Elections

Subterms

    More stories

    • 88 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Jimmy Carter: I Fear for Our Democracy

      by

      One year ago, a violent mob, guided by unscrupulous politicians, stormed the Capitol and almost succeeded in preventing the democratic transfer of power. All four of us former presidents condemned their actions and affirmed the legitimacy of the 2020 election. There followed a brief hope that the insurrection would shock the nation into addressing the toxic polarization that threatens our democracy.However, one year on, promoters of the lie that the election was stolen have taken over one political party and stoked distrust in our electoral systems. These forces exert power and influence through relentless disinformation, which continues to turn Americans against Americans. According to the Survey Center on American Life, 36 percent of Americans — almost 100 million adults across the political spectrum — agree that “the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.” The Washington Post recently reported that roughly 40 percent of Republicans believe that violent action against the government is sometimes justified.Politicians in my home state of Georgia, as well as in others, such as Texas and Florida, have leveraged the distrust they have created to enact laws that empower partisan legislatures to intervene in election processes. They seek to win by any means, and many Americans are being persuaded to think and act likewise, threatening to collapse the foundations of our security and democracy with breathtaking speed. I now fear that what we have fought so hard to achieve globally — the right to free, fair elections, unhindered by strongman politicians who seek nothing more than to grow their own power — has become dangerously fragile at home. More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      India’s Rising Omicron Wave Brings a Grim Sense of Déjà Vu

      by

      Just months after Delta fueled hospital failures and funeral pyres, India’s leaders again offer a mixed message: Their political rallies are packed even as they order curfews and work closures.NEW DELHI — When the Omicron coronavirus variant spread through India late in December, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged the nation to be vigilant and follow medical guidelines. Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of the capital region of Delhi, swiftly introduced night curfews, shut down movie theaters, and slashed restaurants and public transport to half capacity.Then, both men hit the campaign trail, often appearing without masks in packed rallies of thousands.“When it is our bread and butter at stake, they force restrictions and lockdowns,” said Ajay Tiwari, a 41-year-old taxi driver in New Delhi. “There are much bigger crowds at political rallies, but they don’t impose any lockdown in those areas. It really pains us deep in the heart.”As Omicron fuels a rapid spread of new infections through India’s major urban hubs, the country’s pandemic fatigue has been intensified by a sense of déjà vu and the frustration of mixed signals.A temporary coronavirus care center in New Delhi on Wednesday. Money Sharma/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIt has been just a few months since the deadly Delta variant ravaged the country, when government leaders vastly underestimated its threat and publicly flouted their own advice. The memories of overwhelmed hospitals and funeral pyres working around the clock are still all too fresh here.The metropolis of Mumbai on Wednesday reported more than 15,000 new infections in 24 hours — the highest daily caseload since the pandemic began, beating the city’s previous record of about 11,000 cases during the second wave in the spring. In New Delhi, the number of daily infections increased by nearly 100 percent overnight.The sheer size of India’s population, at 1.4 billion, has always kept experts wary about the prospects of a new coronavirus variant. In few places around world was the toll of Delta as stark as in India. The country’s official figures show about half a million pandemic deaths — a number that experts say vastly undercounts the real toll.A temporary coronavirus care facility was set up at the Chennai Trade Center in Chennai. Scientists say any optimism about Omicron is premature simply because of how many people the variant could infect.Idrees Mohammed/EPA, via ShutterstockOmicron’s high transmissibility is such that cases are multiplying at a dangerously rapid pace, and it appears to be ignoring India’s main line of defense: a vaccination drive that has covered about half of the population. Initial studies show that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, a locally manufactured version of which has been used for about 90 percent of India’s vaccinations, does not protect against Omicron infections, though it appears to help reduce the severity of the illness.Sitabhra Sinha, a professor of physics and computational biology at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Chennai, said his research into the reproduction rate of the virus — an indicator of how fast it is spreading that is called the “R value” — in major cities like Delhi and Mumbai shows “insanely high” numbers for cities that had built decent immunity. Both had a large number of infections in the spring, and a majority of their adult populations have been vaccinated.“Given this high R value, one is looking at incredibly large numbers unless something is done to stop the spread,” he said.A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rally in Ferozepur on Wednesday. Omicron is spreading in India at a time of high public activity — busy holiday travel, and large election rallies across several states that are going to the polls in the coming months.Narinder Nanu/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut officials appear to be latching onto the optimism of the early indications from places like South Africa, where a fast spread of the variant did not cause devastating damage, rather than drawing lessons from the botched response to the Delta wave in the spring that ravaged India.Dr. Anand Krishnan, a professor of epidemiology at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, said India’s messaging of the new variant as “a mild illness” has led to complacency.“The health system has stopped being complacent. But the population is complacent. People are not wearing masks or changing their behavior,” Dr. Krishnan said. “They think it is a mild illness, and whatever restrictions are being imposed are seen more as a nuisance than necessary.”Scientists say any optimism about Omicron is premature simply because of how many people the variant could infect.“Even if it is a microscopic percentage who require hospitalization,” Dr. Sinha said, “the fact is that the total population we’re talking about is huge.”A vaccination center in Bangalore. India’s vaccination drive has covered about half of the population.Manjunath Kiran/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAlthough the percentage of newly infected people turning to hospitals has been increasing in recent days, data from India’s worst-hit cities — Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata — showed that only a small number of Covid-designated beds were occupied so far. Data compiled by the Observer Research Foundation showed that about three percent of the known active cases in Delhi and about 12 percent in Mumbai have required hospitalization.Dr. J. A. Jayalal, until recently the president of The Indian Medical Association, said what worried him was not hospital beds or oxygen running out — capacity that Indian officials have been trying to expand after the deadly shortfalls during the Delta wave — but that the health system might face an acute shortfall of health workers.The Coronavirus Pandemic: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 6The global surge. More

    • 63 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      En Latinoamérica, la izquierda asciende

      by

      Los candidatos con plataformas izquierdistas han logrado victorias en una región con dificultades económicas y una desigualdad que va en aumento.RÍO DE JANEIRO — En las últimas semanas de 2021, Chile y Honduras votaron con determinación por presidentes de izquierda para reemplazar a líderes de derecha, con lo que se extendió un cambio significativo que lleva varios años ocurriendo en toda América Latina.Este año, los políticos de izquierda son los favoritos para ganar las elecciones presidenciales en Colombia y Brasil, sustituyendo a los presidentes en funciones de derecha, lo que pondría a la izquierda y a la centroizquierda en el poder en las seis economías más grandes de una región que se extiende desde Tijuana hasta Tierra del Fuego.El sufrimiento económico, el aumento de la desigualdad, el ferviente descontento con los gobernantes y la mala gestión de la pandemia de COVID-19 han impulsado un movimiento pendular que se distancia de los líderes de centroderecha y de derecha que dominaban hace unos años.La izquierda ha prometido una distribución más equitativa de la riqueza, mejores servicios públicos y redes de seguridad social ampliadas. Pero los nuevos líderes de la región se enfrentan a graves limitaciones económicas y a una oposición legislativa que podría restringir sus ambiciones, así como a unos votantes intranquilos que se han mostrado dispuestos a castigar a quien no cumpla lo prometido.Los avances de la izquierda podrían impulsar a China y socavar a Estados Unidos mientras compiten por la influencia regional, dicen los analistas, al presentarse una nueva cosecha de líderes latinoamericanos desesperados por lograr el desarrollo económico y con más apertura hacia la estrategia global de Pekín de ofrecer préstamos e inversiones en infraestructuras. El cambio también podría dificultar que Estados Unidos siga aislando a los regímenes autoritarios de izquierda en Venezuela, Nicaragua y Cuba.Con el aumento de la inflación y el estancamiento de las economías, los nuevos líderes de América Latina tendrán dificultades para lograr un cambio real en los problemas profundos, dijo Pedro Mendes Loureiro, profesor de estudios latinoamericanos en la Universidad de Cambridge. Hasta cierto punto, dijo, los votantes están “eligiendo a la izquierda simplemente porque en este momento es la oposición”.Los niveles de pobreza se encuentran en el nivel más alto de los últimos 20 años en una región en la que un efímero auge de las materias primas permitió a millones de personas ascender a la clase media tras el cambio de siglo. Varios países se enfrentan ahora a un desempleo de dos dígitos, y más del 50 por ciento de los trabajadores de la región están empleados en el sector informal.Los escándalos de corrupción, el deterioro de la infraestructura y la ausencia crónica de fondos en los sistemas de salud y educación han erosionado la confianza en el gobierno y las instituciones públicas.Personas sin hogar en fila para recibir el almuerzo de los voluntarios en São Paulo en agosto. “El tema ahora es la frustración, el sistema de clases, la estratificación”, dijo un analista.Mauricio Lima para The New York TimesA diferencia de lo que ocurrió a principios de la década de 2000, cuando los izquierdistas ganaron presidencias decisivas en América Latina, los nuevos gobernantes tienen que hacer frente a la deuda, a presupuestos magros, a escaso acceso al crédito y, en muchos casos, a una oposición vociferante.Eric Hershberg, director del Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos y Latinos de la American University, dijo que la racha ganadora de la izquierda nace de un sentimiento generalizado de indignación.“En realidad se trata de los sectores de la clase media baja y de la clase trabajadora que dicen: ‘treinta años de democracia y todavía tenemos que ir en un autobús decrépito durante dos horas para llegar a un centro de salud malo’”, dijo Hershberg. Citó la frustración, la ira y “una sensación generalizada de que las élites se han enriquecido, han sido corruptas, no han actuado en favor del interés público”.La COVID-19 asoló América Latina y devastó economías que ya eran precarias, pero la inclinación política de la región comenzó antes de la pandemia.Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, exlíder de izquierda de Brasil, tiene una ventaja considerable sobre Bolsonaro en un cara a cara, según una encuesta reciente.Mauro Pimentel/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesEl primer hito fue la elección en México de Andrés Manuel López Obrador, que ganó la presidencia con un resultado arrollador en julio de 2018. Durante su discurso de la noche electoral, declaró: “El Estado dejará de ser un comité al servicio de una minoría y representará a todos los mexicanos, a ricos y pobres”.Al año siguiente, los votantes de Panamá y Guatemala eligieron gobiernos de centroizquierda, y el movimiento peronista de izquierda de Argentina tuvo un sorprendente regreso a pesar del legado de corrupción y mala gestión económica de sus líderes. Con la promesa de “construir la Argentina que nos merecemos”, Alberto Fernández, profesor universitario, celebró su triunfo frente a un presidente conservador que buscaba la reelección.En 2020, Luis Arce se impuso a sus rivales conservadores para convertirse en presidente de Bolivia. Se comprometió a ampliar el legado del exlíder Evo Morales, un socialista cuya destitución el año anterior dejó brevemente a la nación en manos de una presidenta de derecha.En abril del año pasado, Pedro Castillo, un maestro de escuela de provincia, sorprendió a la clase política peruana al derrotar por un estrecho margen a la candidata derechista a la presidencia, Keiko Fujimori. Castillo, un recién llegado a la política, arremetió contra las élites y presentó la historia de su vida —un educador que trabajó en una escuela rural sin agua corriente ni sistema de alcantarillado— como una encarnación de los defectos de la clase gobernante.En Honduras, Xiomara Castro, una candidata de plataforma socialista que propuso el establecimiento de un sistema de renta básica universal para las familias pobres, venció con facilidad en noviembre a un rival conservador para convertirse en presidenta electa.Xiomara Castro, que ganó las elecciones en Honduras, ha propuesto un sistema de renta básica universal para las familias pobres.Daniele Volpe para The New York TimesLa victoria más reciente de la izquierda se produjo el mes pasado en Chile, donde Gabriel Boric, un antiguo activista estudiantil de 35 años, venció a un rival de extrema derecha con la promesa de aumentar los impuestos a los ricos para ofrecer pensiones más generosas y ampliar enormemente los servicios sociales.La tendencia no ha sido universal. En los últimos tres años, los votantes de El Salvador, Uruguay y Ecuador han desplazado a sus gobiernos hacia la derecha. Y en México y Argentina, el año pasado, los partidos de centroizquierda perdieron terreno en las elecciones legislativas, socavando a sus presidentes.Pero en general, Evan Ellis, profesor de estudios latinoamericanos en el Colegio de Guerra del Ejército de Estados Unidos, dijo no recordar una América Latina “tan dominada por una combinación de izquierdistas y líderes populistas antiestadounidenses”.“En toda la región, los gobiernos de izquierda estarán particularmente dispuestos a trabajar con los chinos en contratos de gobierno a gobierno”, dijo, y posiblemente “con respecto a la colaboración en materia de seguridad, así como a la colaboración tecnológica”.Jennifer Pribble, profesora de ciencias políticas de la Universidad de Richmond que estudia América Latina, dijo que el brutal número de víctimas de la pandemia en la región hizo que las iniciativas de izquierda, como las transferencias de efectivo y la atención universal a la salud, fueran cada vez más populares.“Los votantes latinoamericanos tienen ahora un sentido más agudo de lo que el Estado puede hacer y de la importancia de que el Estado participe en un esfuerzo redistributivo y en la prestación de servicios públicos”, dijo. “Eso condiciona estas elecciones, y está claro que la izquierda puede hablar más directamente de eso que la derecha”.Gabriel Boric, quien fuera activista estudiantil, ha prometido una amplia expansión de los servicios sociales en Chile.Marcelo Hernandez/Getty ImagesEn Colombia, donde las elecciones presidenciales se celebrarán en mayo, Gustavo Petro, exalcalde izquierdista de Bogotá que perteneció a un grupo guerrillero urbano, ha mantenido una ventaja constante en las encuestas.Sergio Guzmán, director de la consultora Colombia Risk Analysis, dijo que las aspiraciones presidenciales de Petro se hicieron viables después de que la mayoría de los combatientes de las FARC, un grupo guerrillero marxista, dejaron las armas como parte de un acuerdo de paz alcanzado en 2016. El conflicto había dominado durante mucho tiempo la política colombiana, pero ya no.“El tema ahora es la frustración, el sistema de clases, la estratificación, los que tienen y los que no tienen”.Justo antes de Navidad, Sonia Sierra, de 50 años, se encontraba fuera de la pequeña cafetería que regenta en el principal parque urbano de Bogotá. Sus ingresos se habían desplomado, dijo, primero en medio de la pandemia y luego cuando una comunidad desplazada por la violencia se trasladó al parque.Sierra dijo que estaba muy endeudada después de que su marido fuera hospitalizado con covid. Las finanzas son tan ajustadas que hace poco despidió a su única empleada, una joven venezolana que solo ganaba 7,50 dólares al día.“Tanto trabajar y no tengo nada”, dijo Sierra, cantando un verso de una canción popular en la época navideña en Colombia. “No estoy llorando, pero sí, me da sentimiento”.En Recife, Brasil, se complementan los ingresos recogiendo mariscos.Mauricio Lima para The New York TimesEn el vecino Brasil, el aumento de la pobreza, la inflación y una respuesta fallida a la pandemia han convertido al presidente Jair Bolsonaro, el titular de extrema derecha, en un candidato débil de cara a la votación programada para octubre.El expresidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, un izquierdista que gobernó Brasil de 2003 a 2010, una época de notable prosperidad, ha conseguido una ventaja de 30 puntos porcentuales sobre Bolsonaro en un cara a cara, según una encuesta reciente.Maurício Pimenta da Silva, de 31 años, subgerente de una tienda de suministros agrícolas en la región de São Lourenço, en el estado de Río de Janeiro, dijo que se arrepentía de haber votado por Bolsonaro en 2018 y que ahora tiene la intención de apoyar a Da Silva.“Pensé que Bolsonaro mejoraría nuestra vida en algunos aspectos, pero no lo hizo”, dijo Da Silva, un padre de cuatro hijos que no tiene relación con el expresidente. “Todo es tan caro en los supermercados, especialmente la carne”, agregó, lo que lo llevó a tomar un segundo empleo.Con los votantes enfrentados a tanta agitación, los candidatos moderados están ganando poca influencia, lamentó Simone Tebet, una senadora de centroderecha en Brasil que planea presentarse a la presidencia este año.“Si miramos a Brasil y a América Latina, estamos viviendo un ciclo de extremos relativamente aterrador”, dijo. “El radicalismo y el populismo se han impuesto”.Ernesto Londoño More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Leftists Are Ascendant in Latin America as Key Elections Loom

      by

      Growing inequality and sputtering economies have helped fuel a wave of leftist victories that may soon extend to Brazil and Colombia.RIO DE JANEIRO — In the final weeks of 2021, Chile and Honduras voted decisively for leftist presidents to replace leaders on the right, extending a significant, multiyear shift across Latin America.This year, leftist politicians are the favorites to win presidential elections in Colombia and Brazil, taking over from right-wing incumbents, which would put the left and center-left in power in the six largest economies in the region, stretching from Tijuana to Tierra del Fuego.Economic suffering, widening inequality, fervent anti-incumbent sentiment and mismanagement of Covid-19 have all fueled a pendulum swing away from the center-right and right-wing leaders who were dominant a few years ago.The left has promised more equitable distribution of wealth, better public services and vastly expanded social safety nets. But the region’s new leaders face serious economic constraints and legislative opposition that could restrict their ambitions, and restive voters who have been willing to punish whoever fails to deliver.The left’s gains could buoy China and undermine the United States as they compete for regional influence, analysts say, with a new crop of Latin American leaders who are desperate for economic development and more open to Beijing’s global strategy of offering loans and infrastructure investment. The change could also make it harder for the United States to continue isolating authoritarian leftist regimes in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.With rising inflation and stagnant economies, Latin America’s new leaders will find it hard to deliver real change on profound problems, said Pedro Mendes Loureiro, a professor of Latin American studies at the University of Cambridge. To some extent, he said, voters are “electing the left simply because it is the opposition at the moment.”Poverty is at a 20-year high in a region where a short-lived commodities boom had enabled millions to ascend into the middle class after the turn of the century. Several nations now face double-digit unemployment, and more than 50 percent of workers in the region are employed in the informal sector.Corruption scandals, dilapidated infrastructure and chronically underfunded health and education systems have eroded faith in leaders and public institutions.Homeless people lining up to receive lunch from volunteers in São Paulo in August. “The issue now is the frustration, the class system, the stratification,” one analyst said.Mauricio Lima for The New York TimesUnlike the early 2000s, when leftists won critical presidencies in Latin America, the new officeholders are saddled by debt, lean budgets, scant access to credit and in many cases, vociferous opposition.Eric Hershberg, the director of the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University, said the left’s winning streak is born out of widespread indignation.“This is really about lower-middle-class and working-class sectors saying, ‘Thirty years into democracy, and we still have to ride a decrepit bus for two hours to get to a bad health clinic,’” Mr. Hershberg said. He cited frustration, anger and “a generalized sense that elites have enriched themselves, been corrupt, have not been operating in the public interest.”Covid has ravaged Latin America and devastated economies that were already precarious, but the region’s political tilt started before the pandemic.Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s leftist ex-leader, has a sizable advantage over Mr. Bolsonaro in a head-to-head matchup, according to a recent poll.Mauro Pimentel/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe first milestone was the election in Mexico of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who won the presidency by a landslide in July 2018. He declared during his election night address: “The state will cease being a committee at the service of a minority and it will represent all Mexicans, poor and rich.”The next year, voters in Panama and Guatemala elected left-of-center governments, and Argentina’s Peronist movement made a stunning comeback despite its leaders’ legacy of corruption and economic mismanagement. President Alberto Fernández, a university professor, celebrated his triumph over a conservative incumbent by promising “to build the Argentina we deserve.”In 2020, Luis Arce trounced conservative rivals to become president of Bolivia. He vowed to build on the legacy of the former leader Evo Morales, a socialist whose ouster the year before had briefly left the nation in the hands of a right-wing president.Last April, Pedro Castillo, a provincial schoolteacher, shocked Peru’s political establishment by narrowly defeating the right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori for the presidency. Mr. Castillo, a political newcomer, railed against elites and presented his life story — an educator who worked in a rural school without running water or a sewage system — as an embodiment of their failings.In Honduras, Xiomara Castro, a socialist who proposed a system of universal basic income for poor families, handily beat a conservative rival in November to become president-elect.Xiomara Castro, who won election in Honduras, has proposed a system of universal basic income for poor families.Daniele Volpe for The New York TimesThe most recent win for the left came last month in Chile, where Gabriel Boric, a 35-year-old former student activist, beat a far-right rival by promising to raise taxes on the rich in order to offer more generous pensions and vastly expand social services.The trend has not been universal. In the past three years, voters in El Salvador, Uruguay and Ecuador have moved their governments rightward. And in Mexico and Argentina last year, left-of-center parties lost ground in legislative elections, undercutting their presidents.But on the whole, Evan Ellis, a professor of Latin American studies at the U.S. Army War College, said that in his memory there had never been a Latin America “as dominated by a combination of leftists and anti-U. S. populist leaders.”“Across the region, leftist governments will be particularly willing to work with the Chinese on government-to-government contracts,” he said, and possibly “with respect to security collaboration as well as technology collaboration.”Jennifer Pribble, a political science professor at the University of Richmond who studies Latin America, said the brutal toll of the pandemic in the region made leftist initiatives such as cash transfers and universal health care increasingly popular.“Latin American voters now have a keener sense of what the state can do and of the importance of the state engaging in a redistributive effort and in providing public services,” she said. “That shapes these elections, and clearly the left can speak more directly to that than the right.”Gabriel Boric, a former student activist, has promised a vast expansion of social services in Chile. Marcelo Hernandez/Getty ImagesIn Colombia, where a presidential election is set for May, Gustavo Petro, a leftist former mayor of Bogotá who once belonged to an urban guerrilla group, has held a consistent lead in polls.Sergio Guzmán, the director of Colombia Risk Analysis, a consulting firm, said Mr. Petro’s presidential aspirations became viable after most fighters from the FARC, a Marxist guerrilla group, laid down their weapons as part of a peace deal struck in 2016. The conflict long dominated Colombian politics, but no more.“The issue now is the frustration, the class system, the stratification, the haves and have-nots,” he said.Just before Christmas, Sonia Sierra, 50, stood outside the small coffee shop she runs in Bogotá’s main urban park. Her earnings had plummeted, she said, first amid the pandemic, and then when a community displaced by violence moved into the park.Ms. Sierra said she was deep in debt after her husband was hospitalized with Covid. Finances are so tight, she recently let go her only employee, a young woman from Venezuela who earned just $7.50 a day.“So much work and nothing to show for it,” Ms. Sierra she said, singing a verse from a song popular at Christmastime in Colombia. “I’m not crying, but yes, it hurts.”In Recife, Brazil, supplementing income by harvesting shellfish.Mauricio Lima for The New York TimesIn neighboring Brazil, rising poverty, inflation and a bungled response to the pandemic have made President Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right incumbent, an underdog in the vote set for October.Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a leftist firebrand who governed Brazil from 2003 to 2010, an era of remarkable prosperity, has built a 30 percentage point advantage over Mr. Bolsonaro in a head-to-head matchup, according to a recent poll.Maurício Pimenta da Silva, 31, an assistant manager at a farming supplies store in the São Lourenço region of Rio de Janeiro state, said that he regretted voting for Mr. Bolsonaro in 2018, and that he intended to support Mr. da Silva.“I thought Bolsonaro would improve our life in some aspects, but he didn’t,” said Mr. Pimenta, a father of four who is no relation to the former president. “Everything is so expensive in the supermarkets, especially meat,” he added, prompting him to take a second job.With voters facing so much upheaval, moderate candidates are gaining little traction, lamented Simone Tebet, a center-right senator in Brazil who plans to run for president.“If you look at Brazil and Latin America, we are living in a relatively frightening cycle of extremes,” she said. “Radicalism and populism have taken over.”Ernesto Londoño and Flávia Milhorance reported from Rio de Janeiro. Julie Turkewitz reported from Bogotá. More

    • 113 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      New Hampshire's Secretary of State, Bill Gardner, Is Retiring

      by

      The official, Bill Gardner, a Democrat, has served as secretary of state in New Hampshire for more than four decades.Bill Gardner, who for decades as secretary of state has fiercely defended New Hampshire’s right to hold the country’s first presidential primaries, said on Monday that he would step down after 45 years.Mr. Gardner, a Democrat first elected in 1976, had largely enjoyed bipartisan support, even as the job of secretary of state — each state’s top elections administrator — has become more political, a national trend accelerated by former President Donald J. Trump’s false claims of widespread voting fraud.Mr. Gardner, 73, said political reasons did not force his decision, nor was his health a factor, though he reflected during a news conference in the Statehouse in Concord on being the longest-serving secretary of state in the country — one of only four New Hampshirites to hold the job since 1929.“The two previous secretaries of state died in office,’’ he said. “I thought about that. Was I going to be one like that?”Asked about the future of New Hampshire’s presidential primaries, which every four years bring a wave of national attention, money and visitors, Mr. Gardner predicted other states might try to jump the line, but said the Granite State would continue to be first.“There will be challenges,’’ he said. “They’ll find new ways to attempt it. But it should be OK.”Among some Democrats, in particular, there is a desire to dethrone New Hampshire from its prime electoral spot, as well as Iowa with its earlier caucuses, because both states are whiter, older and more rural than the country as a whole.An enduring obstacle is New Hampshire state law, which requires its primary to be held before any similar contest. Mr. Gardner, who held the sole power to set the primary date, had said that if another state tried to get ahead, he would simply move up New Hampshire’s date into December or even November.Mr. Gardner escaped Mr. Trump’s campaign of personal insults and pressure in 2020, aimed at other election officials in battleground states that President Biden won, likely because the race in New Hampshire was not especially close.However, after Mr. Trump made the baseless claim in 2016 that “millions” of illegal votes had been cast by noncitizens across the country, Mr. Gardner agreed to join a commission that Mr. Trump set up to investigate. His decision to join the commission, even after Mr. Trump falsely claimed that he had won New Hampshire, was sharply criticized by some of his fellow Democrats. The commission disbanded after numerous states refused to cooperate with what they considered to be intrusive requests for voters’ information.Mr. Gardner defended the commission at the time, and his role on it, saying he had hoped the “facts would end up speaking for themselves” about the lack of fraud. On Monday, he reiterated his belief that the commission was meant to restore Americans’ eroding trust in election results.But at the time, Democrats’ disappointment over his role led to the most serious challenge that he faced for re-election, in 2018, when another Democrat, Colin Van Ostern, nearly unseated Mr. Gardner.New Hampshire’s secretary of state is elected every two years by the membership of the state legislature. Mr. Gardner’s current deputy, David Scanlan, will take over this week until the legislature holds its next election.On Monday, praise for Mr. Gardner came from leaders of both parties.“Secretary Gardner has fiercely defended our primary over the years, ensuring that Granite Staters play a critical role in our country’s political elections,’’ Donna Soucy, the Democratic leader of the State Senate, said in a statement.Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, said that New Hampshirites “owe a tremendous debt of gratitude” to Mr. Gardner’s administration of elections that were “always open, fair, accessible and accurate.” More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      New Hampshire Secretary of State, Longest Serving in U.S., Is Retiring

      by

      The official, Bill Gardner, a Democrat, has served as secretary of state in New Hampshire for more than four decades.Bill Gardner, who for decades as secretary of state has fiercely defended New Hampshire’s right to hold the country’s first presidential primaries, said on Monday that he would step down after 45 years.Mr. Gardner, a Democrat first elected in 1976, had largely enjoyed bipartisan support, even as the job of secretary of state — each state’s top elections administrator — has become more political, a national trend accelerated by former President Donald J. Trump’s false claims of widespread voting fraud.Mr. Gardner, 73, said political reasons did not force his decision, nor was his health a factor, though he reflected during a news conference in the Statehouse in Concord on being the longest-serving secretary of state in the country — one of only four New Hampshirites to hold the job since 1929.“The two previous secretaries of state died in office,’’ he said. “I thought about that. Was I going to be one like that?”Asked about the future of New Hampshire’s presidential primaries, which every four years bring a wave of national attention, money and visitors, Mr. Gardner predicted other states might try to jump the line, but said the Granite State would continue to be first.“There will be challenges,’’ he said. “They’ll find new ways to attempt it. But it should be OK.”Among some Democrats, in particular, there is a desire to dethrone New Hampshire from its prime electoral spot, as well as Iowa with its earlier caucuses, because both states are whiter, older and more rural than the country as a whole.An enduring obstacle is New Hampshire state law, which requires its primary to be held before any similar contest. Mr. Gardner, who held the sole power to set the primary date, had said that if another state tried to get ahead, he would simply move up New Hampshire’s date into December or even November.Mr. Gardner escaped Mr. Trump’s campaign of personal insults and pressure in 2020, aimed at other election officials in battleground states that President Biden won, likely because the race in New Hampshire was not especially close.However, after Mr. Trump made the baseless claim in 2016 that “millions” of illegal votes had been cast by noncitizens across the country, Mr. Gardner agreed to join a commission that Mr. Trump set up to investigate. His decision to join the commission, even after Mr. Trump falsely claimed that he had won New Hampshire, was sharply criticized by some of his fellow Democrats. The commission disbanded after numerous states refused to cooperate with what they considered to be intrusive requests for voters’ information.Mr. Gardner defended the commission at the time, and his role on it, saying he had hoped the “facts would end up speaking for themselves” about the lack of fraud. On Monday, he reiterated his belief that the commission was meant to restore Americans’ eroding trust in election results.But at the time, Democrats’ disappointment over his role led to the most serious challenge that he faced for re-election, in 2018, when another Democrat, Colin Van Ostern, nearly unseated Mr. Gardner.New Hampshire’s secretary of state is elected every two years by the membership of the state legislature. Mr. Gardner’s current deputy, David Scanlan, will take over this week until the legislature holds its next election.On Monday, praise for Mr. Gardner came from leaders of both parties.“Secretary Gardner has fiercely defended our primary over the years, ensuring that Granite Staters play a critical role in our country’s political elections,’’ Donna Soucy, the Democratic leader of the State Senate, said in a statement.Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, said that New Hampshirites “owe a tremendous debt of gratitude” to Mr. Gardner’s administration of elections that were “always open, fair, accessible and accurate.” More

    • 100 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Why So Many People Are Unhappy With Democracy

      by

      We pay too little attention to delivering effective government as a critical democratic value. We are familiar with the threats posed by democratic backsliding and the rise of illiberal forces in several democracies, including the United States. But the most pervasive and perhaps deepest challenge facing virtually all Western democracies today is the political fragmentation of democratic politics.Political fragmentation is the dispersion of political power into so many different hands and centers of power that it becomes difficult for democratic governments to function effectively.President Biden has recognized this historic challenge, calling the defining mission of his presidency to be winning the “battle between the utility of democracies in the 21st century and autocracies.”Yet even with unified control of government, the internal divisions of the Democratic Party postponed passage of his bipartisan infrastructure bill for several months and have made it uncertain which parts, if any, of the Build Back Better proposal will be enacted.When democratic governments seem incapable of delivering on their promises, this failure can lead to alienation, resignation, distrust and withdrawal among many citizens. It can also trigger demands for authoritarian leaders who promise to cut through messy politics. At an even greater extreme, it can lead people to question democracy itself and become open to anti-democratic systems of government.The struggle of the Biden administration to deliver on its policy agenda offers a good example of the political fragmentation of politics taking place throughout Western democracies. It takes different forms in the multiparty systems of Europe and the two-party system of the United States. The European democracies are experiencing the unraveling of the traditionally dominant center-left and center-right major parties and coalitions that have governed since World War II. Support for these parties has splintered into new parties of the right and left, along with others with less-easily defined ideological elements. From 2015 to 2017, over 30 new political parties entered European parliaments. Across European democracies, the percentage of people who identify strongly with a political party or are members of one has declined precipitously.The effects on the ability to govern have been dramatic. In Germany, the stable anchor of Europe since the 1950s, the two major parties regularly used to receive over 90 percent of the vote combined; in this fall’s elections, that plummeted to less than 50 percent. Support has hemorrhaged to green, anti-immigrant, free-market and other parties. After its 2017 elections, with support fragmented among many parties, it took Germany six months to cobble together a governing coalition, the longest time in the country’s history. The Netherlands, after its 2017 elections, needed a record 225 days to form a government.The coalitional governments assembled amid this cacophony of parties are also more fragile. Spain, for example, was forced to hold four national elections between 2015 and 2019 to find a stable governing coalition. Spain had effectively been a two-party democracy until 2015, but mass protest movements spawned a proliferation of new parties that made forging stable governments difficult. In Sweden, the prime minister lost a vote of no confidence this summer — a first in the country’s modern political history. Digital pop-up parties, including anti-party parties, arise out of nowhere and radically disrupt politics, as the Brexit Party did in Britain and the Five Star Movement did in Italy.The same forces driving fragmentation in other democracies are also roiling the United States, though our election structures make effective third parties highly unlikely. Here the forces of fragmentation get channeled within the two major parties. The most dramatic example on the Republican side is that when the party controlled the House from 2011 to 2019, it devoured two of its own speakers, John Boehner and Paul Ryan. Mr. Boehner’s memoir portrays a party caucus so internally fragmented as to be ungovernable.Similarly, the central story of the Biden administration is whether the Democratic Party can overcome its internal conflicts to deliver effective policies. Remarkably, Speaker Nancy Pelosi scheduled floor votes on the infrastructure bill, only to pull it because she could not deliver enough Democratic votes — extraordinary evidence of how difficult it is for a speaker to unite her caucus amid the forces of fragmentation. It took a disastrous election night for progressives to bury their concerns and support the bill — and several now regret having done so.The recent collapse of Build Back Better, at least for now, led to a remarkable public bloodletting between different elements within the party.Large structural forces have driven the fragmentation of politics throughout the West. On the economic front, the forces include globalization’s contribution to the stagnation of middle- and working-class incomes, rising inequality and outrage over the 2008 financial crisis. On the cultural side: conflicts over immigration, nationalism and other issues.Since the New Deal in the United States and World War II in Europe, the parties of the left had represented less affluent, less educated voters. Now those voters are becoming the base of parties on the right, with more affluent, more educated voters shifting to parties on the left. Major parties are struggling to figure out how to patch together winning coalitions in the midst of this shattering transformation.The communications revolution is also a major force generating the disabling fragmentation of politics. Across Europe, it has given rise to loosely organized, leaderless protest movements that disrupt politics and give birth to other parties — but make effective government harder to achieve.In the United States, the new communications era has enabled the rise of free-agent politicians. A Congress with more free agents is more difficult to govern. Even in their first years in office, individual members of Congress (like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Ted Cruz) no longer need to work their way up through the party or serve on major committees to attract national visibility and influence.Through cable television and social media, they can find and construct their own national constituencies. Through internet fund-raising (particularly small donations), politicians (particularly from the extremes) can become effective fund-raising machines on their own. In this era, party leaders lack the leverage they once had to force party members to accept the party line. That is why speakers of the House resign or reschedule votes on which they cannot deliver.The political fragmentation that now characterizes nearly all Western democracies reflects deep dissatisfaction with the ability of traditional parties and governments to deliver effective policies. Yet perversely, this fragmentation makes it all the more difficult for governments to do so. Mr. Biden is right: Democracies must figure out how to overcome the forces of fragmentation to show they once again can deliver effective government.Richard H. Pildes, a professor at New York University’s School of Law, is the author of the casebook “The Law of Democracy: Legal Structure of the Political Process.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

    • 88 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Iraq Confirms Election Gains for Muqtada al-Sadr

      by

      A court certified October’s parliamentary vote that gave Muqtada al-Sadr’s party a plurality of seats, clearing a path for a government to be formed.Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court on Monday upheld the results of the country’s October parliamentary elections, resolving a dispute that had stalled the formation of a new government as Iran-backed Shiite Muslim militias contested gains by a rival Shiite political bloc.The court certified the victory of Muqtada al-Sadr, the influential Shiite cleric who is regarded as a possible ally, if a wary one, for the United States in Iraq. His party won 73 of the 329 seats in Parliament, more than any other and up from 54 in 2018. It handily beat an alliance of Iran-aligned militias led by the Fatah coalition.For Fatah and its allies, Mr. al-Sadr’s victory upset the traditional balance of the Shiite powers that have dominated Iraqi politics since the fall of Saddam Hussein almost 20 years ago and threatened to dent Iranian influence in Parliament. Mr. al-Sadr — an Iraqi nationalist whose forces once battled the Americans but who is now viewed as more hostile to Iran — is poised to play a strong role not only in Parliament but also in choosing the next prime minister.Mr. al-Sadr thanked the court, the election commission and the Iraqi people in a Twitter post on Monday and called for “the formation of a government of national majority that is neither Eastern nor Western.” Earlier he visited the shrine of Imam Ali in the city of Najaf, one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam, to offer thanks.Fatah filed the lawsuit challenging the results and alleging election fraud after it won 17 seats, little more than a third of its previous total. But on Monday, it accepted the court’s ruling.“We abide by the decision of the Federal Court despite our deep and firm belief that the electoral process was marred by a lot of fraud and manipulation,” said Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of Fatah, citing “concern for Iraq’s security and political stability and our belief in the political process and its democratic path.”Tension had clouded the legal process, delaying the announcement of the ruling, which was originally set for earlier this month. The dispute had raised the possibility that Fatah and its allies would unleash violence to force a result they wanted, and militia members gathered outside the court on Monday morning ahead of the ruling, chanting against the current prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi.But they withdrew by early afternoon, and there were no reports of violence.Supporters of Iraqi Shiite parties that disputed the election results gathered outside Iraq’s Supreme Court on Monday in Baghdad before it ratified the results.Ahmed Saad/ReutersMr. al-Kadhimi survived a drone strike on his home early last month after Iraqi security forces clashed with militia members who were protesting the election results outside the Green Zone, where the American embassy is. A deputy commander of one Iran-backed militia was killed.In a speech addressed to the losing political parties on Nov. 18, Mr. al-Sadr warned them against the “ruin of the democratic process in Iraq” and called on them to dissolve their militias and hand over their weapons to the Iraqi national army.With his huge popular following and powerful militia, which he deployed to entrap American forces in brutal street fighting in the mid-2000s, Mr. al-Sadr was once such an opponent of the Americans in Iraq that the United States ordered him killed. It later decided not to do so.But Mr. al-Sadr has come to oppose Iranian meddling in Iraq, and he signaled in a speech after the election that foreign embassies were welcome so long as they did not interfere in Iraq’s affairs.Now that the election results have been certified, factions representing Iraq’s Kurdish and Sunni Muslim minorities, which have been waiting for the outcome to negotiate or form alliances that could be part of the new government, can plunge into the fray. A majority of Iraqis are Shiite.Iraqi military forces were deployed following a drone attack on Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi’s residence in Baghdad on Nov. 7.Thaier Al-Sudani/ReutersPolitical analysts said they believe the Sadrists won big partly by taking advantage of a new electoral law that limited the traditional power of larger parties and made room for new faces by increasing the number of electoral districts. The Sadrist organization studied the electoral map closely, making sure to field candidates that would not end up running against each other.But they were not the only beneficiaries: Independent candidates coming out of Iraq’s anti-government protest movement, which flooded the streets in late 2019 as Iraqis mobilized against their deeply corrupt and sectarian political system, also won a handful of seats.Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the United Nations envoy to Iraq, praised the parliamentary elections as “generally peaceful” and well-run.“Elections and their outcomes can provoke strong feelings,” she said. “If such feelings and debates give way to undemocratic impulses — such as disinformation, baseless accusations, intimidation, threats of violence or worse — then sooner or later, the door is opened to acts that are simply intolerable.”Despite the affirmation, the elections, the fifth since Saddam Hussein’s fall in 2003, saw a record-low turnout of 41 percent that reflected Iraqis’ intense frustration with their leaders. More