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      Another Israeli Election Looms, and a Familiar Face Plans a Comeback

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      BAT YAM, Israel — On paper, he is hardly the ideal candidate.Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest serving prime minister, was ousted 16 months ago — prompting political eulogies at the end of a 12-year run — and is still standing trial on corruption charges.But as Israel gears up for another general election, its fifth in less than four years, Mr. Netanyahu, a seasoned political phoenix running this time from the opposition, appears better positioned than any of his rivals to lead the next government coalition.“He’s the strongest political player, despite it all,” said Mazal Mualem, an Israeli political commentator and the author of a newly released biography of Mr. Netanyahu in Hebrew, “Cracking the Netanyahu Code.” “That he has survived till now is proof of his power,” she said. “Beyond being a politician, he is a social and cultural phenomenon.”Still, despite the loyalty that he has enjoyed so far from his conservative party, Likud; from his political allies; and from supporters drawn to his messages emphasizing the country’s Jewish identity, Mr. Netanyahu remains a divisive figure in Israel and may nevertheless fail to deliver them a clear victory.A Likud party rally this month in Ofakim, Israel. Polls show that voters are almost evenly split between the pro- and anti-Netanyahu camps.Amit Elkayam for The New York TimesPre-election opinion polls are showing an electorate almost evenly split between the pro- and anti-Netanyahu camps, with Likud getting the most votes, but each side falling short of a majority. Some political analysts are already predicting a sixth election, most likely next spring.Mr. Netanyahu, 73, universally known by his childhood nickname, Bibi, has not emerged from an election with a clear majority for Likud and its allies since 2015, as political polarization, paralysis and chaos have gripped the country.His opponents have also been unable to build a stable coalition, with the government of Naftali Bennett collapsing this summer. Yair Lapid took over as the caretaker prime minister of a transitional government. His centrist Yesh Atid party is currently polling second after Likud.While the recent election campaign has been marked by voter fatigue, Mr. Netanyahu has run an energetic race, flooding social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok with snappy videos and campaigning vigorously around Israel.Mr. Netanyahu also used his time in the opposition to write an autobiography, “Bibi: My Story.” Published this month, the English version was instantly ranked as an Amazon best seller.And he did not let up in his unrelenting efforts to bring down the last government, led by Mr. Bennett, which imploded after a year.Mr. Netanyahu, 73, used his time in the opposition to write an autobiography, “Bibi: My Story.” Published this month, the English version was instantly ranked as an Amazon best seller.Amit Elkayam for The New York TimesAll of that has helped bolster support for him and his political allies. Many Israelis still view him as the most qualified candidate to handle the country’s security, diplomacy and economy.Even his corruption trial, in which the Jerusalem District Court is slogging its way through a list of more than 300 witnesses, has earned him added sympathy and admiration from Israelis who agree with his claims that he has been “framed” by a liberal deep state, and the court proceedings have largely dropped from the public agenda.One reason for Mr. Netanyahu’s success, according to Ms. Mualem and several current and former Netanyahu aides and strategists, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, is his unrivaled domination of the social network realm. That allows him to bypass the mainstream media, which he has long viewed as biased, and speak directly to his public. Fluent in “Jewish language” and sentiment, Ms. Mualem said, he also manages to appeal to ultra-Orthodox voters, even though he is secular.Mr. Netanyahu’s focus is on getting every Likud voter out on Election Day, after tens of thousands sat out the 2021 election or voted for other parties.He asserted while on the campaign trail that internal polls were giving his tight bloc a fraction over 60 seats in Parliament, within touching distance of a 61-seat majority in the 120-seat legislature, though that would most likely mean forming a government with, and distributing ministerial positions to, the far-right Religious Zionism party, which is running on a joint slate with the extremist Jewish Power..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.Learn more about our process.The leader of Jewish Power, the ultranationalist lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir, recently pulled out a handgun during a campaign stop in a volatile East Jerusalem neighborhood and urged police officers to fire at local Palestinian stone-throwers.Israelis at the Western Wall for services ahead of Yom Kippur this month in Jerusalem. Hoping to win over a wider section of voters, Mr. Netanyahu continues to emphasize Israel’s Jewish identity.Amit Elkayam for The New York TimesThe opposing, ideologically disparate bloc of disaffected conservative, centrist, left-wing and Arab parties would have a much muddier path toward forming a government, not only because it is trailing behind the pro-Netanyahu bloc, according to much of the latest polling, but also because some of the bloc’s parties would object to sitting in a coalition with others.Hoping to win over soft-right waverers, Mr. Netanyahu has been less divisive than in the past, ceasing his attacks on the police and the judiciary and leaving that to some of his Likud stalwarts. Vilifying Arab politicians as “supporters of terrorism,” he emphasizes Israel’s Jewish identity and need for a Jewish government. But he has also been sending calming messages in Arabic to the Arab minority.His campaign has also homed in on Likud strongholds where previous turnout has been low, with his “Bibi-mobile” — a converted removal truck with one side replaced by bulletproof glass through which he speaks to supporters — showing up at rallies (known as Bibi-Ba, for Bibi is Back) across the country.This month, the Bibi-mobile turned up in a public park in Bat Yam, a mostly low-income Likud beach town south of Tel Aviv where voter turnout was under 50 percent in 2021.The moment a screen lifted to reveal Mr. Netanyahu behind the bulletproof glass, the audience — mostly locals who had ambled down from their apartments, some in undershirts, sweatpants and flip-flops — was instantly energized.“Good evening, Bat Yam!” Mr. Netanyahu boomed, on his third campaign stop of the night.It took on a pantomime quality, as a heavily made-up Mr. Netanyahu asked the crowd if they wanted another year of Mr. Lapid’s Israeli-Palestinian government (“No!”) or if they wanted Israel back (“Yes!”). Mentions of the Lapid government, which includes Ra’am, a small, Islamic party, elicited boos.Mr. Netanyahu, left, at a rally while inside his bulletproof vehicle this month in Netivot, Israel.Amit Elkayam for The New York TimesAs the crowd chanted, “Bibi, King of Israel!” Mr. Netanyahu moved on to a fourth stop, in another park across town. “Good evening, Bat Yam!” he boomed, as if it were his first time.Sara Brand, 73, a local resident, said she used to vote for the center-left Labor Party but went over to Likud because of the trial and what she called a media “crusade” against Mr. Netanyahu.Hai Bachar, 29, a security guard, said: “We are a Jewish, Zionist state. The left are enemies of Israel. They can’t be in government.”Research by Moshe Klughaft, a strategist who met with Mr. Netanyahu several times during this campaign, shows that many undecided voters are less concerned with personality than with the need for stable government and the high cost of living. Mr. Netanyahu is promising that a good turnout will guarantee “four years of stable, right-wing government,” and has pledged to introduce free day care for infants and children up to age 3 in a new “Bibi-sitter” video.If Mr. Netanyahu does return to the prime minister’s office, his detractors worry most that he and his loyalists will make fundamental changes to the judicial and democratic system aimed at canceling his trial.“The plan is absolutely to replace the attorney general,” said Ben Caspit, an Israeli political commentator and two-time biographer of Mr. Netanyahu. “They are saying, ‘We aren’t coming to destroy the system, but to reform it and fix it.’”Supporters of Mr. Netanyahu and the Likud party this month at a rally in Migdal Haemek, Israel.Amit Elkayam for The New York TimesBezalel Smotrich, the leader of the far-right Religious Zionism party in Mr. Netanyahu’s bloc, has already announced a sweeping plan for change that would include canceling the offenses of fraud and breach of trust — two of the charges that Mr. Netanyahu is accused of, along with bribery — from the criminal code.Mr. Netanyahu, who denies all wrongdoing, insists that any such change would not apply to him retroactively and that the case against him is collapsing in court. But to exclude him from such a legal amendment would require making him an exception under the law.Tzachi Hanegbi, a veteran Likud lawmaker and former minister, said in an interview that if Mr. Netanyahu had wanted to save himself from his trial, he could have entered into a plea bargain with the authorities.Mr. Netanyahu remains the leading candidate, Mr. Hanegbi said, because he retains a sense of mission, believing that Israel’s fate rests on his shoulders, and “because he wants it more than anybody else.”Even if Mr. Netanyahu fails this time around, he may still remain unchallenged from within Likud. “There will be no problem if he wants to remain,” Mr. Hanegbi said. “He can stay for another 10 years if he wants.”Israel’s voters are evenly split on the question of whether Mr. Netanyahu is fit to run the country while standing trial on corruption charges related to bribery, fraud and breach of trust.Amit Elkayam for The New York Times More

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      Bolsonaro vs. Lula: What to Know About Brazil’s Runoff Election

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      The vote comes after a long and ugly campaign that pits two major political figures against each other in race that has tested the country’s democracy.Brazilians will head to the polls on Sunday to elect a new president in a bruising runoff between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the future of Latin America’s biggest democracy.The right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, has rallied supporters around what he calls a leftist attack on family values and individual liberties. He has cast academics, the media and even democratic institutions, including Brazil’s Congress and Supreme Court, as enemies.The leftist challenger, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a former president, has vowed to govern for all Brazilians, while returning the country to a more prosperous past, though his own history of corruption scandals has divided voters.During the first round of voting on Oct. 2, Mr. da Silva drew about six million more votes than Mr. Bolsonaro, who came in second, but he fell short of the 50 percent threshold to avoid a runoff. Mr. Bolsonaro did far better than pollsters had predicted, suggesting that Sunday’s race could be close.On Sunday, the electoral authority will start releasing results after polls close at 4 p.m. E.S.T. The new president will be sworn in on Jan. 1. The Times will be covering the election live all day.A section of the Amazon rainforest being burned to expand areas for cattle grazing in 2019, near the city of Porto Velho, in the state of Rondônia.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesWhat are the issues?The election comes at a crucial moment for Brazil, where surging food and fuel prices, coupled with a painful economic slowdown, have made life harder for many Brazilians. About 33 million of the country’s 217 million people are experiencing hunger, while poverty has surged, reversing decades of social and economic progress.Environmental and climate worries also loom large. Deforestation in the Amazon has hit 15-year highs under Mr. Bolsonaro, who has weakened environmental protections and argued that the rainforest should be opened to mining, ranching and agriculture. The Amazon’s destruction — and its effects on the efforts to avert a climate crisis — has turned Brazil into a global outcast.There are also lingering questions about the health of Brazil’s democracy. Mr. Bolsonaro has sowed doubts about the integrity of the electoral system, claiming without evidence that the country’s electronic voting machines can be rigged. If he loses on Sunday, he has said, it would only be because of fraud.This has fueled worries — at home and abroad — that a potential loss for Mr. Bolsonaro may prompt him to rally his millions of supporters, calling on them to take to the streets and demand that he remain in power.A military parade for President Jair Bolsonaro in August.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesWhat does Mr. Bolsonaro propose?Mr. Bolsonaro has promised to hand out cash payments of about $113 a month to needy families, extending a temporary policy originally created to ease the pandemic’s blow.Continuing the program, which replaced a similar but less generous initiative introduced under Mr. da Silva, is meant to “reduce poverty and contribute to sustainable economic growth,” according to Mr. Bolsonaro’s official policy plan.Ahead of the election, Mr. Bolsonaro has spent heavily on welfare and fuel subsidies.He has also pledged to create jobs by eliminating bureaucratic red tape, slashing taxes and investing in technology. In a further nod to business leaders, who provided him vital support during his first run for president, Mr. Bolsonaro said he would maintain a free market approach and keep public debt in check.Echoing the rhetoric that won him support from ultraconservative and evangelical voters four years ago, Mr. Bolsonaro also promises to defend “the family,” opposing legal abortion and transgender education in schools. Mr. Bolsonaro also promises to expand tough-on-crime policies, pledging to further expand access to firearms, a policy he credits for a drop in violent crime across Brazil.A banner in São Paulo in support of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a leftist who is challenging Mr. Bolsonaro. Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesWhat does Mr. da Silva propose?Mr. da Silva oversaw a golden era of growth during his two terms in office, when a commodity-fueled boom turned Brazil into a global success story. He promises to return the country to those glory days.The leftist candidate vows to raise taxes on the rich and boost public spending, “putting the people in the budget.” His plans include a slew of social programs, such as a $113 monthly cash voucher rivaling the one proposed by Mr. Bolsonaro. Poor families with children will also receive another $28 per month for each child under 6.Mr. da Silva has also promised to adjust Brazil’s minimum wage in step with inflation and revive a housing plan for the poor, while guaranteeing food security for people facing hunger.A former trade unionist, Mr. da Silva plans to kick start growth and “create work and employment opportunities” by spending on infrastructure. But he also plans to invest in a “green economy,” warning that Brazil must shift to more sustainable energy and food systems.On the Amazon, Mr. da Silva has signaled that he will crack down on environmental crimes by militias, land grabbers, loggers and others.Voters lining up during the first round of voting this month in Brasília, Brazil.Dado Galdieri for The New York TimesWhat has happened since the first vote?In the first round of voting, Mr. da Silva won 48 percent of the vote, while Mr. Bolsonaro received 43 percent of the vote, significantly outperforming pre-election polls and raising questions about the credibility of polling firms.The flawed polls also gave credence to Mr. Bolsonaro’s claims that the surveys did not accurately reflect his popularity.Polls heading into Sunday’s vote show Mr. da Silva with a narrowing lead over Mr. Bolsonaro with both candidates intensifying efforts to shore up voter support.Mr. da Silva has focused on striking a more moderate tone and forging alliances with centrist presidential candidates who did not make it out of the first round as a way to win over some of the 10 million voters who cast ballots for them.Mr. Bolsonaro has cozied up to right-wing governors in Brazil’s three most populous states, seeking to turn political endorsements into votes. He has also enlisted religious leaders in his quest to widen his advantage among evangelical voters.Still, much of the campaign — already marked by misinformation and vicious online attacks — has devolved into mudslinging with little discussion of the challenges the country’s next leader will face.Mr. Bolsonaro’s has tried to tie his rival to Satanism, prompting Mr. da Silva to issue a statement confirming that he “does not have a pact” with the devil. Mr. da Silva, for his part, has seized on unflattering videos of Mr. Bolsonaro that link him to freemasonry, cannibalism and pedophilia.Electoral Court inspectors carry out final tests on electronic voting machines in São Paulo.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesHow does the vote work?Brazilians will cast ballots on electronic voting machines, a system that has been in place for more than two decades and that has been the focus of Mr. Bolsonaro’s claims about the risk of election fraud.Some 156 million Brazilians are eligible to cast a ballot in the election. Voting in Brazil is compulsory, though the fine for not casting a ballot is less than a dollar and mostly symbolic. In the first round, turnout was roughly 79 percent.Turnout typically falls in the second round because the elimination of candidates after the first round dampens enthusiasm among some voters. Some poorer voters who would tend to favor Mr. da Silva might also sit out the runoff because the cost of getting to the polls in such a sprawling country can be a disincentive. More

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      Brazil Confronts a Momentous Bolsonaro vs. Lula Election

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      Brazilians head to the polls on Sunday in an election between two political heavyweights that could have global repercussions.RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil on Sunday faces a crossroads.After months of pitches to voters, the nation will decide one of Latin America’s most important elections in decades, picking between the two biggest names in modern Brazilian politics and their polar visions for the country.The choice for Brazilians is whether to give President Jair Bolsonaro a second term, emboldening and empowering him to carry out a far-right mandate for the nation, or whether to bring back former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and return Brazil to a leftist track.Yet the stakes are far higher than simply a contest between the left and the right.The election carries major consequences for the Amazon rainforest, which is crucial to the health of the planet. Mr. Bolsonaro has gutted the agencies tasked with protecting the forest, leading to soaring deforestation, while Mr. da Silva has promised to eradicate illegal logging and mining.Brazil’s economy, once the world’s sixth largest, has flatlined over the past decade. Mr. Bolsonaro pledges to pursue deregulation and privatization to try to jump-start activity, while Mr. da Silva has made his central pitch about feeding and housing the poor, whose numbers have climbed during the pandemic.Mr. da Silva has run on promises to feed and house the poor, and to eradicate illegal logging and mining in the Amazon rain forest.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesThe vote is a test of the enduring strength of the right-wing populism that swept across many countries in recent years. Mr. Bolsonaro is one of the biggest remaining faces of that movement, but he is trying to withstand a recent clear shift to the left across Latin America.And then there is the concern for the health of one of the world’s biggest democracies. Mr. Bolsonaro has spent years attacking Brazil’s democratic institutions, including a sustained effort to undermine its voting system, leading millions of Brazilians to lose faith in the integrity of their nation’s elections.Now, much of the country is wondering: If the president loses the election, will he accept it?After Mr. da Silva led in the first round of voting earlier this month, many polls suggest the race has narrowed. The two men have split this country of 217 million people nearly down the middle, with many voters on each side viewing the choice as an existential one for the nation.“We have a population completely divided between two worlds,” said Malu Gaspar, a political columnist for O Globo, one of Brazil’s biggest newspapers. “So I have a lot of anticipated frustration that this is the most important election of our time, and yet we will come out of it with a lot of more problems than when we went in.”The close race, high stakes and deep polarization have led to an ugly campaign. Misinformation has soared in recent weeks, with supporters of Mr. da Silva accusing Mr. Bolsonaro of being a cannibal and a pedophile, while Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters have called Mr. da Silva a gang leader, a communist and a Satanist who wants to close the nation’s churches.Supporters of Mr. Bolsonaro during a rally at a church square in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday.Dado Galdieri for The New York TimesElection officials have tried to intervene, ordering posts and videos off the internet that they say are false. Those efforts have slowed the deluge of misleading information, but they have also become their own controversy, drawing a swell of complaints of unfair refereeing, particularly from Mr. Bolsonaro and his allies.The debates between the two candidates devolved into name calling and disputes over their past versus their plans for the future. And there has been a spate of political violence, with countless beatings and at least two killings connected to the election.This week, the violence and claims of censorship from the right collided when the authorities tried to arrest a right-wing congressman whom the Supreme Court had ordered not to speak publicly because, it said, he had attacked Brazil’s democratic institutions. He responded by shooting at the police and throwing a grenade, injuring two officers. He is now in jail.With a victory on Sunday, Mr. da Silva would complete a stunning political revival. The former shoeshine boy and metalworker with a fifth-grade education rose to become Brazil’s president in 2003. He then used a commodity boom and the discovery of offshore oil to reshape the country, lifting 20 million Brazilians out of extreme poverty. By the time he left office in 2010, he had an 80 percent approval rating.But things quickly turned south for him, his leftist Workers Party and Brazil. His handpicked successor’s interventions into the economy helped plunge Brazil into a recession from which it has never fully recovered, and then a corruption investigation revealed a sprawling kickback scheme that had festered deep inside the Brazilian government under his party’s control.Mr. da Silva in 2018, when a prison sentence for corruption ended his last presidential campaign. His conviction was later overturned. Lalo de Almeida for The New York TimesNearly 300 people were eventually arrested in the scheme, including Mr. da Silva. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison on charges that he accepted a condo and home improvements from companies bidding on government contracts. But after 17 months, he was released and his convictions were later nullified after the Supreme Court ruled that the judge in his cases was biased. While Mr. da Silva was not cleared of wrongdoing, the decision allowed him to run for president again.Mr. Bolsonaro is a former Army captain who served three decades in Congress as a fringe far-right lawmaker known for extreme statements. In 2018, in the wake of Mr. da Silva’s prison sentence, Mr. Bolsonaro rode the global wave of right-wing populism to the presidency, promising to root out what he called the corruption of Brazil’s leftists.His four years since have been tumultuous. He has attacked judges, journalists, political rivals and environmentalists, while also publicly doubting the science behind Covid-19. He pushed unproven drugs during the pandemic and delayed in buying vaccines. The coronavirus killed nearly 700,000 people in Brazil, the second-highest official toll, after the United States.Yet despite the turmoil, Mr. Bolsonaro’s support has endured. He far outperformed polls’ expectations in the first round of voting on Oct. 2, and while recent polls have shown Mr. da Silva still in the lead, Mr. Bolsonaro was within striking distance.The president’s base is a bloc known as “beef, bibles and bullets,” representing people connected to the agribusiness industry, evangelical movement, and law enforcement and the military. Under a slogan of “God, homeland, family and freedom,” he has focused his pitch on warnings about the left trying to change what he calls Brazilians’ traditional way of life.Mr. Bolsonaro as a federal legislator in his office in 2017. Behind him are the portraits of Brazil’s leaders during the military dictatorship.Lalo de Almeida for The New York TimesIn his closing pitch to voters in the first presidential debate this month, Mr. Bolsonaro did not mention the economy, and instead accused the left of wanting to legalize drugs and abortion, abolish private property and force children to learn about “gender ideology” and use unisex bathrooms. “We don’t want a country of retrogression, corruption, thievery and disrespect for our religion,” he said.Mr. da Silva has built a broad coalition in recent months, from the center-right to the far left, with people concerned about what might happen under a second Bolsonaro term. But he has maintained Brazil’ working class as his base and built his platform around taxing the rich and expanding services for the poor. His stump speech has highlighted a promise that all Brazilians deserve a top cut of meat and a cold beer.“Let’s get back to fixing this country, and let’s get back to eating and drinking a beer at weekend barbecues,” he said. Mr. Bolsonaro “goes crazy because he thinks only he can, but we want to eat at the barbecues, too.”The campaign, however, has also had a more worrisome element. For more than a year, Mr. Bolsonaro has warned that he may not accept a loss. He has claimed, without credible evidence, that Brazil’s electronic voting system is rife with fraud and that the left is set on rigging the vote. As a result, three out of four of his supporters say they trust the voting system only a little or not at all.Electoral Court inspectors packing up voting machines after testing them in São Paulo.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesOver the past week, Mr. Bolsonaro has also begun to claim other kinds of fraud. His campaign has accused radio stations of playing far more ads from Mr. da Silva, which would violate election laws, but the evidence the campaign produced was incomplete and quickly shown to be flawed. Brazil’s election chief, whom Mr. Bolsonaro has called biased, dismissed the accusations.Yet Mr. Bolsonaro’s son, a congressman, suggested this week that the vote should be delayed because of the alleged fraud, and Mr. Bolsonaro himself is complaining that it is more proof of an unfair election.“It’s fraud. It interferes with the results of the election,” Mr. Bolsonaro told reporters on Wednesday. “I am a victim once again.”André Spigariol contributed reporting from Brasília. More

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      Workers at Trader Joe’s in Brooklyn Reject Union

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      Workers at a Trader Joe’s store in Brooklyn have voted against unionizing, handing a union its first loss at the company after two victories this year.The workers voted 94 to 66 against joining Trader Joe’s United, an independent union that represents employees at stores in Western Massachusetts and Minneapolis. Workers at a Trader Joe’s in Colorado filed for an election this summer but withdrew their petition shortly before a scheduled vote.“We are grateful that our crew members trust us to continue to do the work of listening and responding to their needs, as we always have,” Nakia Rohde, a company spokeswoman, said in a statement after the National Labor Relations Board announced the result on Thursday.The result raises questions about whether the uptick in union activity over the past year, in which unions won elections at several previously nonunion companies like Starbucks, Amazon and Apple, may be slowing.Union supporters recently lost an election at an Amazon warehouse near Albany, N.Y., and the pace of unionization at Starbucks has dropped in recent months, though the union has won elections at over 250 of the company’s 9,000 corporate-owned U.S. stores so far.Workers at a second Apple store recently won an election in Oklahoma City, however, and unions have upcoming votes at a Home Depot in Philadelphia and a studio owned by the video game maker Activision Blizzard in upstate New York.As of June, Trader Joe’s had more than 500 locations and 50,000 employees across the country and was not unionized. Early in the pandemic, the company’s chief executive sent a letter to employees complaining of a “current barrage of union activity that has been directed at Trader Joe’s” and arguing that union supporters “clearly believe that now is a moment when they can create some sort of wedge in our company.”The company has said it is prepared to negotiate contracts at its unionized stores. An employee involved in the union, Maeg Yosef, said the two sides were settling on bargaining dates.Union supporters at the Brooklyn store had said they were seeking an increase in wages, improved health care benefits and paid sick leave as well as changes that would make the company’s disciplinary process more fair.Before union supporters had a chance to talk with all their colleagues, management became aware of the campaign and announced it in a note posted in the store’s break room in late September. The company also fired a prominent union supporter a day or two later.Amy Wilson, a leader of the union campaign in the store, said organizing had become more difficult after the firing and the note from management.“The last core of people hadn’t been spoken to directly by their co-workers, and we lost them instantly,” she said, referring to the note. “It undermined the trust, the relationship. They felt excluded and offended.”Ms. Rohde, the Trader Joe’s spokeswoman, did not respond to a question about why management posted the break room note. She said that while she couldn’t comment on the firing of the union supporter, “we have never and would never fire a crew member for organizing.”Trader Joe’s is known for providing relatively good wages and benefits for the industry, though workers have complained that the company has made its health care and retirement benefits less generous over the past decade. More

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      Millones de brasileños desconfían de las elecciones debido a Bolsonaro

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      Tres de cada cuatro partidarios del presidente de Brasil confían poco o nada en el sistema de votación. Muchos dijeron que estaban preocupados por un posible fraude y advirtieron estar preparados para protestar.DUQUE DE CAXIAS, Brasil — Para muchos simpatizantes del presidente Jair Bolsonaro, las elecciones presidenciales de Brasil que se realizarán el domingo solo pueden tener dos resultados posibles: celebrar o tomar las calles. Eso se debe, según dicen, a que una derrota de Bolsonaro solo puede significar que la votación fue manipulada.“Hay mucho fraude”, dijo Kátia de Lima, de 47 años, empleada de una tienda, en un mitin de Bolsonaro este mes. “Está comprobado”.En el mismo mitin que se realizó al norte de Río de Janeiro, Paulo Roberto, de 55 años, trabajador del gobierno, comentó: “Cualquiera que vote por Bolsonaro está preocupado por las máquinas de votación”.Y Fabrício Frieber, un abogado del estado de Bahía, agregó: “Bolsonaro nos viene advirtiendo”.En el transcurso de su presidencia, Bolsonaro ha cuestionado y criticado la seguridad del sistema de votación electrónica de Brasil, a pesar de la falta de evidencia creíble de que exista un problema en el mismo. Ahora, al final de su primer mandato, está claro que sus ataques han tenido un efecto: gran parte del electorado de Brasil ha perdido la fe en la integridad de las elecciones de su nación.Tres de cada cuatro partidarios de Bolsonaro confían poco o nada en el sistema de votación de Brasil, según varias encuestas de los últimos meses, incluida una realizada la semana pasada. Y en entrevistas con más de 40 de los partidarios de Bolsonaro en los últimos meses, casi todos dijeron que estaban preocupados por el fraude electoral y que estaban preparados para protestar si este pierde.Esas dudas han socavado una de las democracias más grandes del mundo y es probable que terminen por ser uno de los legados más perniciosos de Bolsonaro, parte de una tendencia mundial de mentiras y teorías de conspiración, a menudo alimentadas por líderes populistas y amplificadas por el internet, que están amenazando las normas democráticas en Estados Unidos y en todo el mundo.Los inspectores del tribunal electoral de Brasil prueban las máquinas de votación en São Paulo. Las máquinas no están conectadas a internet, lo que reduce significativamente la posibilidad de un ataque cibernético.Victor Moriyama para The New York TimesAhora, el domingo, Brasil podría ver hasta dónde llegan esas dudas sobre sus elecciones.Las encuestas muestran que la contienda entre Bolsonaro, el actual presidente de extrema derecha, y Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, expresidente de izquierda, está reñida. Sin embargo, Bolsonaro ha insinuado que, si pierde, es posible que no acepte los resultados.“¿Elecciones que no puedes auditar? Eso no es una elección. Es fraude”, declaró Bolsonaro a los periodistas en julio, al mencionar un reclamo común sobre el sistema electoral de Brasil. “Entregaré el poder, en unas elecciones limpias”.Si Bolsonaro es derrotado y busca aferrarse al poder, parece que las instituciones democráticas de Brasil están preparadas para resistir. Pero también parece que algunos de sus seguidores están preparados para luchar.“Si nuestro presidente no es elegido, todos vamos a Brasilia”, dijo Rogério Ramos, de 40 años, dueño de una tienda de electrónica automotriz, refiriéndose a la capital del país. “Cerramos el Congreso, como en el 64”.En 1964, un golpe militar condujo a 21 años de una dictadura violenta en Brasil.Rogério Ramos en su coche autónomo con otros simpatizantes de Bolsonaro luego de un mitin en Río de Janeiro.Maria Magdalena Arrellaga para The New York TimesMuchas de estas advertencias son probablemente comentarios improvisados y no planes organizados de violencia. Las autoridades del orden público no han advertido sobre ninguna amenaza por parte de alguno de los grupos en caso de que Bolsonaro sea derrotado.Pero el Supremo Tribunal Federal y el Tribunal Superior Electoral de Brasil aumentaron la seguridad, y el ejército se está preparando en caso de que haya descontento después de las elecciones, según dos altos oficiales militares que hablaron bajo condición de anonimato para comentar planes privados. El presidente o los tribunales podrían convocar a los militares para tratar de controlar a las multitudes violentas.Funcionarios gubernamentales, jueces, periodistas y gran parte de la ciudadanía brasileña están preocupados por un escenario similar al del 6 de enero de 2021, cuando miles de personas irrumpieron en el Capitolio de Estados Unidos, en un intento por anular los resultados de las elecciones después de que el expresidente Donald Trump negara repetidamente su derrota.Tanto Trump como Bolsonaro pasaron gran parte de sus gobiernos advirtiendo que el sistema estaba conspirando contra ellos. Trump criticó el “Estado profundo”, mientras que Bolsonaro acusó a algunos de los jueces que supervisan el Supremo Tribunal Federal de Brasil y al Tribunal Superior Electoral del país de intentar manipular las elecciones.Los seguidores de Bolsonaro enfocan su atención en una serie de aparentes anormalidades en el proceso de votación y los resultados, así como muchas teorías de conspiración.Maria Magdalena Arrellaga para The New York TimesBolsonaro también ha cuestionado la seguridad de las máquinas de votación electrónica de Brasil desde 2015, luego de que un candidato presidencial de centroderecha disputó una estrecha derrota. Bolsonaro, por entonces diputado, comenzó una cruzada apoyada en la afirmación de que las máquinas de votación eran vulnerables al fraude porque no están respaldadas por boletas de papel.Bolsonaro tiene razón al decir que el sistema de votación de Brasil es singular. Es el único país del mundo que utiliza un sistema totalmente digital, sin copias de seguridad en papel.Los expertos en seguridad informática que estudian el sistema dicen que su diseño en efecto dificulta la auditoría de una elección. Pero también dicen que el sistema tiene numerosas capas de seguridad para evitar fraudes o errores, entre estas están los lectores de huellas dactilares, pruebas de cientos de máquinas el día de las elecciones, inspección del código fuente por parte de expertos externos y el hecho de que las máquinas no se conectan a la red de internet, lo que reduce significativamente las posibilidades de un hackeo.Desde que Brasil comenzó a usar máquinas de votación electrónica en 1996, no ha habido evidencia de que hayan sido utilizadas para fraude. En cambio, las máquinas ayudaron a eliminar el fraude que alguna vez afectó las elecciones de Brasil en la era de las boletas de papel.Pero esa realidad no le ha importado mucho a Bolsonaro ni a muchos de los más de 50 millones de brasileños que votaron por él en la primera ronda electoral. En entrevistas, los partidarios de Bolsonaro en cambio centraron su atención en una serie anecdótica de aparentes anomalías en el proceso y los resultados de la votación, así como en muchas teorías de conspiración: las máquinas roban votos de Bolsonaro; las máquinas vienen precargadas con votos; algunas máquinas son falsificaciones plantadas; los funcionarios manipulan los recuentos de votos; y los resultados de la votación muestran patrones sospechosos.En elecciones pasadas, los seguidores de Bolsonaro han ido a las casillas en busca de alguna irregularidad que grabar para compartir como mayor prueba de fraude.Maria Magdalena Arrellaga para The New York TimesUn hombre entrevistado por The New York Times reprodujo un video que recibió a través de WhatsApp que decía que Bolsonaro había visitado Rusia este año para obtener la ayuda del presidente Vladimir Putin con el fin de luchar contra los planes de la izquierda brasileña de robar las elecciones del domingo.Al igual que en Estados Unidos y en otros lugares, las redes sociales han ayudado a polarizar a la población y han permitido que se difundan las dudas sobre las elecciones.La mayor parte del público brasileño solía reunirse alrededor de un solo canal de televisión, TV Globo. Ahora, los brasileños están dispersos en el interminable paisaje de medios de internet, a menudo en burbujas con personas de ideas afines que afianzan puntos de vista preexistentes, explicó Francisco Brito Cruz, director de InternetLab, un instituto de investigación en São Paulo.El público incluso se ha convertido en parte de los propios medios, al crear y compartir memes y videos, incluso sobre las máquinas de votación. En elecciones pasadas, los partidarios de Bolsonaro acudieron a las urnas en busca de alguna irregularidad que pudieran filmar y difundir como una prueba más del fraude.“Están en una misión imposible, tratando de encontrar dónde el trabajador electoral está manipulando las cosas, dónde están teniendo problemas”, dijo Brito Cruz. “Se han convencido a sí mismos, ¿no es cierto?”.La mayoría de los partidarios de Bolsonaro dijeron en entrevistas que no confían en los principales medios de comunicación, a los que Bolsonaro ha catalogado de deshonestos, y en cambio confían en noticias provenientes de una amplia variedad de fuentes en sus teléfonos, incluidas publicaciones en redes sociales y mensajes que reciben en grupos de WhatsApp y Telegram.“Miro las cosas que quiero ver y evito mirar lo que me quieren mostrar”, dijo José Luiz Chaves Fonseca, ingeniero de turbinas para plataformas petroleras en alta mar que este mes asistió disfrazado como Bolsonaro al mitin al norte de Río de Janeiro. “Si todos pensaran así, no serían engañados”.“Miro las cosas que quiero ver y evito mirar lo que me quieren mostrar”, dijo José Luiz Chaves Fonseca, quien acudió a un mitin caracterizado como Bolsonaro.Maria Magdalena Arrellaga para The New York TimesMuchas de las dudas sobre el sistema electoral tienen sus raíces en hechos reales, pero se tergiversan y enmarcan como prueba de que algo anda mal. Da Silva, por ejemplo, fue condenado por cargos de corrupción, que luego fueron anulados, por lo que Bolsonaro y sus seguidores lo caracterizan como un ladrón preparado para robar el voto.En 2018, piratas informáticos se infiltraron en la red informática de la agencia electoral de Brasil, y Bolsonaro y sus partidarios citan con frecuencia ese incidente como prueba de fraude. “Si dicen que las máquinas son tan impenetrables, entonces ¿por qué alguien está en la cárcel por forzar una máquina de votación?”, preguntó Alessandra Stoll Ranzni, diseñadora de São Paulo, durante la versión brasileña de CPAC, la conferencia política conservadora, a principios de este año.Una investigación mostró que los piratas informáticos no podían acceder a las máquinas de votación ni cambiar los totales de los votos.No todos los partidarios de Bolsonaro son tan escépticos. Vinícius Ramos, de 32 años, trabajador del gobierno al norte de Río de Janeiro, refirió que cuenta con un título en seguridad de redes y que no pensaba igual que muchas de las personas que lo rodeaban en un mitin reciente.“El sistema de votación nacional brasileño es uno de los más seguros del mundo”, dijo. “El hecho de que vote por él no significa que esté de acuerdo con todo lo que dice”.André Spigariol More

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      Win or Lose, Bolsonaro Has Destroyed Trust in Brazil’s Elections

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      President Jair Bolsonaro has attacked Brazil’s electronic voting system. Now, ahead of Sunday’s elections, many of his supporters believe there will be fraud.DUQUE DE CAXIAS, Brazil — For many supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro, Sunday’s presidential election in Brazil can have just two possible outcomes: They celebrate or they take to the streets.That is because, they say, his defeat can only mean the vote was rigged.“There’s a lot of fraud,” said Kátia de Lima, 47, a store clerk at a rally for Mr. Bolsonaro this month. “It’s proven.”At the same rally north of Rio de Janeiro, Paulo Roberto, 55, a government worker, said, “Anyone who votes for Bolsonaro is worried about the voting machines.”And Fabrício Frieber, a lawyer from the state of Bahia, added, “Bolsonaro has been warning us.”Throughout his presidency, Mr. Bolsonaro has methodically questioned and criticized the security of Brazil’s electronic voting system, despite the lack of credible evidence of a problem. Now, at the end of his first term, it is clear that his attacks have had an effect: Much of Brazil’s electorate has lost faith in the integrity of their nation’s elections.Three out of four of Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters trust Brazil’s voting system only a little or not at all, according to multiple polls over the past several months, including one last week. And in interviews with more than 40 of Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters in recent months, nearly all said they were worried about election rigging and were prepared to protest if he loses.Those doubts have undermined one of the world’s largest democracies and are likely to end up as one of Mr. Bolsonaro’s most pernicious legacies — part of a global trend of lies and conspiracy theories, often stoked by populist leaders and amplified by the internet, that are threatening democratic norms in the United States and across the world.Inspectors from Brazil’s electoral court testing electronic voting machines in São Paulo. The machines are not connected to the internet, significantly reducing the chances of a hack.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesNow, on Sunday, Brazil could see how far those doubts about its elections go.Polls show that the race between Mr. Bolsonaro, the far-right incumbent, and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a former leftist president, is close. Yet Mr. Bolsonaro has suggested that, if he loses, he may not accept the results.“Elections that you can’t audit? That’s not an election. It’s fraud,” Mr. Bolsonaro told reporters in July, citing a common claim about Brazil’s election system. “I’ll hand over power — in a clean election.”If Mr. Bolsonaro is defeated and seeks to hold on to power, it appears that Brazil’s democratic institutions are prepared to resist. But it also appears that some of his supporters are prepared to fight.“If our president isn’t elected, everyone goes to Brasília,” said Rogério Ramos, 40, owner of an automotive electronics shop, referring to the nation’s capital. “We shut down Congress, just like in ’64.”In 1964, a military coup led to a violent, 21-year dictatorship in Brazil.Rogério Ramos in his self-driving car with other Bolsonaro supporters after a rally in Rio de Janeiro.Maria Magdalena Arrellaga for The New York TimesMany such warnings are likely off-the-cuff comments, rather than organized plans for violence. Law-enforcement officials have not warned of any threat by groups in the event of Mr. Bolsonaro’s defeat.But Brazil’s Supreme Court and electoral court have increased security, and the military is preparing in case there is unrest after the election, according to two senior military officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private plans. The president or the courts could call on the military to try to control violent crowds.Government officials, judges, journalists and much of the Brazilian public are worried about a scenario that resembles Jan. 6, 2021, when thousands of people stormed the U.S. Capitol in a bid to overturn the election results after former President Donald J. Trump repeatedly denied his loss.Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Bolsonaro spent much of their administrations warning that the establishment was plotting against them. Mr. Trump railed against the “deep state,” while Mr. Bolsonaro has accused some of the judges who oversee Brazil’s Supreme Court and the country’s electoral court of trying to rig the election.Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters focus their attention on a series of anecdotal apparent abnormalities in the voting process and results, as well as many conspiracy theories.Maria Magdalena Arrellaga for The New York TimesMr. Bolsonaro has also questioned the security of Brazil’s electronic voting machines since 2015, after a center-right presidential candidate disputed a narrow loss. Then a congressman, Mr. Bolsonaro began a crusade that the voting machines were vulnerable to fraud because they are not backed up by paper ballots..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.Learn more about our process.Mr. Bolsonaro is right that Brazil’s voting system is unique. It is the only country in the world to use a fully digital system, with no paper backups.Computer-security experts who study the system say its design indeed makes it difficult to audit an election. But they also say the system has numerous layers of security to prevent fraud or errors, including fingerprint readers, tests of hundreds of machines on Election Day, outside experts’ inspection of the source code and the fact that the machines do not connect to the internet, significantly reducing the chances of a hack.Since Brazil began using electronic voting machines in 1996, there has been no evidence that they have been used for fraud. Instead, the machines helped eliminate the fraud that once afflicted Brazil’s elections in the age of paper ballots.But those facts have not mattered much to Mr. Bolsonaro or many of the more than 50 million Brazilians who voted for him in the first election round. In interviews, Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters instead focused their attention on a series of anecdotal apparent abnormalities in the voting process and results, as well as many conspiracy theories: machines steal votes from Mr. Bolsonaro; machines come preloaded with votes; some machines are planted fakes; officials manipulate vote tallies; and the vote results show suspicious patterns.In past elections, Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters have gone to the polls searching for some irregularity to film and spread as further evidence of fraud.Maria Magdalena Arrellaga for The New York TimesOne man interviewed by The New York Times played a video he received on WhatsApp that said Mr. Bolsonaro had visited Russia this year to get President Vladimir V. Putin’s help in fighting the Brazilian left’s plans to steal Sunday’s election.As in the United States and elsewhere, social media has helped polarize the population and enabled widespread doubts about the elections.Most of the Brazilian public used to gather around a single television channel, TV Globo. Now, Brazilians are splintered across the endless media landscape of the internet, often in bubbles with like-minded people that entrench pre-existing views, said Francisco Brito Cruz, director of the InternetLab, a research institute in São Paulo.The public itself has even become part of the media, creating and sharing memes and videos, including about the voting machines. In past elections, Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters have gone to the polls searching for some irregularity to film and spread as further evidence of fraud.“They’re on a wild good chase, trying to find where the poll worker is manipulating things, where they’re having problems,” Mr. Brito Cruz said. “They have convinced themselves, right?”Most of Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters said in interviews that they do not trust mainstream news outlets, which Mr. Bolsonaro has attacked as dishonest, and instead rely on news from a wide variety of sources on their phones, including social-media posts and messages they receive in groups on WhatsApp and Telegram.“I look at the things I want to see, and I avoid looking at what they want to show me,” said José Luiz Chaves Fonseca, a turbine engineer for offshore oil platforms who was attending the rally this month north of Rio de Janeiro as a Bolsonaro impersonator. “If everyone thought like this, they wouldn’t be tricked.”“I look at the things I want to see, and I avoid looking at what they want to show me,” said José Luiz Chaves Fonseca, center, who was attending a rally as a Bolsonaro impersonator.Maria Magdalena Arrellaga for The New York TimesMany of the doubts about the election system are rooted in real events, but are twisted and framed as proof of something amiss. Mr. da Silva, for instance, was convicted of corruption charges, which were later nullified, so Mr. Bolsonaro and his supporters characterize him as a thief prepared to steal the vote.Hackers infiltrated the computer network of Brazil’s election agency in 2018, and Mr. Bolsonaro and his supporters frequently cite the incident as proof of fraud. “If they say that the machines are so impenetrable, then why is someone in prison for breaking into a voting machine?” Alessandra Stoll Ranzni, a designer from São Paulo, said at the Brazilian version of CPAC, the conservative political conference, earlier this year.An investigation showed the hackers were not able to gain access to voting machines or change vote totals.Not all of Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters are so skeptical. Vinícius Ramos, 32, a government worker north of Rio de Janeiro, said that he received a degree in a network security and felt differently than many of the people around him at a recent rally.“The Brazilian national voting system is one of the safest in the world,” he said. “Just because I vote for him doesn’t mean that I agree with everything he says.”André Spigariol contributed reporting from Brasília, and María Magdalena Arréllaga from Duque de Caxias, Brazil. More

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      Italy’s Hard Right Feels Vindicated by Giorgia Meloni’s Ascent

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      Long marginalized politically and ostracized socially, the new prime minister’s supporters sense a chance to give a final blow to the stigma and shame of their association with Fascism.ROCCA DI PAPA, Italy — As a young card-carrying member of a party formed from the ashes of Italy’s Fascist party after World War II, Gino Del Nero, 73, recalls being insulted, sidelined and silenced by leftists, as well as by some neighbors and co-workers.But now that Giorgia Meloni, a hard-right political leader, has been sworn in as prime minister of Italy, Mr. Del Nero feels vindicated.“That is over,” he said of the decades where he had to keep his head down. “We are freer now.”The ascent of Ms. Meloni, who leads the most hard-right government since Mussolini, was the final blow to a political taboo for Italy. That has worried critics on the left, who fear that she will initiate an atmosphere of intolerance on social issues and that her nationalist impulses will threaten Italy’s influence in Europe.But to her supporters, it has meant a chance to assert their domination over the mainstream of Italian politics and to shed the shame and stigma of their association with a Fascist movement that took power 100 years ago this week, with Mussolini’s march on Rome, which ushered in two decades of dictatorship that used political violence, introduced racial laws against Jews, allied with Hitler, and disastrously lost a world war.Rocca di Papa, a hilltop village outside Rome where the hard-right Brothers of Italy won 38 percent of the vote in September.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesGino del Nero, 73, who was a member of the post-Fascist Italian Social Movement, recalls being insulted and admonished by leftists in his youth.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesFor her part, Ms. Meloni, the leader of the Brothers of Italy, a party descended from the remnants of that failed experiment, has sought to walk a fine line, repeatedly condemning Fascism, while also nodding to the long years of political exclusion and social ostracism of her supporters and offering them solidarity.In her maiden speech to Parliament as prime minister this week, Ms. Meloni again rejected Fascism and said that the racial laws of 1938 were the lowest point in Italian history. But she also denounced Italy’s postwar years of “criminalization and political violence,” in which she said “innocent boys” had been killed “in the name of antifascism.”The remarks were very much in line with the balancing act that Ms. Meloni executed throughout her campaign before the election in September. On the eve of that vote, she said her victory would not only be “payback for so many people who in this nation had to lower their head for decades,” but also “for all the people who saw it differently from the mainstream and the dominant power system.”They were, she said, “treated as the children of a lesser God.”“Giorgia’s victory closes a circle,” said Italo Bocchino, a former member of Parliament and now the editor in chief of Il Secolo d’Italia, a right-wing newspaper that used to be the party’s in-house organ, and whose readership, he said, has grown by 85 percent in the past year. “Let’s say it’s been like a desert crossing that lasted for 75 years.”A polling station in Garbatella, a traditionally leftist district in Rome where Ms. Meloni grew up and started her political career.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesMs. Meloni, right, taking a selfie with a supporter last month in Rome. Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesBut if her supporters now hope for a long-awaited cultural shift, others are looking on with “critical and concerned awareness,” said Nadia Urbinati, a professor of political theory at Columbia University. Ms. Meloni’s use of the word “nation” instead of “country” or “people” during her maiden speech struck Ms. Urbinati as a possible red flag.Italy’s New Right-Wing GovernmentA Hard-Right Breakthrough: Italy, the birthplace of Fascism, is once again a testing ground for the far right’s advance in Europe after Giorgia Meloni’s election victory in September.New Government Forms: As she takes office, Ms. Meloni faces surging inflation, an energy crisis and increasing pressure to soften Italy’s support for Ukraine.The Coalition’s Linchpin: Ms. Meloni’s turn as prime minister will depend on support from the billionaire media mogul Silvio Berlusconi. So may the health of Italian democracy.Renewed Anxiety: Mr. Berlusconi was caught on tape blaming Ukraine’s president for pushing Russia to invade, raising concerns that Italy could undercut Europe’s unity against Moscow.When the Italian Social Movement was first formed in 1948, its close association with its Fascist forebears repelled many Italians still stinging from the fallout of World War II. Effectively, for nearly a half-century, Italy remained politically split between the Christian Democrats and the Italian Communist Party, leaving little room for the hard right to maneuver in part because of a tacit agreement to keep the right out of government.Political polarization surged among young people during the 1970s and early ’80s, and schools and streets became violent battlefields where the right was vastly outnumbered. Clothing was a political statement then: Members of the left wore parkas, known as an “Eskimo,” and lace-up shoes, and they wore their hair long; members of the right opted for Ray-Ban glasses, leather bomber jackets and camperos, made-in-Italy cowboy-style boots.Members of Gioventù Nazionale, the youth wing of Brothers of Italy, at a rally in September in Rome.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesSimone D’Alpa, 32, one of the leaders of the Rome branch of Gioventù Nazionale, the youth wing of Brothers of Italy, at its headquarters in Rome.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesIn those days, said Simone D’Alpa, one of leaders of the Rome branch of Gioventù Nazionale, the youth wing of Brothers of Italy, you could be targeted, even killed, for wearing camperos boots, or for writing essays seen to be too rightward thinking. Ms. Meloni’s victory vindicated those deaths. “We owe it to them,” he said.The tide first turned in the early ’90s, when the party was reborn as National Alliance and softened its tone. Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister at the time, brought it into the center-right coalition, lifting a longstanding taboo. Critics said that Ms. Meloni’s messaging of “vindication, comeback and victimization” was unjustified because members of her party have already been in office.But to supporters, leading the government is another story.Six of Ms. Meloni’s cabinet ministers started their political careers in the Italian Social Movement, the post-Fascist party. Her close ally Ignazio La Russa was elected president of the Senate, the second top institutional office after the president. The right-wing newspaper Libero called his nomination “the definite legitimization not only of a party, but of an entire world,” that for 30 years had been in a “political ghetto.”Ms. Meloni’s supporters also hoped that this legitimization would trickle down to their everyday lives.Maurizio Manzetti, 61, at his restaurant, The Legend, in Ostia, a seaside neighborhood of Rome. The restaurant was vandalized because its décor included Italian flags and photographs of Ms. Meloni.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesA plaque outside an office of the former Italian Social Movement, now a branch of Brothers of Italy, in Rome. When the Italian Social Movement was first formed, its close ties with its Fascist forebears repulsed many Italians.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesTwo years ago, vandals targeted Maurizio Manzetti, a cook in the seaside Roman neighborhood of Ostia, whose restaurant décor includes Italian flags and photographs of Ms. Meloni. They spray-painted “Friend of Giorgia, Fascist” on a wall in front of the eatery and left a bottle that looked like firebomb in front of his door.“As soon as you talked about patriotism, sovreignism and borders they called you a Fascist,” Mr. Manzetti said. “Now the word patriot is not going to be canceled anymore.”Some nationalists said that having a prime minister might also give them a better foothold in public sectors of cultural life that they complain has systematically excluded them.“There’s now a great opportunity on a cultural level,” said Federico Gennaccari, the editor of a Rome-based conservative publishing house. His wish list, for example, would include a new take on the massacre of Italian soldiers and civilians by Yugoslav Communist partisans from 1943 to 1947 in northeastern Italy. For decades, members of the hard right, in a clear example of “whataboutism,” cited that massacre when asked about Fascist complicity in the Holocaust.One series about that massacre that Mr. Gennaccari saw aired by the state broadcaster RAI “didn’t say the word Communist once,” he said.Federico Gennaccari, the editor of a conservative publishing house in Rome.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesA rally commemorating the mass killings of Fascists by Yugoslav Communist partisans during World War II.Matteo Corner/EPA, via ShutterstockOthers, like Gennaro Malgieri, a conservative author and former lawmaker, spoke of a “hegemony of the left” in postwar Italy that had “occupied centers of learning and culture,” keeping the right from making inroads in “publishing, means of mass communication, universities, festivals and positions in cultural institutions.”While Italy is far less sensitive to political correctness than other Western democracies are, Mr. Malgieri said the victory would afford the right more — and vaster — channels from which to critique those positions and affirm a nationalist “way of being Italian” that derived from the country’s Roman, Greek and Judeo-Christian roots.Some Italian historians question the extent to which the right had been truly banished, and whether it was instead simply engaging in politically useful victimization.“The names of people who were discriminated against or exiled because they were right wing don’t come to mind,” said Alberto Mario Banti, a modern history professor at the University of Pisa.The Square Colosseum, an example of Fascist architecture, in Rome’s EUR district.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesOutside a cafe in Rocca di Papa.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesStill, supporters said, Ms. Meloni’s victory was a turning point for them.Mr. Del Nero, from Rocca di Papa, said he hoped that now he could read a right-wing newspaper or book on the subway without eliciting scornful looks.His loyalty to the right had come at a cost, he said, years of being excluded from workers’ union meetings at the hospital where he worked. Colleagues silenced him in discussions. People often dismissed him as a “Fascist.”“It’s a mark we carry inside,” he said. “Now I feel vindicated.”A bus stop and magazine stand in Rocca di Papa. Mr. Del Nero said he hoped that he could now read a right-wing newspaper without eliciting scornful looks.Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times More

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      Northern Ireland Likely to Hold New Election After Failing to Form a Government

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      Britain’s Northern Ireland secretary is expected to announce on Friday that a new election would be held in December after six months of fruitless efforts to convene Parliament.LONDON — Voters in Northern Ireland made history in May when they turned the Irish nationalist party, Sinn Fein, into the largest in the North. Now, they are likely to have to go back to the polls after the main pro-unionist party paralyzed the power-sharing government by refusing to take part in it.Britain’s Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, is expected to announce on Friday that a new election would be held, possibly on Dec. 15, following six months of fruitless efforts to convene the assembly at the Stormont Parliament in Belfast. The deadline for forming a government expired at 12:01 a.m. Friday.It is not the first time that Northern Ireland’s experiment in power sharing has broken down. The assembly was suspended from 2002 to 2007, and again from 2017 to 2020. This time, the prospects for a swift resolution seem bleak, with Northern Ireland caught up in a larger standoff over trade between Britain and the European Union.Sinn Fein’s victory in May was a watershed in Northern Ireland’s politics, elevating a nationalist party that many still associate with paramilitary violence to leadership in the territory. It entitled Sinn Fein to name Michelle O’Neill, its leader, to the post of first minister in the government, reflecting its status as the party with the most seats in the assembly.But on Thursday, the parties failed in a last-gasp effort to elect a speaker of the assembly, which would have cleared the way to appoint ministers to run the government. Ms. O’Neill criticized the unionists for a “failure of leadership,” after they refused to nominate ministers or a speaker.A poster for Michelle O’Neill and Sinn Fein in April in Belfast.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesPolitical analysts predicted that Sinn Fein could expand its two-seat advantage over its main rival — the Democratic Unionist Party, or D.U.P. — by drawing voters who are frustrated by the breakdown of the government and blame the D.U.P., which has refused to take part until Britain overhauls the trade arrangements for Northern Ireland.More on the Political Turmoil in BritainMaking History: Rishi Sunak is the first person of color and the first Hindu to become prime minister of Britain — a milestone for a nation that is more and more ethnically diverse but also roiled by occasional anti-immigrant fervor.A Breakthrough, With Privilege: While Mr. Sunak’s rise to prime minister is a significant moment for Britain’s Indian diaspora, his immense wealth has made him less relatable to many.Economic Challenges: Mr. Sunak already has experience steering Britain’s public finances as chancellor of the Exchequer. That won’t make tackling the current crisis any easier.Political Primaries: Are primary elections of British leaders driving Britain’s dysfunction? The rise and fall of Liz Truss offers some lessons.But the Democratic Unionists might pick up a seat or two as well by consolidating the unionist vote. These people favor the North remaining part of the United Kingdom but had split their votes between three competing unionist parties. The D.U.P.’s attacks on the trade rules, known as the Northern Ireland Protocol, have united and hardened opposition to it within the unionist population.Adding to the anger, Sinn Fein officials have said that because of the changed political landscape, the Irish Republic should have a consultative role in running Northern Ireland, along with Britain, if the deadlock over a power-sharing government cannot be broken. The British government said it was not considering “joint authority” over the North, though it is wary of a return to direct rule.While the D.U.P. is unlikely to overtake Sinn Fein, analysts said, it may shore up what had been an eroding position. That would vindicate the party’s hard-line strategy, analysts said, and give it little incentive to return to government if Britain struck a compromise with the European Union on the protocol.“Strong unionists are very united on the idea that the protocol must be scrapped,” said Katy Hayward, a professor of political sociology at Queen’s University, Belfast. “My worry is that even if the U.K. and E.U. come up with an agreement on the protocol, it will be very difficult for that agreement to satisfy the unionists.Jeffrey Donaldson, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, on Thursday at the Stormont Parliament in Belfast.Charles McQuillan/Getty ImagesMr. Heaton-Harris, who was reappointed Northern Ireland secretary this week by Britain’s new prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has said he would prefer to call a new election rather than try to delay it or pass legislation in the British Parliament.It was shaping up as an early foreign policy headache for Mr. Sunak, who has spoken of wanting to reset relations between Britain and the European Union. Tensions over trade in Northern Ireland have simmered since the Brexit referendum in 2016 and rose significantly in June after his predecessor, Liz Truss, who was foreign secretary at the time, introduced legislation that would unilaterally overturn parts of the protocol. Boris Johnson, who was then prime minister, regularly reinforced that position.Though Mr. Sunak said he was committed to getting that bill through Parliament, some analysts said they believed he would take a more pragmatic approach with Brussels, calculating that Britain cannot afford a trade war with the European Union at a time when its economy is grappling with double-digit inflation and a looming recession.The result of a painstaking negotiation between London and Brussels, the protocol was meant to account for the hybrid status of Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom but shares an open border with neighboring Ireland, a member of the European Union. To keep that border open, Mr. Johnson had accepted checks on goods flowing from mainland Britain to Northern Ireland.Unionists complain that the checks have added onerous layers of bureaucracy to trade and driven a wedge between the North and the rest of the United Kingdom. For months, Britain has tried to renegotiate the rules with European officials to make them less cumbersome. But unionists want the protocol essentially swept away, which Brussels is certain to reject on the grounds that it would threaten the single market.Belfast in April. Sinn Fein favors the unification of Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland.Andrew Testa for The New York Times“The D.U.P. and Sinn Fein should both gain seats” in the next election, said David Campbell, the chairman of the Loyalist Communities Council, which represents pro-union paramilitary groups that vehemently oppose the protocol. “Hard to tell which comes out on top. The real problem is how to resolve problems after.”For Sinn Fein, which favors the unification of Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland, the paralysis confronts it with a decision: whether to give up on power sharing, which was enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement that ended decades of sectarian violence, and focus its energies on uniting North and South.“If the sense is the D.U.P. is against the Good Friday Agreement,” Professor Hayward said, “there is a certain rationale for the Sinn Fein to go for their alternative.” More