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      5 Takeaways From Canada’s Official Election Debates

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      Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who called the snap election two years ahead of schedule, was repeatedly attacked by the other four candidates.OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to call an election two years ahead of schedule has not worked out as planned.Polls have consistently tracked a decline in voter support for his Liberal Party and a rise in backing for its nearest rivals, the Conservatives, leaving the parties in a statistical tie.The bulk of the 36-day campaign, the shortest allowed by law, came during Canada’s all-too-brief summer, when many voters’ minds were far from politics. The Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, where the Canadian military fought, further distracted the public’s attention.So for Mr. Trudeau and his rivals, particularly Erin O’Toole of the Conservatives, the debates this week in each of Canada’s official languages were crucial opportunities to define the campaign before Election Day, Sept. 20.Mr. Trudeau faced off not only against Mr. O’Toole, who is leading his party in an election for the first time, but also against Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the left-of-center New Democratic Party; Annamie Paul, who heads the Green Party; and Yves-François Blanchet of the Bloc Québécois, a regional party that endorses Quebec’s independence. With the five leaders receiving equal time, it was difficult for any to break through with a detailed message.The French-language debate on Wednesday often focused on issues of interest to Quebec. With English being the language of three-quarters of Canadians, the debate on Thursday in that language was considered the more important of the two.Trudeau struggled to justify his pandemic election.Mr. Trudeau said he called an election because he needed a new mandate to put pandemic recovery measures in place swiftly.Blair Gable/ReutersIn both debates, Mr. Trudeau’s rivals relentlessly challenged him for calling what they viewed as an unnecessary election in the middle of the pandemic. The subject came up 13 times during the French-language debate.In 2019, the Liberals under Mr. Trudeau failed to secure a majority of the seats in the House of Commons. That forced him to rely on votes from opposition parties, usually the New Democrats, to pass legislation and allowed the opposition parties to pool their votes in committees to tackle subjects embarrassing to the government.Mr. Trudeau said he needed a new mandate with a majority in order to put pandemic recovery measures in place swiftly. His opponents, however, repeatedly pointed out that none of Mr. Trudeau’s major objectives had been blocked during the past two years — although some important bills had been delayed and then died with the call for an election.In the Thursday debate, Mr. O’Toole challenged Mr. Trudeau’s decision to call for the election just as efforts to repatriate Canadians in Afghanistan and to aid Afghans who had worked for the Canadian military were in a critical phase.“You put your own political interests ahead of the well-being of thousands of people,” Mr. O’Toole said. “Mr. Trudeau, you should not have called this election; you should have gotten the job done in Afghanistan.”A complex format and a crowded stage limited debate.Mr. O’Toole, the Conservative leader, with Mr. Trudeau, who leads the Liberals. Justin Tang/The Canadian Press, via Associated PressThe two-hour debate had a complex structure. The moderator, Shachi Kurl, the president of the Angus Reid Institute, a nonprofit polling organization, asked questions written by a committee, with questions also posed via video by members of the public and at the site by journalists.Ms. Kurl assiduously enforced rules that prevented the candidates onstage from speaking out of turn or responding to questions not addressed to them. There were no closing statements.Duane Bratt, a professor of political science at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, said that the formula worked against Mr. Trudeau, who was constantly targeted by the four other leaders, and that it aided Mr. O’Toole.“O’Toole could talk about his climate plan in 30 seconds and then just move on to another subject, which is, I think, what he wanted,” Professor Bratt said. “The formula didn’t allow Trudeau time to really dig into some of O’Toole’s weaknesses.”But voters, Professor Bratt added, were the debate’s clear losers.“If this was the first time that you’re paying attention to the election, you were not well served tonight,” he said.Climate change and Indigenous issues got their due.Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Singh, who leads the left-of-center New Democratic Party.Pool photo by Sean KilpatrickClimate change, in particular, stood out as an issue, although no leader made a compelling case that his or her party offered the best approach, said Cara Camcastle, who lectures on political science at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia.“It’s good to see that all the leaders think it’s an important issue,” she said. “But none of them have the solutions of our own.”Mr. Trudeau was repeatedly attacked, particularly by Mr. Singh, for the rise in carbon emissions in Canada during each of the six years the prime minister has held office. Mr. Trudeau responded that his government’s climate measures, including the introduction of a national carbon price, had put Canada on a path to not just meeting but also exceeding its emissions commitment under the Paris Accord, which has a target date of 2030.Partly because of the organizer’s themed approach to the debate, reconciliation with Indigenous people received an unusual amount of attention.While all the other leaders picked apart Mr. Trudeau’s record — he has made Indigenous issues a top priority — they all agreed with his position that the process of replacing the 19th- century laws governing Indigenous people must be led by their communities rather than by the government.Guns and child care were largely absent in the English debate.Mr. O’Toole’s plan to scrap a Trudeau program under which several provinces provide child care for 10 Canadian dollars a day or less with a tax credit was prominent in the French debate but was largely bypassed on Thursday.Similarly, Mr. O’Toole’s backtracking on an earlier promise to eliminate Mr. Trudeau’s ban on 1,500 types of assault-style semiautomatic rifles received limited attention.The verdict: ‘A meaningless waste of time’?Professor Bratt and Dr. Camcastle said they believed that the two debates would not give form to what had been a largely shapeless campaign that lacked a clear issue — aside from Mr. Trudeau’s decision to call it.Frank Graves, president of EKOS Research Associates, a polling firm in Ottawa, offered a blunt assessment on Twitter.“Let me spare you the speculation of who won, lost, what impact,” he wrote. “It was a meaningless waste of time. Possibly the most vacuous and tedious debate in Canadian political history.”Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet, left, and Green Party Leader Annamie Paul, taking part in the federal election English-language Leaders debate in Gatineau, Canada, on Thursday.Pool photo by Adrian WyldVjosa Isai More

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      Germany Investigates Russia Over Pre-Election Hacking

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      Berlin has protested to Moscow after identifying repeated attempts to steal politicians’ private information before the election this month that will decide Angela Merkel’s successor.BERLIN — The federal prosecutor’s office in Germany said Friday it was investigating who was responsible for a spate of hacking attempts aimed at lawmakers, amid growing concerns that Russia is trying to disrupt the Sept. 26 vote for a new government.The move by the prosecutor’s office comes after Germany’s Foreign Ministry said this week that it had protested to Russia, complaining that several state lawmakers and members of the federal Parliament had been targeted by phishing emails and other attempts to obtain passwords and other personal information.Those accusations prompted the federal prosecutor to open a preliminary investigation against what was described as a “foreign power.” The prosecutors did not identify the country, but they did cite the Foreign Ministry statement, leaving little doubt that their efforts were concentrated on Russia.In their statement, the prosecutors said they had opened an investigation “in connection with the so-called Ghostwriter campaign,” a reference to a hacking campaign that German intelligence says can be attributed to the Russian state and specifically to the Russian military intelligence service known as the G.R.U.Russia was found to have hacked into the German Parliament’s computer systems in 2015 and three years later, it breached the German government’s main data network. Chancellor Angela Merkel protested over both attacks, but her government struggled to find an appropriate response, and the matter of Russian hacking is now especially sensitive, coming in the weeks before Germans go to the polls to select a successor after her nearly 16 years in power.Moscow denied that it was involved in the hacking efforts.“Despite our repeated appeals through diplomatic channels, our partners in Germany have not provided any evidence of Russia’s involvement in these attacks,” the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said at a briefing on Thursday.She called calling the German allegations “an extraordinary P.R. story,” and said the suspicions appeared to be the work of “individual politicians” intent on showing they would “not allow gaps in trans-Atlantic solidarity,” in an apparent reference to Germany’s strong ties with the United States.Andrea Sasse, a spokeswoman for Germany’s Foreign Ministry, said on Wednesday of the hacking attempts, “The German government regards this unacceptable action as a threat to the security of the Federal Republic of Germany and to the democratic decision-making process, and as a serious burden on bilateral relations.” She continued, “The federal government strongly urges the Russian government to cease these unlawful cyber activities with immediate effect.”Ms. Merkel is not running for re-election and will leave office after a new government is formed, meaning the election will be crucial in determining Germany’s future — and shaping its relationship with Russia.Of the three candidates most likely to replace Ms. Merkel, Annalena Baerbock of the Greens, who has pledged to take the toughest stance against Moscow, has been the target of the most aggressive disinformation campaign.From left, the top candidates for chancellor at a televised debate in Berlin in August: Annalena Baerbock of the Greens, Armin Laschet of the Christian Democrats, and Olaf Scholz of the Social Democrats.Pool photo by Michael KappelerThe other two candidates — Armin Laschet of Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, and Olaf Scholz of the Social Democrats, currently Ms. Merkel’s vice-chancellor and finance minister — have served in three of the four Merkel governments, and neither is expected to change Berlin’s relationship to Moscow.Ms. Merkel enacted tough economic sanctions against Moscow after the 2014 invasion of Ukraine despite some pushback in other capitals and at home, but she has also worked hard to keep the lines of communication open with Moscow.The two countries have significant economic links, not least in the energy market, where they most recently cooperated on construction of a direct natural gas pipeline, which the Russian energy company Gazprom announced had been completed on Friday.U.S. intelligence agencies believe that “Ghostwriter,” a Russian program that received its nickname from a cybersecurity firm, was active in disseminating false information about the coronavirus before the 2020 U.S. presidential election, efforts that were considered to be a refinement of what Russia tried to do during the 2016 campaign.But attempts to meddle in previous German election campaigns have been limited, partly because of respect for Ms. Merkel, but also because the far-right and populist parties that have emerged in France and Italy have failed to gain as much traction in Germany.German intelligence officials nevertheless remain concerned that their country, Europe’s largest economy and a leader in the European Union, is not immune to outside forces seeking to disrupt its democratic norms.Russia’s state-funded external broadcaster, RT, runs an online-only German-language service that for years has emphasized divisive social issues, including public health precautions aimed at stemming the spread of the coronavirus and migration.During a visit to Moscow last month, Ms. Merkel denied accusations that her government had pressured neighboring Luxembourg to block a license request from the station, which would have allowed it to broadcast its programs to German viewers via satellite.Valerie Hopkins More

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      Takeaways From Canada's Official Election Debates

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      Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who called the snap election two years ahead of schedule, was repeatedly attacked by the other four candidates.OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to call an election two years ahead of schedule has not worked out as planned.Polls have consistently tracked a decline in voter support for his Liberal Party and a rise in backing for its nearest rivals, the Conservatives, leaving the parties in a statistical tie.The bulk of the 36-day campaign, the shortest allowed by law, came during Canada’s all-too-brief summer, when many voters’ minds were far from politics. The Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, where the Canadian military fought, further distracted the public’s attention.So for Mr. Trudeau and his rivals, particularly Erin O’Toole of the Conservatives, the debates this week in each of Canada’s official languages were crucial opportunities to define the campaign before Election Day, Sept. 20.Mr. Trudeau faced off not only against Mr. O’Toole, who is leading his party in an election for the first time, but also against Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the left-of-center New Democratic Party; Annamie Paul, who heads the Green Party; and Yves-François Blanchet of the Bloc Québécois, a regional party that endorses Quebec’s independence. With the five leaders receiving equal time, it was difficult for any to break through with a detailed message.The French-language debate on Wednesday often focused on issues of interest to Quebec. With English being the language of three-quarters of Canadians, the debate on Thursday in that language was considered the more important of the two.Trudeau struggled to justify his pandemic election.Mr. Trudeau said he called an election because he needed a new mandate to put pandemic recovery measures in place swiftly.Blair Gable/ReutersIn both debates, Mr. Trudeau’s rivals relentlessly challenged him for calling what they viewed as an unnecessary election in the middle of the pandemic. The subject came up 13 times during the French-language debate.In 2019, the Liberals under Mr. Trudeau failed to secure a majority of the seats in the House of Commons. That forced him to rely on votes from opposition parties, usually the New Democrats, to pass legislation and allowed the opposition parties to pool their votes in committees to tackle subjects embarrassing to the government.Mr. Trudeau said he needed a new mandate with a majority in order to put pandemic recovery measures in place swiftly. His opponents, however, repeatedly pointed out that none of Mr. Trudeau’s major objectives had been blocked during the past two years — although some important bills had been delayed and then died with the call for an election.In the Thursday debate, Mr. O’Toole challenged Mr. Trudeau’s decision to call for the election just as efforts to repatriate Canadians in Afghanistan and to aid Afghans who had worked for the Canadian military were in a critical phase.“You put your own political interests ahead of the well-being of thousands of people,” Mr. O’Toole said. “Mr. Trudeau, you should not have called this election; you should have gotten the job done in Afghanistan.”A complex format and a crowded stage limited debate.Mr. O’Toole, the Conservative leader, with Mr. Trudeau, who leads the Liberals. Justin Tang/The Canadian Press, via Associated PressThe two-hour debate had a complex structure. The moderator, Shachi Kurl, the president of the Angus Reid Institute, a nonprofit polling organization, asked questions written by a committee, with questions also posed via video by members of the public and at the site by journalists.Ms. Kurl assiduously enforced rules that prevented the candidates onstage from speaking out of turn or responding to questions not addressed to them. There were no closing statements.Duane Bratt, a professor of political science at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, said that the formula worked against Mr. Trudeau, who was constantly targeted by the four other leaders, and that it aided Mr. O’Toole.“O’Toole could talk about his climate plan in 30 seconds and then just move on to another subject, which is, I think, what he wanted,” Professor Bratt said. “The formula didn’t allow Trudeau time to really dig into some of O’Toole’s weaknesses.”But voters, Professor Bratt added, were the debate’s clear losers.“If this was the first time that you’re paying attention to the election, you were not well served tonight,” he said.Climate change and Indigenous issues got their due.Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Singh, who leads the left-of-center New Democratic Party.Pool photo by Sean KilpatrickClimate change, in particular, stood out as an issue, although no leader made a compelling case that his or her party offered the best approach, said Cara Camcastle, who lectures on political science at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia.“It’s good to see that all the leaders think it’s an important issue,” she said. “But none of them have the solutions of our own.”Mr. Trudeau was repeatedly attacked, particularly by Mr. Singh, for the rise in carbon emissions in Canada during each of the six years the prime minister has held office. Mr. Trudeau responded that his government’s climate measures, including the introduction of a national carbon price, had put Canada on a path to not just meeting but also exceeding its emissions commitment under the Paris Accord, which has a target date of 2030.Partly because of the organizer’s themed approach to the debate, reconciliation with Indigenous people received an unusual amount of attention.While all the other leaders picked apart Mr. Trudeau’s record — he has made Indigenous issues a top priority — they all agreed with his position that the process of replacing the 19th- century laws governing Indigenous people must be led by their communities rather than by the government.Guns and child care were largely absent in the English debate.Mr. O’Toole’s plan to scrap a Trudeau program under which several provinces provide child care for 10 Canadian dollars a day or less with a tax credit was prominent in the French debate but was largely bypassed on Thursday.Similarly, Mr. O’Toole’s backtracking on an earlier promise to eliminate Mr. Trudeau’s ban on 1,500 types of assault-style semiautomatic rifles received limited attention.The verdict: ‘A meaningless waste of time’?Professor Bratt and Dr. Camcastle said they believed that the two debates would not give form to what had been a largely shapeless campaign that lacked a clear issue — aside from Mr. Trudeau’s decision to call it.Frank Graves, president of EKOS Research Associates, a polling firm in Ottawa, offered a blunt assessment on Twitter.“Let me spare you the speculation of who won, lost, what impact,” he wrote. “It was a meaningless waste of time. Possibly the most vacuous and tedious debate in Canadian political history.”Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet, left, and Green Party Leader Annamie Paul, taking part in the federal election English-language Leaders debate in Gatineau, Canada, on Thursday.Pool photo by Adrian WyldVjosa Isai More

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      Olaf Scholz Is Running as the Next Angela Merkel in Germany, and It Seems to Be Working

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      Mr. Scholz, a Social Democrat who is modeling himself as the candidate of continuity, has a fair shot at being Germany’s next chancellor.BERLIN — When Olaf Scholz asked his fellow Social Democrats to nominate him as their candidate for chancellor, some inside his own camp publicly wondered if the party should bother fielding a candidate at all. Germany’s oldest party was not just trailing Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives but had slipped into third place behind the Greens with a humiliating 14 percent in the polls. As recently as June, the German media was framing the contest to succeed Ms. Merkel as a two-way race between her conservatives and the ascendant Green Party.But with the Sept. 26 national elections fast approaching, Mr. Scholz and his once-moribund party have unexpectedly become the favorites to lead the next government in Europe’s biggest democracy.“It’s really touching to see how many citizens trust me to be the next chancellor,” a beaming Mr. Scholz told hundreds of supporters at a recent campaign event in Berlin, as he stood in front of a giant screen proclaiming: “Scholz will tackle it.”Ten months after Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the U.S. presidency for the Democrats, there is a real chance that Germany will be led by a center-left chancellor for the first time in 16 years. Not since the second term of former President Bill Clinton have both the White House and the German chancellery been in the hands of center-left leaders.“The atmosphere is just amazing right now — we’re almost in disbelief,” said Annika Klose, who is a Social Democrat candidate for Parliament and watched Mr. Scholz speak. “Since I joined the party in 2011, every election result was worse than the last.”With 25 percent in recent polls, Mr. Scholz’s Social Democrats have overtaken both the Green Party and the conservative party of Chancellor Angela Merkel.Gordon Welters for The New York TimesIt’s not that Germans have suddenly shifted left. Mr. Scholz, who has served as Ms. Merkel’s finance minister and vice chancellor for the past four years, is in many ways more associated with the conservative-led coalition government than his own party. Two years ago, he lost the party’s leadership contest to a leftist duo, which attacked him for his moderate centrism.But Mr. Scholz has managed to turn what has long been the main liability for his party — co-governing as junior partners of Ms. Merkel’s conservatives — into his main asset: In an election with no incumbent, he has styled himself as the incumbent — or as the closest thing there is to Ms. Merkel.“Germans aren’t a very change-friendly people, and the departure of Angela Merkel is basically enough change for them,” said Christiane Hoffmann, a prominent political observer and journalist. “They’re most likely to trust the candidate who promises that the transition is as easy as possible.”With 25 percent in recent polls, Mr. Scholz’s Social Democrats have overtaken the Greens, now lagging at 17 percent, and the conservatives at barely over 20 percent. But political analysts point out that this would hardly constitute a convincing victory.“No one has ever become chancellor since 1949 with so little trust,” said Manfred Güllner, head of the Forsa polling institute, referring to the founding year of the Federal Republic of Germany after World War II.“German voters are quite unsettled,” Mr. Güllner added. “After 16 years of a Merkel chancellorship that provided a certain sense of stability, we’re in a place we’ve never been before.”On the campaign trail Mr. Scholz has spoken admiringly of the current chancellor. A slickly produced TV ad by the party shows him walking in front of a projected image of Ms. Merkel. Mr. Scholz with Ms. Merkel in August. On the campaign trail Mr. Scholz has spoken admiringly of her. Maja Hitij/Getty ImagesHe has been photographed making the chancellor’s hallmark diamond-shaped hand gesture — the “Merkel rhombus” — and used the female form of the German word for chancellor on a campaign poster to convince Germans that he could continue Ms. Merkel’s work even though he is a man.The symbolism isn’t subtle, but it is working — so well in fact that the chancellor herself has felt compelled to push back on it — most recently in what might be her last speech in the Bundestag.Mr. Güllner, the pollster, said at least part of the recent surge in support for the Social Democrats comes from Merkel voters who are not happy with her party’s candidate, Armin Laschet, a conservative state governor who has repeatedly fumbled on the campaign trail. “There is no real Scholz enthusiasm in Germany,” said Ms. Hoffmann. “His success is due primarily to the weakness of the other candidates.”Unlike his rivals, Mr. Scholz hasn’t put a foot wrong in the campaign. He takes few risks and is controlled to the point that Germans have dubbed him the “Scholz-o-mat” — or “Scholz machine.” Sticking to his message of stability has also made it harder for his opponents to attack him on past blunders, although some have tried. As mayor of Hamburg he took private meetings with a banker seeking a million euro tax deferment, an episode that has become part of a state investigation, and it was on his watch as finance minister that the fraudulent German fintech company Wirecard imploded.But this has barely surfaced in the campaign. Instead, Mr. Scholz’s popularity has continued to rise. Mr. Scholz was a socialist in the 1970s who gradually mellowed into a post-ideological centrist. First defending workers as a labor lawyer, then defending painful labor-market reforms and now co-governing with a conservative chancellor, his journey in many ways tracks that of his party.In its 158-year-history the Social Democrats have been a formidable political force, fighting for workers’ rights, battling fascism and helping to shape Germany’s postwar welfare state. But after serving three terms as junior partners to Ms. Merkel, the party’s vote share had halved.Unlike his rivals, Mr. Scholz hasn’t put a foot wrong in the campaign. He takes few risks and is controlled to the point that Germans have dubbed him the “Scholz-o-mat” — or “Scholz machine.” Gordon Welters for The New York TimesGerhard Schröder, the last Social Democrat to become chancellor, won 39 percent of the vote in 2002. In 2005, when the Social Democrats entered their first coalition with Ms. Merkel, they were still winning 34 percent of votes; by 2017 that had shrunk to 20 percent.But even as his party sank to a postwar low, Mr. Scholz became one of Germany’s most popular politicians. It helped that as finance minister he controlled the government’s purse strings during the pandemic. After years of religiously sticking to Germany’s cherished balanced budget rule, he promised to bring out the “bazooka” to help businesses survive the pandemic, initially spending 353 billion euros, or about $417 billion, in recovery and assistance funds.“Scholz has zero charisma but he radiates stability — and he handed out the money in the economic crisis,” said Andrea Römmele, dean of the Berlin-based Hertie School of Governance. If current polls hold, the Social Democrats will finish first but will need two other parties to form a governing coalition. One would almost certainly be the Greens. As for the other, Mr. Scholz has all but ruled out the far-left Left Party, which would leave either the conservatives or — more likely — the free-market Liberal Democrats.Mr. Scholz has offered some ideas on how he would govern differently, but the changes are relatively modest and might be further watered down by his coalition partners, analysts predict.Mr. Scholz, who has served as Ms. Merkel’s finance minister and vice chancellor for the past four years, is in many ways more associated with the conservative-led coalition government than his own party. Gordon Welters for The New York TimesHe has tried to woo his party’s core working-class voters by using “Respect” as one of his main campaign slogans. In his stump speech, he emphasizes that people who earn as much as him should not get tax breaks. Instead, he wants to lower taxes for middle- and low-income earners and raise them modestly for those with incomes of more than 100,000 euros a year.He promises to raise the minimum wage to 12 euros an hour (instead of the current 9.60 euros), build 400,000 homes a year (instead of the about 300,000 built in 2020) and pass a raft of climate measures, though without getting out of coal before 2038.“We would not expect changes in taxes and spending to add up to a big additional fiscal stimulus,” wrote Holger Schmieding, chief economist for Berenberg Bank in a recent analysis of what a Scholz chancellorship would mean for financial markets. In a coalition with the Greens and the Liberals, he predicted, “the pragmatic Scholz himself would likely rein in the leftist inclinations” of his own party base.Only the conservatives, desperately under pressure, have been arguing the opposite.Even Ms. Merkel, who had said she wanted to stay out of the race, has recently felt compelled to distance herself from Mr. Scholz’s unabashed attempts to run as her clone.There is “an enormous difference for the future of Germany between him and me,” Ms. Merkel said. More

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      Islamists See Big Losses in Moroccan Parliamentary Elections

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      The moderate Justice and Development Party may have lost control of Parliament, according to early results, in the latest defeat for Islamists in the region.Morocco’s moderate Islamist party suffered major losses in parliamentary elections on Wednesday, a stinging setback in one of the last countries where Islamists had risen to power after the Arab Spring protests.Moroccans cast ballots in legislative, municipal and regional races, the first such votes in the country since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.Despite turnout figures showing nearly half of Moroccans didn’t cast a ballot, the results were clear: The Justice and Development Party, the moderate Islamists known as the PJD, who have held power since 2011, faced steep losses both up and down the ballot — possibly enough to lose control of Parliament.With more than half of the votes counted, the winners included the National Rally of Independents, and the conservative Istiqlal party, both seen as closely aligned with the monarchy.Any changing of the guard, however, is unlikely to herald major policy shifts in a country where the royal palace has long been in command. While Morocco is officially a constitutional monarchy, its Parliament lacks the power to overrule the will of Mohammed VI, said Saloua Zerhouni, a political science professor in the capital, Rabat.“The monarchy will continue to control political parties, undermine the powers of government and the Parliament, and position itself as the sole effective political institution,” Ms. Zerhouni said.But the result did show one thing: the diminishing space that Islamists now find for themselves in the Middle East and North Africa.A polling station on Wednesday in Rabat. Voter turnout was expected to be low, as it has been in the past three elections.Fadel Senna/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAfter the pro-democracy protests of the Arab Spring in 2011, many Islamist parties were allowed to run in elections, in some cases for the first time. They swept parliamentary seats in some countries and took power in others, including in Morocco, where overhauls by Mohammed VI paved the way for the PJD to form a governing coalition.But the tide eventually turned against the Islamists. In Egypt in 2013, a coup deposed the Muslim Brotherhood, leading to its current dictatorship. This year, President Kais Saied of Tunisia suspended Parliament, which was controlled by moderate Islamists, in what many countries described as a coup.In Morocco, the moderate Islamists made little headway on any agendas of their own, with key ministries like foreign affairs and industry being controlled by other parties. When Morocco’s king decided to make a deal last year with Israel to normalize relations, there was nothing Islamists could do to stop a move they bitterly opposed.“Most Moroccans across the country, across educational levels, have a pretty healthy dose of political skepticism” and saw that the Islamists had little real power, said Vish Sakthivel, a postdoctoral associate in Middle East studies at Yale University.And as the pandemic swept through Morocco, the royal palace was seen as the main driver of relief programs.“Most of the decisions aimed at alleviating the social and economic effects of the pandemic were associated with the central power, the monarchy,” Ms. Zerhouni said. “Whereas political parties and the Parliament were presented as inactive and awaiting directives from the king.”The distrust has previously been reflected in low numbers at the polls, including in the past three elections, which averaged a turnout of just 42 percent. And this time, pandemic restrictions forced most campaigning online, alienating many voters without internet access.A wall in Khemisset, Morocco, painted with the symbols of some of the political parties involved in the elections.Jalal Morchidi/Anadolu Agency, via Getty ImagesIn March, Morocco overhauled its electoral laws, making it more difficult for any party to have a big lead in terms of seats. The leading party will now have to form a coalition government bringing together several parties with different ideologies.To many, the moves have diluted the power of parties to govern and strengthened the king’s hand — and led some to not cast a ballot at all on Wednesday.“The room for expression available to citizens to express their grievances has been reduced so much that the only way today to show discontent without repercussions is to abstain from voting because the regime is attentive to the participation rate,” said Amine Zary, 51, who works in the tourism industry in Casablanca and did not vote.On Morocco’s streets, many pointed to the fact that elections had changed little in the past decade.Cases of protest by self-immolation continue to make the news, a reminder of the one that set off the initial unrest of the Arab Spring after a fruit seller set himself on fire in 2010 in Tunisia. Beatings by police officers remain frequent. A Moroccan protest movement in 2017 was met with crackdowns. And the government has targeted journalists who have spoken out against oppression.“I literally have a knot in my stomach because I have a feeling of déjà vu,” said Mouna Afassi, 29, an entrepreneur in Rabat who voted on Wednesday. “I recognize this feeling of hope too well. During five years, they allow us to find the strength to believe it before receiving another slap.”She added, “I would like to stop thinking about leaving Morocco in order to give my daughter the life I dream of for her.”A volunteer with the National Rally of Independents passing out campaign pamphlets in Sidi Slimane last month.Fadel Senna/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe challenges were clear on a recent Saturday when, despite restrictions on campaigning imposed because of the pandemic, volunteers canvassed a residential neighborhood in Rabat. In a small office, members of the Democratic Leftist Federation, a coalition of different parties, convened to bolster their get-out-the vote efforts.“You have to show the citizens that they are like you,” Nidal Oukacha, 27, a campaign director said to one of the volunteers. “We need to tell people that Morocco can still change.”But as the team fanned out on bicycles across the district, getting the message out was easier said than done. Many people were not home, and many that were had already made up their minds. A few potential voters listened to the canvassers, but it was not clear whether they would cast ballots in the end.Leila Idrissi, 59, a physiotherapist and a politician with the nationalist Party of Independence, said Moroccans must not give up on voting even if they are frustrated with political stagnation. “A lot of promises weren’t kept, especially in the last eight years,” she said. “I tell young people that if they don’t vote, they’re letting people who aren’t competent or ill-intentioned people decide for them. They need to be in charge of their future.” More

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      As German Elections Near, Angela Merkel Dips Into Campaign Fray

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      Germany’s chancellor pleaded with voters to support her party, which has flagging poll numbers and a candidate who has failed to capture imaginations.BERLIN — Angela Merkel has said she wanted to stay out of the election campaign for her replacement as Germany’s chancellor. But with her party polling at record lows, Ms. Merkel used a speech to Germany’s Parliament on Tuesday to plead with Germans to keep the Christian Democrats in power.Since late July, the conservative Christian Democrats and their Bavaria-only partners, the Christian Social Union, have been dropping steadily in the polls, while their candidate to replace Ms. Merkel, Armin Laschet, has struggled to overcome a series of gaffes that sent his own popularity plunging.The situation has become alarming enough that Ms. Merkel has dropped the pretense of being a bystander, and in recent weeks she has been using her voice and platform to try to drum up support for Mr. Laschet and distance herself from his main rival, Olaf Scholz.Mr. Scholz, Germany’s finance minister and Ms. Merkel’s vice chancellor, has been seeing his popularity rise, along with that of his center-left Social Democratic Party — often by positioning himself as the true successor to the chancellor under whom he has governed since 2017.In an effort to claw back support, Mr. Laschet has taken to warning that a government led by Mr. Scholz could shift the country away from its current centrist course, especially if he includes the Left Party in any governing coalition. The Left Party has repeatedly rejected Germany’s participation in NATO missions and questioned whether the alliance should exist.Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party has positioned himself as the true successor to Ms. Merkel.Pool photo by Jens SchlueterMs. Merkel, who is not seeking another term in office, echoed that warning on Tuesday in what was likely her last speech before Parliament as chancellor, urging voters to throw their support behind Mr. Laschet when they go to the polls on Sept. 26 to elect a new government. It is the first time since modern Germany was founded in 1949 that the incumbent chancellor is willingly ceding power.“In a few days, our citizens have to make a choice: either between a government with the Social Democrats and the Greens, that accepts support from the Left Party, or at least does not exclude it,” Ms. Merkel said, “or a German government led by the Christian Democrats and Christian Social Union, with Armin Laschet as chancellor.”Despite Ms. Merkel’s intentions to stay out of the campaign, Tuesday’s remarks were not the first time she has stepped up to help her party’s flagging fortunes. On Aug. 20, when Mr. Laschet sought to relaunch his election campaign heading into the final weeks, Ms. Merkel praised, among other things, his Christianity as his guiding moral compass. Still, his fortunes failed to turn around.Last week, Mr. Laschet presented a team of expert advisers he hoped would shore up his numbers, but that appears to have had little impact.Polls released this week have shown Mr. Laschet’s party struggling to retain 20 percent support — a previously unthinkable position for a party that has governed Germany for all but two of the past seven decades.Armin Laschet, the candidate of the conservative Christian Democrats, has struggled to move past a series of gaffes.Daniel Roland/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMs. Merkel also went on the attack against Mr. Scholz, who during a campaign speech last week described the 50 million Germans who had been vaccinated against Covid-19 as “guinea pigs” who had proven the safety of the vaccines.“We were the guinea pigs for those who have waited,” Mr. Scholz told a radio station in North Rhine-Westphalia. “As one of the 50 million, I can say, it went well! Please join us!”In her speech on Tuesday, Ms. Merkel shot back: “Of course no one of us who has been vaccinated is in any way a guinea pig,” she said, adding that all vaccines had undergone the necessary testing to be granted approval.Mr. Scholz defended his comment as a lighthearted attempt to convince more people to get their inoculation against Covid-19. “If some people don’t want to laugh, but get upset, maybe it has something to do with their ratings in the polls that aren’t very funny,” he said.Long the traditional rivals of the center-right conservatives, the Social Democrats spent 12 of Ms. Merkel’s nearly 16 years in government as the junior coalition partner in her government, influencing many of the policies passed, like a national minimum wage and billions in Covid relief.Mr. Scholz, who was initially dismissed as a viable candidate for chancellor, has surprised the conservatives with his strong showing. Headed into the race, the Christian Democrats thought their biggest challenge would be the Green Party and its 40-year-old candidate, Annalena Baerbock, who has campaigned on a promise to usher in an era of change.Mr. Scholz, 63, has understood that after four terms of prosperity and relative stability under Ms. Merkel, Germans still value a feeling of security. He has focused his campaign on pledging to ensure jobs and working to shore up social stability by fighting child poverty and keeping housing prices in check.“A new beginning is needed,” Mr. Scholz told Parliament on Tuesday. “I hope, and I am sure, that it will succeed.”Christopher F. Schuetze More

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      German Election: Who Is the Green Party's Annalena Baerbock?

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      Annalena Baerbock, the 40-year-old candidate for the Green Party, is likely to have a say in Germany’s next government, no matter who wins this month’s election.BOCHUM, Germany — The woman who wants to replace Chancellor Angela Merkel strode onto the stage in sneakers and a leather jacket, behind her the steel skeleton of a disused coal mining tower, before her a sea of expectant faces. The warm-up act, a guy with an Elvis quiff draped in a rainbow flag, sang “Imagine.”Annalena Baerbock, the Green Party candidate for chancellor, is asking Germans to do just that. To imagine a country powered entirely by renewable energy. To imagine a relatively unknown and untested 40-year-old as their next chancellor. To imagine her party, which has never before run Germany, leading the government after next month’s election.“This election is not just about what happens in the next four years, it’s about our future,” Ms. Baerbock told the crowd, taking her case to a traditional coal region that closed its last mine three years ago.“We need change to preserve what we love and cherish,” she said in this not necessarily hostile, but skeptical, territory. “Change requires courage, and change is on the ballot on Sept. 26.”Just how much change Germans really want after 16 years of Ms. Merkel remains to be seen. The chancellor made herself indispensable by navigating innumerable crises — financial, migrant, populist and pandemic — and solidifying Germany’s leadership on the continent. Other candidates are competing to see who can be most like her.Ms. Baerbock, by contrast, aims to shake up the status quo. She is challenging Germans to deal with the crises that Ms. Merkel has left largely unattended: decarbonizing the powerful automobile sector; weaning the country off coal; rethinking trade relationships with strategic competitors like China and Russia.It is not always an easy sell. In an unusually close race, there is still an outside chance that the Greens will catch up with Germany’s two incumbent parties. But even if they do not, there is almost no combination of parties imaginable in the next coalition government that does not include them. That makes Ms. Baerbock, her ideas and her party of central importance to Germany’s future. But Germans are still getting to know her.“This election is not just about what happens in the next four years, it’s about our future,” Ms. Baerbock said during her election tour.Laetitia Vancon for The New York TimesA crowd gathered to listen to Ms. Baerbock in Duisburg, in western Germany.Laetitia Vancon for The New York TimesA competitive trampolinist in her youth who became a lawmaker at 32 and has two young daughters, Ms. Baerbock bolted onto Germany’s national political scene only three years ago when she was elected one of the Greens’ two leaders. “Annalena Who?” one newspaper asked at the time.After being nominated in April as the Greens’ first-ever chancellor candidate, Ms. Baerbock briefly surged past her rivals in Germany’s long-dominant parties: Armin Laschet, the leader of the Christian Democrats, and Olaf Scholz of the center-left Social Democrats, who now leads the race.But she fell behind after stumbling repeatedly. Rivals accused Ms. Baerbock of plagiarism after revelations that she had failed to attribute certain passages in a recently published book. Imprecise labeling of some of her memberships led to headlines about her padding her résumé.More recently, she and her party failed to seize on the deadly floods that killed more than 180 people in western Germany to energize her campaign, even as the catastrophe catapulted climate change — the Greens’ flagship issue — to the top of the political agenda.Hoping to reset her campaign, Ms. Baerbock, traveling in a bright green double-decker bus covered in solar panels, is taking her pitch to German voters in 45 cities and towns across the country.Ms. Baerbock in the campaign bus with her social media and logistics team.Laetitia Vancon for The New York TimesIt was no coincidence that her first stop was the industrial heartland of Germany, in the western state of North-Rhine Westphalia, which was badly hit by floods this summer and is run by Mr. Laschet, who has been criticized for mismanaging the disaster.“Climate change isn’t something that’s happening far away in other countries, climate change is with us here and now,” Ms. Baerbock told a crowd of a few hundred students, workers and young parents with their children in Bochum.“Rich people will always be able to buy their way out, but most people can’t,” she said. “That’s why climate change and social justice are two sides of the same coin for me.”Leaving the stage with her microphone, Ms. Baerbock then mingled with the audience and took questions on any range of topics — managing schools during the pandemic, cybersecurity — and apologized for her early missteps.“Yes, we’ve made mistakes, and I’m annoyed at myself,” she said. “But I know where I want to go.”Germany’s two traditional mainstream parties have seen their support shrink in recent years, while the Green Party has more than doubled its own.Laetitia Vancon for The New York TimesIf there is one thing that sets Ms. Baerbock apart from her rivals, it is this relative openness and youthful confidence combined with a bold vision. She is the next generation of a Green Party that has come a long way since its founding as a radical “anti-party party” four decades ago.In those early days, opposition, not governing, was the aim.For Ms. Baerbock, “governing is radical.”Her party’s evolution from a fringe protest movement to a serious contender to power in many ways reflects her own biography.Born in 1980, she is as old as her party. When she was a toddler, her parents took her to anti-NATO protests. By the time she joined the Greens as a student in 2005, the party had completed its first stint in government as the junior partner of the Social Democrats. By now, many voters have come to see the Greens as a party that has matured while remaining true to its principles. It is pro-environment, pro-Europe and unapologetically pro-immigration. Ms. Baerbock joined the Greens as a student in 2005.Laetitia Vancon for The New York TimesMs. Baerbock proposes spending 50 billion euros, about $59 billion, in green investments each year for a decade to bankroll Germany’s transformation to a carbon-neutral economy — and paying for it by scrapping the country’s strict balanced budget rule.She would raise taxes on top earners and put tariffs on imports that are not carbon neutral. She envisions solar panels on every rooftop, a world-class electric car industry, a higher minimum wage and climate subsidies for those with low incomes. She wants to team up with the United States to get tough on China and Russia.She is also committed to Germany’s growing diversity — the only candidate who has spoken of the country’s moral responsibility to take in some Afghan refugees, beyond those who helped Western troops. Ms. Baerbock’s ambitions to break taboos at home and abroad — and her rise as a serious challenger of the status quo — is catching voters’ attention as the election nears.It has also made her a target of online disinformation campaigns from the far right and others. A fake nude picture of her has circulated with the caption, “I needed the money.” Fake quotes have her saying she wants to ban all pets to minimize carbon emissions.Ms. Baerbock’s enemies in the mainstream conservative media have not held back either, exploiting every stumble she has made.Many of those who heard her speak in Bochum recently said they were impressed by her confident delivery (she spoke without notes) and willingness to engage with voters in front of rolling cameras.A supporter surprised Ms. Baerbock by offering her a heart-shaped balloon in Hildesheim, in northern Germany.Laetitia Vancon for The New York Times“She focused on issues and not emotions,” said Katharina Münch, a retired teacher. “She seems really solid.” Others were concerned about her young age and lack of experience.“What has she done to run for chancellor?” said Frank Neuer, 29, a sales clerk who had stopped by on his way to work. “I mean, it’s like me running for chancellor.”Political observers say the attacks against Ms. Baerbock have been disproportionate and revealing of a deeper phenomenon. Despite having a female chancellor for almost two decades, women still face tougher scrutiny and sometimes outright sexism in German politics.“My candidacy polarizes in a way that wasn’t imaginable for many women of my age,” Ms. Baerbock said, sitting in a bright wood-paneled cabin on the top level of her campaign bus between stops.“In some ways, what I’ve experienced is similar to what happened in the U.S. when Hillary Clinton ran,” she added. “I stand for renewal, the others stand for the status quo, and of course, those who have an interest in the status quo see my candidacy as a declaration of war.”Bochum was among the stops on Ms. Baerbock’s campaign swing.Laetitia Vancon for The New York TimesWhen Ms. Merkel first ran for office in 2005, at 51, she was routinely described as Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s “girl” and received not just endless commentary on her haircut, but relentless questions about her competence and readiness for office. Even allies in her own party dismissed her as an interim leader at the time.Ms. Baerbock’s answer to such challenges is not to hide her youth or motherhood, but rather to lean into them.“It’s up to me as a mother, up to us as a society, up to us adults to be prepared for the questions of our children: Did you act?” she said. “Did we do everything to secure the climate and with it the freedom of our children?”Ms. Baerbock talking with a group of young women at the end of a campaign day in Duisburg.Laetitia Vancon for The New York TimesChristopher F. Schuetze More

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      El temor se apodera de Nicaragua mientras el país vira hacia una dictadura

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      Una ofensiva contra la oposición por parte del presidente Daniel Ortega ha dejado a los nicaragüenses con una duda: ¿quién sigue?MANAGUA — Las noches eran lo más difícil.Desde el momento en que Medardo Mairena decidió postularse a la presidencia, un desafío directo al líder autoritario de Nicaragua, él tuvo la certeza de que el aparato de seguridad en algún momento lo alcanzaría.A lo largo del verano, Mairena observó cómo desaparecían otros líderes de la oposición. Uno por uno, fueron sacados a rastras de sus casas en medio de una represión nacional orquestada por el presidente Daniel Ortega en contra de la disidencia. La cruzada de este último por asegurarse un cuarto periodo sumergió a la nación centroamericana en un estado de temor generalizado.Desde junio, la policía ha encarcelado o puesto en arresto domiciliario a siete candidatos a las elecciones presidenciales de noviembre, así como a decenas de activistas políticos y líderes de la sociedad civil, lo cual ha dejado a Ortega desprovisto de un contendiente creíble en la boleta y ha convertido a Nicaragua en un Estado policial.A Mairena mismo se le prohibió salir de Managua. Las patrullas de la policía apostadas afuera de su casa ahuyentaron a casi todas las visitas, incluso a su familia.Durante el día, Mairena se mantenía ocupado, haciendo campaña por Zoom y monitoreando anuncios en la radio oficial en busca de pistas de la creciente represión. Sin embargo, de noche se quedaba despierto, con el oído atento a las sirenas, seguro de que tarde o temprano la policía iba a llegar y él desaparecería en una celda.“Lo primero que me pregunto en la mañana es ¿cuándo van a venir por mí?”, comentó Mairena, un activista defensor de los derechos de los agricultores, en una entrevista telefónica realizada a finales de junio. “Es una vida en zozobra constante”.Su turno llegó días después de la llamada. Unos agentes fuertemente armados allanaron su casa y se lo llevaron la noche del 5 de julio.No se supo nada de él hasta el miércoles, cuando se les permitió una visita breve a sus familiares, quienes comentaron que lo encontraron demacrado y enfermo, completamente desconectado del mundo exterior.Parientes de los candidatos presidenciales visitaron este verano la cárcel de Managua en donde se les retenía.Inti Ocón para The New York TimesQuienes critican el gobierno aseguran que la imprevisibilidad y rapidez de la ola de arrestos han convertido a Nicaragua en un Estado más represivo del que fue durante los primeros años de la dictadura de Anastasio Somoza, quien fue derrocado en 1979 por el Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional que encabezaban Ortega y varios otros comandantes. Los sandinistas gobernaron el país hasta que en 1990 perdieron en unas elecciones democráticas y cedieron el poder. En 2007, Ortega regresó a la presidencia.Tras 14 años en el poder, Ortega, impopular y cada vez más aislado de la sociedad nicaragüense en su residencia privada, parece determinado a evitar toda competencia electoral verdadera. Los cinco candidatos presidenciales que siguen en la boleta con él son políticos poco conocidos que tienen una historia de colaboración con el gobierno. Pocas personas en Nicaragua los consideran desafíos genuinos para Ortega.La represión, la cual se ha extendido hacia los críticos de todos los ámbitos sociales, no ha perdonado a ningún disidente político, sin importar sus circunstancias personales o vínculos históricos con Ortega.Entre las víctimas de persecución se encuentran un banquero millonario y un guerrillero marxista, un general condecorado y una activista poco conocida de la provincia, líderes estudiantiles e intelectuales septuagenarios. Ningún detractor del gobierno se siente a salvo de las repentinas redadas nocturnas, de las cuales su constancia ha sido la única certeza, comentaron en entrevistas más de 30 nicaragüenses afectados por la represión.“Todos están en la lista”, mencionó un empresario nicaragüense, cuyo hogar fue registrado por la policía; habló bajo la condición de permanecer en el anonimato por temor a las represalias. “Nada más estás intentando saber qué tan alto o tan abajo está tu nombre, basándote en la última detención”.La ola de represión y temores de violencia política ha empujado a miles de nicaragüenses a huir del país, lo cual amenaza con empeorar una crisis de migración masiva en una época en la que el gobierno del presidente estadounidense, Joe Biden, ya tiene dificultades al enfrentar cifras récord de inmigrantes que intentan cruzar la frontera sur.La cantidad de nicaragüenses que han detenido los guardias fronterizos de Estados Unidos ha estallado desde la represión: un total de casi 21.000 personas cruzaron en junio y julio, en comparación con menos de 300 en los mismos meses del año pasado, de acuerdo con el Departamento de Seguridad Nacional. Durante esos meses, otros 10.000 nicaragüenses han cruzado al sur hacia el país vecino de Costa Rica, según la agencia migratoria costarricense.Una iglesia en Masaya, en la que periodistas y civiles fueron atacados por integrantes del partido gobernante en julioInti Ocón para The New York TimesEl éxodo ha incluido a ricos y pobres por igual, provocado tanto por los temores de la escalada de violencia como por la preocupación de la acechante crisis económica en un país que se dirige a paso constante hacia el aislamiento internacional.En los últimos meses, decenas de destacados empresarios nicaragüenses han huido con sigilo hacia Miami y paralizado sus inversiones en el país, según entrevistas con varios empresarios que no quisieron ser citados por temor a represalias. Y se espera que la mayoría de los bancos internacionales de desarrollo, cuyos préstamos han apoyado la economía nicaragüense en años recientes, dejen de entregar nuevos fondos después de las elecciones, las cuales Estados Unidos ha señalado que es poco probable que reconozca en su forma actual.Algunos nicaragüenses se han marchado por temor a un regreso a la violencia callejera que traumatizó al país en 2018, cuando paramilitares favorables al gobierno y fuerzas policiales interrumpieron las protestas de la oposición y mataron a más de 300 personas.“Tengo miedo de que venga otra masacre”, dijo Jeaneth Herrera, quien vende pan de elote tradicional en las calles de Managua. Sus ventas se han desplomado en meses recientes pues, dijo, la incertidumbre política ha elevado los precios de alimentos. “Yo no veo futuro aquí”.Los hombres y mujeres detenidos, algunos de los cuales ocuparon altos cargos sandinistas, han sido acusados de crímenes que van desde la conspiración hasta el lavado de dinero y el homicidio, imputaciones que, según familiares y asociados, son falsas. La mayoría pasó semanas o meses en la cárcel antes de tener contacto alguno con sus parientes o abogados.Varias de las personas arrestadas son septuagenarias y tienen problemas de salud. Según los familiares, compartieron la cárcel con otros presos y no tuvieron acceso a doctores independientes ni a que sus parientes les entregaran medicamentos.Un general sandinista retirado, Hugo Torres, fue arrestado a pesar de que había dirigido un ataque que le ayudó a Ortega a escapar de la cárcel de Somoza en la década de 1970, con el cual es probable que le haya salvado la vida. El exministro sandinista Víctor Hugo Tinoco fue detenido y la policía registró su casa durante horas enfrente de su hija, Cristian Tinoco, quien tiene cáncer terminal.Cristian Tinoco, hija de Hugo Tinoco, exviceministro de Exteriores, en la habitación de su padre, tras un operativo policial en junioInti Ocón para The New York TimesLa policía también irrumpió de noche en la casa del candidato presidencial Miguel Mora y lo sacó a rastras frente a su hijo Miguel, quien tiene parálisis cerebral, dijo la esposa de Mora, Verónica Chávez.“Esa noche repetía ‘¿Dónde está papá?’”, mencionó Chávez. “Parecía que estábamos en un corto de terror”.Los casos en contra de los prisioneros políticos se llevan en cortes cerradas sin la participación de asesores legales. Esto ha significado que los parientes y la ciudadanía desconocen qué evidencia se ha presentado, lo que agrava el clima de temor.Quienes intentaron documentar el proceso legal —familiares, abogados, periodistas— dicen que fueron amenazados o enfrentaron acusaciones similares y, en algunos casos, se vieron obligados a huir del país o esconderse. Un abogado de uno de los candidatos encarcelados fue arrestado a fines del mes pasado por ser miembro de un partido de oposición.“Nadie de nadie sabe de qué les están acusando, qué exactamente está en los casos”, dijo Boanerges Fornos, abogado nicaragüense que representaba a algunos de los políticos detenidos antes de huir del país en junio. “Hay una destrucción sistemática del aparato de información no oficial. Al régimen le gusta operar en la oscuridad”.Luego de desmantelar a los partidos de oposición y encarcelar a sus candidatos, el gobierno dirigió sus ataques a otros con puntos de vista independientes: el clero, los periodistas, abogados e incluso los médicos. En las últimas semanas, el gobierno ha dicho que los obispos católicos de Nicaragua son “hijos del demonio”, amenazaron a los médicos que dieron la alarma sobre una nueva ola de COVID-19 y tomaron las instalaciones del mayor diario del país, La Prensa.La incertidumbre detrás de los arrestos aparentemente arbitrarios ha hecho que la situación sea más difícil de soportar para los familiares de las víctimas.Verónica Chávez, periodista y esposa del candidato detenido Miguel Mora, en su casa de Managua.Inti Ocón para The New York Times“Ya tienen listo su tablero de ajedrez y uno solo es un peón”, dijo Uriel Quintanilla, un músico nicaragüense cuyo hermano, Alex Hernández, es un activista de oposición que fue detenido recientemente.Desde entonces, dijo Quintanilla, no ha tenido noticias de su hermano ni de los cargos que se le imputan.“El jaque mate en tu contra ya está planeado, nada más no sabes cuándo te va a llegar”.Alex Villegas colaboró con este reportaje desde San José, Costa Rica.Anatoly Kurmanaev es un corresponsal con sede en Ciudad de México desde donde cubre México, Centroamérica y el Caribe. Antes de integrarse a la corresponsalía de México en 2021, pasó ocho años reportando desde Caracas sobre Venezuela y la región vecina. @akurmanaev More