing, his daughter calmer and more precise with her words. “Tic Tac,” the first song they wrote in tandem, remains in their repertoire.It was while she was still in elementary school that she was given the jolt that would strengthen her resolve to take up her ancestors’ fight in her music, and life.In November 2018, her history teacher told the class that Camilo Catrillanca — an unarmed Mapuche man who was shot and killed that month by police in the Temucuicui community in the south of the country — had deserved his fate.“I couldn’t stay quiet,” she remembered. “I stood up, burning with rage, and said: ‘No, nobody deserves to die, and certainly not for defending their territory.’ In that moment I defended what I thought, and it changed me.”At the end of 2021 and in the first half of 2022, the conflict in the Mapuche territories, where a state of emergency has been regularly renewed by governments on both the right and left, was at one of its most tense periods in decades.In addition to peaceful sit-ins by Mapuche activists on privately owned land and at regional government buildings, there were dozens of cases of arson, responsibility for which was claimed by Mapuche resistance groups, as well as attacks on forestry companies.At least seven killings were recorded in the conflict area in 2022, with the victims including both Mapuche activists, like a man on his way to a land occupation, and forestry workers.In March, when Chile’s interior minister visited the community where Mr. Catrillanca was from, she was greeted with the crackle of gunfire and quickly bundled away in a van.When she is not performing, MC Millaray is known as Millaray Jara Collio.MC Millaray, in traditional Mapuche dress, talking to her mother, Claudia Collio, before going onstage at a political rally.In sometimes violent protests against economic inequality that exploded across Chile in October of 2019 — set off by a 4-cent increase in subway fares — Mapuche symbols and slogans were ubiquitous.In Santiago’s main square, demonstrators were greeted by a wooden “chemamüll” statue, traditionally carved by the Mapuche to represent the dead. At the protests, Millaray would rap or stroll among protesters with her hand-painted blue flag bearing the “Wünelfe,” an eight-point star sacred in Mapuche iconography.“We’re more visible now than we have been in my lifetime,” said Daniela Millaleo, 37, a singer-songwriter from Santiago whom MC Millaray counts among her greatest inspirations. “Before it would just be the Mapuche who marched for our rights, but now so many people feel our pain.”After her grueling schedule of performing at campaign events on behalf of the failed constitutional effort — as well as a trip to New York to sing in Times Square as part of Climate Week NYC— MC Millaray is now focusing on recording new material.“I want to reach more people, but I want every verse to contain a message — I don’t want to make music for the sake of it,” she explained. “It doesn’t matter what the style is, I’m always asking myself what more I can say.”“I want to reach more people, but I want every verse to contain a message — I don’t want to make music for the sake of it,” said MC Millaray. 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      Putin buscaba lealtad y la encontró en África

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      BANGUI, República Centroafricana — En marzo, cuando la invasión rusa de Ucrania iniciaba su tercera semana, un diplomático ruso que se encontraba a unos 4830 kilómetros de distancia, en la República Centroafricana, hizo una visita inusual a la presidenta del máximo tribunal de ese país. Su mensaje fue contundente: el presidente pro-Kremlin del país debe permanecer en el cargo de manera indefinida.Para eso, el diplomático, Yevgeny Migunov, segundo secretario de la embajada rusa, argumentó que el tribunal debía abolir la restricción constitucional que limita a dos los mandatos presidenciales. Insistió en que el presidente del país, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, quien está en su segundo mandato y se ha rodeado de mercenarios rusos, debía permanecer en el cargo por el bien del país.“Me quedé absolutamente atónita”, recordó Danièle Darlan, de 70 años, quien en ese entonces era la presidenta del tribunal. “Les advertí que nuestra inestabilidad provenía de presidentes que querían hacer eternos sus mandatos”.El ruso no se inmutó. Siete meses más tarde, en octubre, Darlan fue destituida por decreto presidencial con el fin de abrir el camino a un referéndum para rescribir la Constitución, aprobada en 2016, y abolir la limitación de mandatos. Eso consolidaría lo que un embajador occidental denominó el estatus de la República Centroafricana como “Estado vasallo” del Kremlin.Con su invasión de Ucrania, el presidente de Rusia, Vladimir Putin, desató un nuevo desorden en el mundo. Ucrania presenta su estrategia contra el vasallaje ruso como una lucha por la libertad universal, y esa causa ha resonado en Estados Unidos y Europa. Sin embargo, en la República Centroafricana, Rusia ya se ha salido con la suya, con escasa reacción occidental, y en la capital, Bangui, ya se exhibe un tipo diferente de victoria rusa.Mercenarios rusos del mismo tenebroso Grupo Wagner, que ahora lucha en Ucrania, dominan la República Centroafricana, un país rico en oro y diamantes. Su impunidad parece total mientras se trasladan en vehículos sin identificación, con pasamontañas que les cubren la mitad del rostro y portando de manera abierta rifles automáticos. Los grandes intereses mineros y madereros que ahora controla Wagner son razón suficiente para explicar por qué Rusia no quiere amenazar a un gobierno complaciente.Desde Bangui, donde las fuerzas de Wagner roban y amenazan, hasta Bria, en el centro del país, y Mbaiki, en el sur, vi mercenarios de Moscú por todas partes durante una estancia de dos semanas y media, a pesar de las presiones para vayan a combatir en Ucrania.“Amenazan la estabilidad, socavan la buena gobernanza, despojan a los países de sus riquezas minerales, violan los derechos humanos”, declaró el secretario de Estado estadounidense, Antony Blinken, sobre los operativos de Wagner durante una cumbre de líderes de Estados Unidos y África celebrada en Washington a mediados de diciembre.Sin embargo, aunque se les teme, a menudo los rusos son recibidos como una presencia más eficaz en el mantenimiento de una paz frágil, a diferencia de los más de 14.500 cascos azules de las fuerzas de paz de las Naciones Unidas que se encuentran en este país devastado por la guerra desde 2014. Como en otros lugares del mundo en desarrollo, Occidente parece haber perdido el corazón y la mente de los ciudadanos. El enfoque del presidente de Estados Unidos, Joe Biden, para esta época —la lucha entre la democracia y la autocracia en ascenso— resulta demasiado binario para una época de desafíos complejos. A pesar de la guerra en Ucrania, incluso debido a ella, los centroafricanos se muestran intensamente escépticos ante las lecciones sobre los “valores” occidentales.La invasión de Ucrania de Putin y la espiral inflacionista han hecho más desesperada la complicada situación de esta nación sin salida al mar. Los precios de productos básicos como el aceite de cocina han subido un 50 por ciento o más. La gasolina ahora se vende en bidones o botellas de contrabando, pues las gasolineras carecen de ellos. El hambre está más extendida, en parte porque las agencias de la ONU a veces carecen de combustible para repartir alimentos.Sin embargo, muchos centroafricanos no culpan a Rusia.La invasión de Ucrania por el presidente Vladimir Putin ha hecho más desesperada una situación que ya lo era, pero muchos centroafricanos no culpan a Rusia.Mercenarios rusos comprando en octubre en el Bangui Mall, un lujoso supermercado utilizado sobre todo por el personal de embajadas y organizaciones no gubernamentales con sede en el país.Una iglesia ortodoxa rusa en BanguiCansados de la hipocresía y las promesas vacías de Occidente, enojados por la indiferencia que la guerra en África suscita en las capitales occidentales en comparación con la guerra en Ucrania, muchas de las personas que conocí se inclinaban por apoyar a Putin frente a sus antiguos colonizadores de París. Si la brutalidad rusa en Bucha o Mariúpol, Ucrania, horroriza a Occidente, la brutalidad rusa en la República Centroafricana se percibe de manera amplia como una ayuda para apaciguar un conflicto que ya dura una década.África representará una cuarta parte de la humanidad en 2050. China extiende su influencia mediante enormes inversiones, construcciones y préstamos. Biden convocó la Cumbre de Líderes África-Estados Unidos “para construir sobre nuestros valores compartidos” y anunció 15.000 millones de dólares en nuevos acuerdos comerciales, mientras Occidente se esfuerza por ponerse al día y superar un legado de colonialismo.La Rusia de Putin, por el contrario, nunca construye un puente, sino que es la maestra de los despiadados servicios de protección, el saqueo y la propaganda. Gana amigos a través del poder duro, ahora extendido a más de una decena de países africanos, incluidos Mali y Sudán. Como en Siria, su disposición a utilizar la fuerza garantiza el resultado que busca.En marzo, solo 28 de los 54 países africanos votaron en las Naciones Unidas para condenar la invasión rusa de Ucrania, la misma escasa mayoría que posteriormente votó para condenar la anexión rusa de cuatro regiones ucranianas, lo que sugiere una creciente reticencia a aceptar un enfoque estadounidense de lo que está bien y lo que está mal.“Cuando tu casa está ardiendo, no te importa el color del agua que usas para apagar el fuego”, dijo Honoré Bendoit, subprefecto de Bria, capital regional, a casi 450 kilómetros al noreste de Bangui. “Tenemos calma gracias a los rusos. Son violentos y eficientes”. More

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      Putin Wants Fealty, and He’s Found It in Africa

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      BANGUI, Central African Republic — In early March, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine entered its third week, a Russian diplomat nearly 3,000 miles away in the Central African Republic paid an unusual visit to the head of this country’s top court. His message was blunt: The country’s pro-Kremlin president must remain in office, indefinitely.To do this, the diplomat, Yevgeny Migunov, the second secretary at the Russian Embassy, argued that the court should abolish the constitutional restriction limiting a president to two terms. He insisted that President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, who is in his second term and surrounds himself with Russian mercenaries, should stay on, for the good of the country.“I was absolutely astonished,” recalled Danièle Darlan, 70, then the court’s president, describing for the first time the meeting on March 7. “I warned them that our instability stemmed from presidents wanting to make their rule eternal.”The Russian was unmoved. Seven months later, in October, Ms. Darlan was ousted by presidential decree in order to open the way for a referendum to rewrite the Constitution, only adopted in 2016, and abolish term limits. This would effectively cement what one Western ambassador called the Central African Republic’s status as a “vassal state” of the Kremlin.With his invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia unleashed a new disorder on the world. Ukraine has portrayed its fight against becoming another Russian vassal as one for universal freedom, and the cause has resonated in the United States and Europe. But in the Central African Republic, Russia already has its way, with scant Western reaction, and in the flyblown mayhem of its capital, Bangui, a different kind of Russian victory is already on display.Russian mercenaries with the same shadowy Wagner Group now fighting in Ukraine bestride the Central African Republic, a country rich in gold and diamonds. Their impunity appears total as they move in unmarked vehicles, balaclavas covering half their faces and openly carrying automatic rifles. The large mining and timber interests that Wagner now controls are reason enough to explain why Russia wants no threat to a compliant government.From Bangui itself, where Wagner forces steal and threaten, to Bria in the center of the country, to Mbaiki in the south, I saw Moscow’s mercenaries everywhere during a two-and-a-half-week stay, despite pressure on them to rotate to fight in Ukraine.“They threaten stability, they undermine good governance, they rob countries of mineral wealth, they violate human rights,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said of Wagner operatives last week during a U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington.Yet, although feared, the Russians are often welcomed as a more effective presence in keeping a fragile peace than the more than 14,500 blue-helmeted United Nations peacekeepers in this war-torn country since 2014. As elsewhere in the developing world, the West has seemingly lost hearts and minds here. President Biden’s framework for this era — the battle between democracy and rising autocracy — comes across as too binary for a time of complex challenges. Despite the war in Ukraine, even because of it, Central Africans are intensely skeptical of lessons on Western “values.”Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the inflationary spiral it has spawned has made a desperate situation more desperate in this landlocked nation. Prices for staples like cooking oil are up by 50 percent or more. Gasoline is now sold in smuggled canisters or bottles, as gas stations have none. Hunger is more widespread, in part because U.N. agencies sometimes lack the fuel to deliver food.Yet many Central Africans do not blame Russia.President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has made a desperate situation more desperate, yet many Central Africans do not blame Russia.Russian mercenaries shopping in October at Bangui Mall, a fancy supermarket used mostly by embassies’ staff and nongovernmental organizations based in the country.A Russian Orthodox Church in Bangui.Tired of Western hypocrisy and empty promises, stung by the shrug that war in Africa elicits in Western capitals as compared with war in Ukraine, many people I met were inclined to support Mr. Putin over their former colonizers in Paris. If Russian brutality in Bucha or Mariupol appalls the West, Russian brutality in the Central African Republic is widely perceived to have helped quiet a decade-old conflict.Africa will account for a quarter of humanity by 2050. China spreads its influence through huge investments, construction and loans. Mr. Biden convened the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit “to build on our shared values” and announced $15 billion in new business deals, as the West scrambles to play catch-up and overcome a legacy of colonialism.Mr. Putin’s Russia, by contrast, never builds a bridge, but is the master of pitiless protection services, plunder and propaganda. It wins friends through hard power, now extended to more than a dozen African countries, including Mali and Sudan. As in Syria, its readiness to use force secures the outcome it seeks.In March, only 28 of Africa’s 54 countries voted at the United Nations to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the same slim majority that subsequently voted to condemn Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions, suggesting a growing reluctance to accept an American narrative of right and wrong.“When your house is burning, you don’t mind the color of the water you use to put out the fire,” said Honoré Bendoit, the subprefect of Bria, a regional capital, about 280 miles (or a six-day drive on what passes for roads here) northeast of Bangui. “We have calm thanks to the Russians. They are violent and they are efficient.” More

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      As Tunisia Drifts Farther From Democracy, Voters Shun Election

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      Turnout in Saturday’s parliamentary elections was just over 11 percent, reflecting deep skepticism that politics can solve the North African nation’s grave governmental and economic crises.A feeble turnout in Tunisia’s inconclusive parliamentary elections over the weekend drew opposition calls for the country’s strongman president to step down, with critics calling it yet another step in the North African’s nation descent from the only democracy to emerge from the Arab Spring uprisings to an increasingly autocratic state.Just over 11 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the first election since President Kais Saied orchestrated a sweeping power grab in 2021, suspending the Parliament and sidelining political parties. As Tunisia drifts farther and farther from its decade-long experiment with democracy, opponents say the president now relies on elections only to add a sheen of legitimacy to his actions.“No one can find a single party of importance across the political spectrum or a civil society organization that sees Saturday’s election as anything other than a sham vote to create a Potemkin parliament,” said Monica Marks, an assistant professor of Middle East politics at New York University Abu Dhabi.The largest opposition coalition, the Salvation Front, called for protests and sit-ins, saying the low turnout indicated that Mr. Saied lacked legitimacy and should leave office. Abir Moussi, the head of the opposition Free Constitutional Party, also called on the president to step down, saying that the vast majority of Tunisians had “rejected Saied’s plan.”The election was the first step in reinstating the Parliament, but with drastically reduced powers that will transform it essentially into an advisory body. It cannot fire the government or remove the president, and bills that Mr. Saied presents will take priority over those proposed by lawmakers. He also barred political parties from participating in elections, making it difficult to decipher the political leanings of the mostly unknown candidates who won seats.Ms. Marks described the candidates that were able to run under the new election law “a shambolic grab bag of individual esoteric loyalists, jobless people who simply wanted a salary and random community members.”President Kais Saied preparing to cast his ballot at a polling station on Saturday. Mr. Saied was elected in 2019 and concentrated power in his own hands in 2021, sidelining Parliament and political parties.Tunisian Presidential Press ServiceShe called Mr. Saied’s ruling style “adhocracy,” meaning he makes it up as he goes along, with minimal checks and balances.The election commission announced late Monday the victors in races for only 23 of the body’s 161 seats; most of the remainder will be decided in runoff elections expected next month.The election came just days after President Biden hosted leaders from across Africa in Washington to declare the United States’ commitment to the continent and voice his support for democracy.Mr. Saied attended the summit and roundly dismissed American criticism of his power grab in a meeting with the editorial board of The Washington Post. He blamed “fake news” for creating the sense that he is an autocrat and accused unidentified “foreign forces” of supporting his political foes.“There are so many enemies of democracy in Tunisia who want to do everything they can to torpedo the country’s democratic and social life from within,” Mr. Saied said.The Biden administration drew some criticism over its sanguine reaction to the election. Ned Price, a State Department spokesman, called it “an essential initial step toward restoring the country’s democratic trajectory.”Ms. Marks said on Twitter that the U.S. statement “absurdly dubbed the sham ballot ‘essential step’ to return to democracy.”The electoral commission said on Monday that only 11.2 percent of eligible voters had cast ballots in what was the country’s fourth election since Tunisians toppled their longtime dictator in a 2011 popular uprising, which set off the wave of Arab Spring revolts across the Middle East.That was the lowest participation level since the revolution and analysts attributed it to dwindling faith among voters in democracy itself. It was even below the roughly 30 percent turnout for a July constitutional referendum that enshrined the expansion of Mr. Saied’s powers and well below the participation rate in the 2019 presidential vote that brought him to power, which was about 50 percent. In 2014, about two-thirds of registered voters participated in parliamentary elections.The 23 confirmed winners included Ibrahim Bouderbala, the former head of the Tunisian Bar Association and a vocal supporter of Mr. Saied. Three women also won seats.When the Arab Spring revolts toppled leaders across the Arab world, Tunisia was lauded as the only one to emerge from the tumult as a multiparty democracy. But that legacy has fallen apart in recent years, as economic distress has spread and Mr. Saied has concentrated power in his hands, all but killing the country’s young democracy.After being elected by a large margin in 2019, Mr. Saied, formerly a little known constitutional law professor, suspended Parliament in 2021 in a move that many Tunisians welcomed, hoping it was a step toward curbing corruption and reviving the economy.A rally against Mr. Saied in Tunis this month organized by the opposition Salvation Front. The coalition called for protests and sit-ins after this weekend’s vote.Fethi Belaid/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut change has not come, with poverty spreading and increasing numbers of Tunisians attempting often-lethal boat trips to Europe in hopes of starting new lives. Mr. Saied has ruled by presidential decree, pushed through a new constitution that grants him greater powers and issued the electoral law that governed Saturday’s election.That law banned political parties from the electoral process, instead allowing voters to choose individual candidates in each district. It also did away with quotas for women and young candidates, provisions added after the revolution.Contributing to the low turnout was the absence of activities by political parties — which many Tunisians despise as corrupt and responsible for the country’s declining fortunes. The major parties boycotted the referendum this year that made Mr. Saied’s constitution into law.Also keeping people away were deep economic woes and a growing sense among voters that it would make little difference who won anyway.Mr. Saied’s supporters argued that the new electoral law would increase accountability by allowing voters to chose their representatives directly and not only as members of party lists.But critics said that keeping the parties out meant that only candidates wealthy enough to finance their own campaigns would be able to run.Analysts had low expectations for the newly chosen Parliament in any case, saying the lack of organized parties to set an agenda would leave it fractured and chaotic, and likely to follow Mr. Saied’s lead on any legislation.Ben Hubbard More

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      In Fiji’s Election, One Former Coup Leader Displaces Another

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      The return of Sitiveni Rabuka paves the way for a potential pivot in a country where the United States and China are fighting for influence.Allegations of voter fraud. Threats of military intervention. A police interrogation of political leaders.Six days of turmoil over Fiji’s general election ended on Tuesday with the ousting of a 16-year strongman leader who had embraced China and eroded democratic norms in the country.After fierce negotiations to form a three-party alliance, Sitiveni Rabuka, the head of the center-right People’s Alliance, is now poised to become Fiji’s prime minister, replacing the country’s longtime leader, Frank Bainimarama.The return of Mr. Rabuka, who led the country from 1987 to 1999, would pave the way for a potential pivot by Fiji, a small but geopolitically important nation in the Pacific where the United States and China are fighting for influence.While Mr. Bainimarama aligned Fiji more closely with Beijing, Mr. Rabuka is expected to favor a stronger relationship with Australia and New Zealand, the region’s historic powerhouses and close allies to the United States. His party also ruled out a proposed security deal with Beijing, like the one signed by the Solomon Islands and China earlier this year.Mr. Rabuka, who initially contested the results after the vote last Wednesday, citing irregularities in the counting, described the outcome as the start of a new chapter for Fiji.“The people have spoken,” he said. “People have chosen. A new way, a new path, a new government.”Video footage posted on Twitter showed supporters on Tuesday at the People’s Alliance headquarters in the capital of Suva erupting in cheers, singing and applause.Outside of the South Pacific, Fiji, an island nation of about a million people, is seen as a remote vacation idyll: frangipani flowers, golden beaches, cobalt seas. But within the region, it is a critical player with a major economy and a strong military. Among its neighbors, it tends to set the tone on human rights and democratic freedoms, which in recent years have appeared under threat.Fiji’s outgoing prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, center, at a polling station in the capital last week. Mick Tsikas/EPA, via ShutterstockIt is also a country in which seemingly peaceful politics can degenerate quickly. The country experienced four coups between 1987 and 2006. Mr. Rabuka originally seized power in Fiji’s first coup, and Mr. Bainimarama in the last one.The vote this month was Fiji’s third general election since democratic voting was reintroduced to the Constitution in 2013. Turnout this year, at just over 68 percent, was the lowest in the country’s history.Speaking on Sunday, before the three-party coalition was formed, Mr. Rabuka described the results of the election as pivotal. “For those who follow, the generations to come,” he said, “they will look back at the election and say that was the turning point in Fiji’s journey.”When the final results were announced, Mr. Bainimarama’s nationalist FijiFirst party had the single largest voter share, with 26 seats in Parliament out of a possible 55. Mr. Rabuka’s People’s Alliance took 21, and its ally the National Federation Party another five. And Sodelpa, a religious Indigenous-led party, won the final three seats.Without no clear winner, it was a tight call to form a government, with the tiny party of Soldepa, taking the lead role.Sodelpa’s public list of demands was considerable. In early talks, its leaders called for a deputy prime minister role for a party member, as well as a promise to support pro-Indigenous policies, a forgiveness of some student debt and the establishment of a Fijian embassy in Jerusalem.The People’s Alliance was founded by Mr. Rabuka last year, after he walked away from Sodelpa, taking a significant portion of its support with him. That history made for a complicated dynamic: There was a natural partnership between the two parties, but antagonism between Mr. Rabuka and some of the Sodelpa members he had left behind continued to fester.In the end, 16 members of Sodelpa’s management board voted in favor of a partnership with the People’s Alliance and 14 with FijiFirst.“People have chosen a new way, a new path, and a new government,” said Biman Prasad, the leader of the National Federation Party. He added: “A new era will be starting as the new government takes on the power in this country.”Workers and supporters of the People’s Alliance Party celebrated at the party’s head office after the Social Democratic Liberal Party confirmation of support to form a new government in Suva on Tuesday.Saeed Khan/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe election had been messy from the start.After the first batch of votes was counted and then released hours behind schedule, the People’s Alliance party appeared to be in the lead — until the official election results app went dark for hours, in what officials described as a vote-counting anomaly. When the app began working again, the party’s lead had vanished, and Mr. Bainimarama’s party was out in front.Fijians quickly cried foul. Five political parties, including Mr. Rabuka’s, said they would call for a recount, because they had no faith in the integrity of election officials. Impartial election observers said they had not seen “significant irregularities” or any evidence of misdoing.As they prepared to contest the election results, opposition party leaders including Mr. Rabuka on Thursday asked the military to intervene in the election, as is its constitutional right.Jone Kalouniwai, the top commander, said the military would instead allow the electoral process to play out. The Fijian military “will leave it in the good hands of those responsible of the electoral process under the 2013 constitution,” he added.The next day, Mr. Rabuka was summoned by the police and interrogated for two hours about his activities over the week. He was ultimately released without being charged.Since casting his vote on Wednesday, Mr. Bainimarama has not spoken publicly and has yet to concede the election. More

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      Tunisia Heads for First Elections Since Presidential Power Grab

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      Voters will choose a new Parliament, but under revised rules that vastly dilute the influence of political parties that many blame for sabotaging the North African nation’s 10-year experiment with democracy.TUNIS — Depending on whom you ask in Tunisia, Saturday’s parliamentary elections — the first since a 2021 presidential power grab that all but killed the country’s young democracy — represent either major progress or a charade.To some, the new electoral law governing the vote is an innovation that will shatter the power of the corrupt political parties that wrecked Tunisia’s economy, subverted justice and made a mockery of the country’s 10-year experiment with democracy. To others, it is the illegitimate brainchild of a president with autocratic aspirations of his own.It may be seen as delivering a group of parliamentarians perceived as far more representative of their districts than previous Tunisian assemblies, or a rubber-stamp chamber that will impose few checks on President Kais Saied’s one-man rule. It might be the next step in Mr. Saied’s plan to clean up corruption and return Tunisia to prosperity and the original goals of the 2011 revolution. Or it is the next stop on the way to looming political and economic ruin.This will be the fourth time that Tunisians have gone to the polls since overthrowing an autocrat in the 2011 revolt, which inspired the Arab Spring uprisings across the region and established the only democracy to emerge from the movement.The elections will resuscitate a body that Mr. Saied suspended in July 2021 in what growing numbers of Tunisians now call a coup, demolishing the young democracy as he began governing by presidential decree. At the time, Tunisians from all classes and regions greeted the moment with cheers and relief, hoping and believing that Mr. Saied would fulfill the revolution’s unmet promises.The president later vowed to restore the assembly as part of a series of sweeping political changes, including the drafting of a new constitution that he personally oversaw, that would put Tunisia back on track.Caught between their misgivings about the president and loathing of the political parties who oppose him, many Tunisians appear lukewarm at best on this vote. The scant interest may partly reflect the fact that Tunisians’ minds are occupied by making ends meet, not politics.But the new Parliament will look little like the one it replaces thanks to Mr. Saied’s new constitution and electoral law, which, among other changes, prevents political parties from being involved in elections. And as the economy has cratered over the past year, more Tunisians are losing faith that Mr. Saied’s project will bring about the changes they are desperate to see.A secondhand clothing stall in front of a poster of President Kais Saied in Kairouan, Tunisia, this summer. The country’s economy has been struggling, with high prices and not enough jobs.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times“What is happening is just a charade,” said Haifa Homri, 24, a law student who went from volunteering for Mr. Saied’s presidential campaign in 2019 to joining an anti-Saied protest of several hundred people in central Tunis last Saturday. “We can’t call them elections,” she added.“I see that the president has made promises,” she said. “But in reality, we can all see the economy is collapsing,” she added, pointing to Tunisia’s grim reality: prices too high, jobs too few, basics such as cooking oil and bottled water scarce on store shelves, and record numbers of people drowning off the coast in a desperate bid to migrate to Europe.Mr. Saied’s new electoral law, which, like all laws since July 2021, was issued by decree, removes from the electoral process the much-despised political parties that constitute some of his only organized opposition.It has voters selecting individual candidates in each district instead of a party list — a change Mr. Saied’s supporters say will buttress democratic accountability by ensuring new members of Parliament know and are known by the people they represent.All political parties are also banned from financing candidates, and there are no longer quotas for female or young candidates, which were instituted after the revolution.Those regulations have raised concerns that, far from becoming more representative of the country, Parliament will fill with men with the means to fund their own campaigns: businessmen, local notables and tribal elders. Of the 1,055 candidates running for 161 seats, just 122 are women.Such rules have led most of the major parties to boycott the elections, as they did the referendum earlier this year in which Tunisians approved Mr. Saied’s new constitution. They say the vote is illegitimate.Yet some analysts warn that sitting out the election risks ceding the entire field to Saied supporters, who include many of the candidates.Without parties to set the agenda and unite members around common causes, the new Parliament is expected to be fractured, chaotic and unproductive, offering few checks on the president’s power.Even an assembly full of political opponents would be largely helpless, as Mr. Saied’s new constitution greatly increases presidential power, reducing Parliament to an advisory role from the main force in government.Tunisians waiting to receive salaries and pensions at a post office in Tunis this summer. The government is struggling to meet a heavy debt burden and pay public salaries, among other economic problems.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times“So this is doomed to be a Parliament that is marginalized,” said Youssef Cherif, a political analyst who is the director of the Columbia Global Centers in Tunis. “I think people will now understand more and more that the power is in the hands of the president.”With Mr. Saied as the focus, opposition leaders defending the post-2011, pre-July 2021 order confidently predict that more Tunisians will abandon Mr. Saied as the economy degenerates. But analysts say his failure does not guarantee their success unless they can offer Tunisians a convincing alternative, a challenge for politicians whom Tunisians blame for what they call the “black decade” after the revolution.“Tunisians who are expecting their socioeconomic conditions to improve once Ennahda is pushed out of power and once Saied is able to implement his project — I think they will be disappointed, because things will not improve quickly,” Mr. Cherif said, referring to the Islamist party that dominated Parliament until July 2021.While polls have shown Mr. Saied’s support declining, the opposition parties’ numbers are far worse. Anti-government demonstrations, though growing, remain much smaller than in previous years, something analysts attribute to Mr. Saied’s enduring popularity.Though the major political parties have been stripped of power for nearly a year and a half, Mr. Saied’s supporters say those same parties are conspiring to block his changes.“Political parties are boycotting because these elections will put an end to their corruption,” said Salah Mait, an unemployed man from the capital, Tunis, who said he strongly supported Mr. Saied and his plans. “Their programs were just slogans. They just want to be in power.”Turnout has declined in every election since the revolution as faith in democracy has dwindled. The Chahed Observatory, an elections monitor, said the level of interest in the vote is the lowest in a decade, even below July’s constitutional referendum, when turnout was less than a third.In previous elections, party organizations helped boost turnout and energy. But this time, the self-funded candidates have mounted anemic campaigns, and only one candidate is on the ballot in some districts.And then there is the preoccupation with the flailing economy.Though the government has struck a preliminary deal with the International Monetary Fund for a $1.9 billion loan, economists say it will cover only a small part of the country’s needs. The government is struggling to meet a heavy debt burden, pay public salaries and keep importing basic commodities.A demonstration against Mr. Saied last week in Tunis.Fethi Belaid/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe conditions the government agreed to have drawn the ire of Tunisia’s public-sector labor union, earning Mr. Saied a powerful new opponent over the very issue on which he is most vulnerable.“The country is living through a suffocating situation and deteriorating on every level,” Noureddine Taboubi, the secretary general of the union, said in a speech to members this month. “We are going into elections without color or taste that came from a constitution that was not collaborative, not a result of consensus nor approval by the majority,” he added.“The elections are a charade,” some in the crowd began shouting.The union’s opposition has helped prevent previous Tunisian governments from pushing through the tough changes that the I.M.F. demands, such as selling off publicly owned companies and lifting subsidies on food, gas and electricity.With the economy in free fall, the drumbeat of politically motivated prosecutions and the weakening of civil liberties under Mr. Saied have drawn less attention. But the president remains steadfast against criticism.“Tunisians know that all the work I’m doing is for Tunisians to live with dignity and liberty,” he said while visiting a poor neighborhood in Tunis on Sunday night, going on to criticize the opposition as doing little to improve living conditions when it was in power. “We will stick to the principles we started with, and we will carry on.” More