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      ‘Everyone Is on the List’: Fear Grips Nicaragua as It Veers to Dictatorship

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      A crackdown on opposition by President Daniel Ortega leaves Nicaraguans to wonder: Who is next?MANAGUA, Nicaragua — The nights were the hardest.From the moment Medardo Mairena decided to run for president, in direct challenge to Nicaragua’s authoritarian leader, he was certain the security apparatus would eventually come for him.Over the summer, he watched as other opposition leaders disappeared. One by one, they were dragged from their homes amid a nationwide crackdown on dissent by the president, Daniel Ortega, whose quest to secure a fourth term had plunged the Central American nation into a state of pervasive fear.Since June, the police have jailed or put under house arrest seven candidates for November’s presidential election and dozens of political activists and civil society leaders, leaving Mr. Ortega running on a ballot devoid of any credible challenger and turning Nicaragua into a police state.Mr. Mairena himself was banned from leaving Managua. Police patrols outside his house had scared away nearly all visitors, even his family.During the day, Mr. Mairena kept busy, campaigning over Zoom and scanning official radio announcements for clues to the growing repression. But at night he lay awake, listening for sirens, certain that sooner or later the police would come and he would disappear into a prison cell.“The first thing I ask myself in the morning is, when are they coming for me?” Mr. Mairena, a farmers’ rights activist, said in a telephone interview in late June. “It’s a life in constant dread.”His turn came just days after the call. Heavily armed officers raided his home and took him away late on July 5.He had not been heard from until last Wednesday, when relatives were allowed one brief visit. They said they found him emaciated and sick, completely disconnected from the outside world.Relatives of arrested presidential candidates visiting the jail in Managua where they were being held earlier this summer.Inti Ocón for The New York TimesGovernment critics say the unpredictability and speed of the wave of arrests have turned Nicaragua into a more repressive state than it was during the early years of the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza, who was overthrown in 1979 by the Sandinista Revolutionary Movement led by Mr. Ortega and several other commanders. The Sandinistas governed the country until losing democratic elections and ceding power in 1990. In 2007, Mr. Ortega returned as president.After 14 years in power, unpopular and increasingly isolated from Nicaraguan society in his gated compound, Mr. Ortega appears intent on avoiding any real electoral competition. The five presidential candidates still on the ballot with him are little-known politicians with a history of collaboration with the government. Few in Nicaragua consider them genuine challenges to Mr. Ortega.The crackdown, which has extended to critics from any social realm, has spared no political dissidents, no matter their personal circumstances or historical ties to Mr. Ortega.The victims of persecution have included a millionaire banker and a Marxist guerrilla, a decorated general and a little-known provincial activist, student leaders and septuagenarian intellectuals. No government detractors feel safe from the sudden night raids, whose only certainty has been their constancy, more than 30 Nicaraguans affected by the crackdown said in interviews.“Everyone is on the list,” said one Nicaraguan businessman, whose family home was raided by the police and who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “You’re just trying to figure out how high or low your name is on it, based on the latest arrest.”The wave of repression and fears of political violence have pushed thousands of Nicaraguans to flee the country in recent months, threatening to worsen a mass migration crisis at a time when the Biden administration is already struggling with record numbers of immigrants trying to cross the southern border.The number of Nicaraguans encountered by U.S. border guards has exploded since the crackdown, with a total of almost 21,000 crossing in June and July, compared with fewer than 300 in the same months last year, according to the Department of Homeland Security. About 10,000 more Nicaraguans have crossed south into neighboring Costa Rica in the same months, according to the country’s migration agency.A church in Masaya, where journalists and civilians were attacked by members of the governing party in July.Inti Ocón for The New York TimesThe exodus has included the rich as well as the poor and is driven as much by fears of escalating violence as by concerns over a looming economic crisis in a country heading steadily toward international isolation.Dozens of prominent Nicaraguan businessmen have quietly left for Miami in recent months, halting their investments in the country, according to interviews with several entrepreneurs who did not want to be quoted for fear of reprisals. And most international development banks, whose loans have propped up the Nicaraguan economy in recent years, are expected to stop disbursing new funds following the elections, which the United States has said it is unlikely to recognize in their current form.Some Nicaraguans have left out of fear of a return of the street violence that traumatized the country in 2018, when pro-government paramilitaries and police forces broke up opposition protests, killing more than 300.“I’m scared that another massacre is coming,” said Jeaneth Herrera, who sells traditional cornbread on the streets of Managua. Her sales have fallen sharply in recent months, she said, as political uncertainty has pushed up food prices. “I don’t see a future here.”The detained men and women, some of them top former Sandinistas, have been charged with crimes ranging from conspiracy to money laundering and murder, accusations their families and associates say are trumped up. Most spent weeks, or months, in jail before any communication with relatives or lawyers.Several of those arrested are in their 70s and have health problems. They were put in the same jail as other prisoners, relatives said, and denied access to independent doctors or to medicines delivered by relatives.A retired Sandinista general, Hugo Torres, was arrested despite having staged a raid that helped Mr. Ortega break out of Mr. Somoza’s jail in the 1970s, potentially saving his life. The former Sandinista minister Víctor Hugo Tinoco was detained and his house ransacked for hours by the police in front of his daughter, Cristian Tinoco, who has terminal cancer.Cristian Tinoco, the daughter of Hugo Tinoco, a former vice foreign minister,  in his room after a police raid in June. Inti Ocón for The New York TimesThe police also smashed into the presidential candidate Miguel Mora’s home at night and dragged him out in the presence of his son Miguel, who has cerebral palsy, said Mr. Mora’s wife, Verónica Chávez.“He kept repeating that night, ‘Where is Papa?’” Ms. Chávez said. “It felt like living in a horror movie.”The cases against the political prisoners are being heard in closed courts without the presence of legal counsel. This has left their relatives and the public in the dark about the evidence presented, adding to the climate of fear.Those who tried documenting the legal process — relatives, lawyers, journalists — say they were threatened or faced with similar accusations, and in some cases forced to flee the country or go into hiding. A lawyer for one of the jailed candidates was himself arrested late last month for being a member of an opposition party.“Absolutely no one has any idea what they are accused of, or what’s in their cases,” said Boanerges Fornos, a Nicaraguan lawyer who represented some of the detained politicians before fleeing the country in June. “There’s a systematic destruction of all nonofficial sources of information. The regime likes to operate in the dark.”After dismantling opposition parties and jailing their candidates, the government shifted its attacks to others with independent views: the clergy, journalists, lawyers, even doctors. In the past few weeks, the government has called Nicaragua’s Catholic bishops “children of demons,” threatened the medics who raised alarm about a new Covid-19 wave and taken over the installations of the country’s biggest newspaper, La Prensa.The uncertainty behind the seemingly arbitrary arrests has made the situation harder to bear for the victims’ families.Verónica Chávez, a journalist and the wife of the detained candidate Miguel Mora, at her home in Managua.Inti Ocón for The New York Times“They have their chess board already set up, and you’re just a pawn on it,” said Uriel Quintanilla, a Nicaraguan musician whose brother Alex Hernández, an opposition activist, was recently detained.Since then, Mr. Quintanilla said, he has not heard news of his brother or the charges against him.“The check and mate against you have already been planned out,” he said. “We merely don’t know at what moment it will come.”Alex Villegas contributed reporting from San José, Costa Rica. More

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      The French Left Is in Disarray, but Here Comes Anne Hidalgo

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      The charismatic and divisive socialist mayor of Paris is eyeing an office that has been occupied by eight male presidents over six decades.BLOIS, France — French Socialists gathered recently in the Loire Valley for a weekend of debate that turned into the virtual anointment of Anne Hidalgo, the charismatic and divisive mayor of Paris, as their candidate for next year’s presidential election.Speaker after speaker, gathered in the courtyard of the Chateau de Blois, turned to Ms. Hidalgo to say they dreamed of a “Madame la Présidente,” stressing the last “e”-accentuated syllable denoting the feminine form. Up to now, the Fifth Republic has produced eight male “présidents” over six decades.That is not the only statistic stacked against Ms. Hidalgo, 62, who was coy about her intentions while leaving little doubt she is preparing to run. Most polls give the left, divided between Socialists, ecologists and far-left parties, less than 30 percent of the vote in a France drifting rightward. The once-proud “gauche” is in tatters.I asked Ms. Hidalgo when she would announce her candidacy. “I believe in solid foundations, and I am working on that,” she said. “If the foundation is solid, the house stands up.” Her latest book, “A French Woman,” will be published Sept. 15. It appears likely the announcement will come around that time.Whether a Hidalgo candidacy can galvanize the left and throw open an election in which Emmanuel Macron, the centrist president, and Marine Le Pen, the rightist candidate, remain favorites is unclear.“I believe in solid foundations, and I am working on that,” Ms. Hidalgo said when she was asked when she would announce her candidacy.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesThe daughter of poor Spanish immigrants, a product of the French model of integration now widely questioned, and an environmentalist mayor whose bike-friendly and car-hostile policies have earned her adulation and loathing in equal measure, Ms. Hidalgo has clout and international recognition. Michael Bloomberg is a friend.In the provinces, however, she is relatively unknown. A feel for “la France profonde,” or the rural soul of the country, is an important credential for any would-be president. Jacques Chirac, first Paris mayor and then president, made much of his links to the southwestern Corrèze region.Carole Delga, the popular Socialist president of the southwestern Occitanie region, called Ms. Hidalgo, who has been mayor of Paris since 2014, “a solid captain” for the left. Olivier Faure, the leader of the Socialist Party, tasked with rebuilding it after a humiliating defeat in the 2017 presidential election, hailed Ms. Hidalgo as his choice. He urged the crowd in Blois to recall the “fervor of 1981” that swept François Mitterrand and the left to power for the first time in the Fifth Republic.Just eight months before the April 2022 election, the left will need a very sudden advent of fervor and unity if it is to have any chance of winning.Uncertain how to address a French preoccupation with security and immigration, and facing a generational fracture over identity politics, the left’s disarray has allowed Mr. Macron to tilt rightward for votes.Journalists followed Ms. Hidalgo as she entered a movie theater that was the site of a debate in Blois.Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times“Division is loss,” said Benoît Hamon, who won just 6.36 percent of the vote as the Socialist Party candidate in 2017. “We will not be in the second round of the presidential election if there is not a single candidate of the left.”Others have different ideas. They include Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the far-left France Unbowed; Green leaders including Yannick Jadot and Eric Piolle; and Socialists angered by what they see as efforts to install Ms. Hidalgo ahead of a party primary starting Sept. 18.For now, nobody has shown much inclination to step aside. The Greens were incensed when Mr. Faure, the Socialist leader, suggested they had an electoral “ceiling” that would make any environmentalist presidential candidate unelectable.As François Hollande, the former Socialist president, observed recently, “It’s not unity that creates power, it’s power that creates unity” — and for now the left seems bereft of the momentum or conviction that delivers force. Hence, it seems, the Socialist push to get behind Ms. Hidalgo quickly and change the conversation.“We are all part of the same family,” said Mr. Piolle, the mayor of Grenoble and a potential presidential candidate. “But the climate crisis and issues of identity politics have jostled us.”Ms. Hidalgo with Yannick Jadot, a Green lawmaker for France in the European Parliament, in Blois. Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesAll year, the left has fought over whether France’s universalist, supposedly colorblind model — the one that welcomed Ms. Hidalgo and propelled her upward — still functions, or whether it serves as camouflage for racism and hypocrisy.The battle has come to a head over various issues, including a French student union’s decision to hold “non-mixed” meetings so that particular groups — Blacks or Muslims, for example — could air their views and any grievances among themselves.Mr. Mélenchon, the far-left leader, saw no problem. Julien Bayou, the national secretary of the main Green party, called the meetings “useful and necessary.” But Manuel Valls, a former Socialist prime minister, told Europe 1 radio that “When you organize racialized meetings, you legitimize the concept of race, and this is unacceptable.”This view echoed much of the Socialist mainstream, not to mention all the outraged right.Danièle Obono, a Black lawmaker from France Unbowed, told me that Mr. Valls was “an absolute traitor” to the left. “French laïcité is something that must be debated,” she said, alluding to the French secular model that wants to see only undifferentiated citizens.These are the kinds of divisions that Ms. Hidalgo will have to overcome. The Paris mayor is clearly a universalist, a passionate believer in the capacity for good of the French model that benefited millions of immigrants, before a large North African Muslim influx presented challenges that often proved overwhelming.In Blois, Ms. Hidalgo took up what will clearly be core themes of her eventual campaign: the urgency of a job-creating transformation to tackle climate change and the fight against a degree of “inequality that leads people to lose faith in the institutions of the Republic.”“A child today would not have the same chances I had,” she said.Ms. Hidalgo, standing fourth from left, with other Socialist officials in the courtyard of the Chateau de Blois on Friday.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesHélène le Roux, a state employee, had mixed feelings about Ms. Hidalgo. “I like the idea of the left being carried forward by a woman in a country that is still very paternalistic and macho,” she said. “But I am not sure she has the political presence across the country — and her image is very center left.”If the left’s challenges appear daunting, they are perhaps not yet insuperable. Eight months before the 2017 election, Mr. Macron’s chances appeared remote. Ms. Hidalgo, allying herself with the Greens, defeated a candidate from Mr. Macron’s party to be re-elected Paris mayor in 2020. She has a streak of tactical ruthlessness.The long pandemic and accompanying economic problems appear to have created a greater appetite for a strong state both in Europe and the United States. Support for social solidarity over unfettered global capitalism is rising. Olaf Scholz, the Social Democratic candidate, is a leading contender in the German elections this month. In French regional elections in June, the Socialists performed well.Still, as Philippe Labro, an author and political observer, remarked, “France today is squarely on the right.” Terrorism, insecurity, fear and perceptions of unrestrained immigration pushed the country there. The left has had no clear answer, not Ms. Hidalgo, not anyone.The Chateau de Blois is notable in French history because in 1429 Joan of Arc stopped there for a blessing before defeating the English at Orléans. Her name came up, of course, as French Socialists appear ready to put their faith in a woman facing a tough campaign and unlikely odds. More

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      Snap Out of It, America: Give Kids the Right to Vote

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      This essay is part of a series exploring bold ideas to revitalize and renew the American experiment. Read more about this project in a note from Ezekiel Kweku, Opinion’s politics editor.

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      The 2020 presidential election saw the highest vote total in any American election ever, driven by a historic increase in turnout among eligible voters. Even so, the total number of voters amounted to just 48 percent of the population measured in the 2020 census. Most people living in America either could not or did not cast a vote.For each group of people prohibited from casting a vote, there is some rationale, Noncitizens are not formally part of the body politic; democracies since Athens have included franchise restrictions as punishment for criminals; children can’t make well-informed rational choices. Many people may disagree with one or several of these choices. Maybe denying the franchise to felons is unjust given bias in the criminal justice system, or perhaps permanent residents should be allowed to vote, as they often could in the 19th century.But of these three groups, there is only one where the justification for denying the vote is based in irrational animus: the denial of the franchise to children.This is an injustice that should be corrected. All citizens should be allowed to vote, regardless of their age. The minimum voting age should be zero, with parents and guardians casting the vote for their small children. As those children grow older, parents can include the vote in the gradual increase in independence and responsibility given to young people, until finally their children vote for themselves, likely in their early teen years.Such a policy is not only imperative on the basis of nondiscrimination, but it would also improve our political system. This idea may sound strange, but it may be just the political corrective our society needs.The intuitive explanation for the prohibition against children voting is that they are incapable of understanding the issues. However, were governments to impose an IQ test for the ballot box, it would be plainly unconstitutional; “literacy tests” for voters have a terrible legacy. Were people with cognitive impairments denied the vote as a class, this would be considered discriminatory on its face and, frankly, bigoted (and even the individual cases of “mental incompetence” being used to deny the franchise have rightly provoked anger).Yet when our society’s hostility toward children manifests in the view that they can be denied the vote on the exact grounds we would all see as bigoted in any other case, it is unremarkable. Nor do many common proposals to lower the voting age do much to address this critique. Lowering it to 16, as Andrew Yang proposed, on the ground that 16-year-olds are old enough to drive or work simply preserves the underlying bias that would limit the franchise to the smart and the rich.Many people can follow this argument so far: Let any kid old enough to pull the lever do so. But even this creates an inconsistent standard, since paralyzed people, for example, have a right to physical assistance in the voting booth.If older people with dementia can be escorted into the voting booth by a family member who will assist their decision, as they can be under the Voting Rights Act, it’s difficult to explain why small children with an incomplete understanding of the process couldn’t be assisted by those who are raising them in the same way. The results of that election will affect a child’s life for far longer an elderly person’s.The electoral innovations of 2020 reveal the inadequacy of many other critiques. Mail-in voting has now been tested in many states and, while some conservatives (myself included) have concerns about the lack of privacy and security afforded by this system, the broad popularity of mail-in voting is likely to make it endure.And as long as we have mail-in voting, it’s ridiculous to act as if families making collective voting decisions together, or even filling out their ballots in full view of one another, is bad. My wife and I completed our absentee ballots side by side (disclosure: she doesn’t think our 19-month-old should be allowed to vote). We might worry that parents would pressure children to make votes they don’t want to make, but that is no justification for denying children the vote. We already trust parents in numerous far more sensitive domains, and we do not apply such concerns about undue pressure in other instances, like older people living with their children.In other words, if we simply apply the same principles to children that we apply throughout the rest of our democracy, the logical conclusion is obvious: The voting age should be “at birth,” and parents should be able to provide whatever degree of assistance is necessary to enable their children to have their interests represented. That a child is too young to speak or walk is no argument against child voting, since many other nonverbal, immobile people who need daily assistance are also allowed to vote.But child voting should not be favored simply on the grounds that we must allow it in order to avoid discrimination. Child voting is not a necessary evil, it’s good. The choice to deny the vote to children creates absurd policy dynamics: The Congressional Budget Office scores the cost of important policies like a carbon tax or an expansion of the child tax credit on a 10-year baseline, with an electorate that is, on average, just a bit more than 10 years away from retirement.And although parents as a class will never perfectly represent their children’s values and interests, they are likely to do a pretty good job — and we already trust them to make many other decisions on behalf of their children. Moreover, political preferences are fairly heritable, which means parents are likely a decent proxy for what their children would believe were they adults, at least on average.Adding children into the electorate, and adding parents who care about the long-term outlook for their children’s lives, will help offset the overweening (and often destructive) political power of retirees. Our politics are short-termist where they should be forward-looking. Giving children the vote will make it easier to build political coalitions around investments in the future even if their 10-year C.B.O. score is hefty.Extending the franchise to birth will also function as a valuable form of societal catechesis. Modern, post-materialist societies have invented the pernicious life stage of “youth” as socially separate from childhood and adulthood, creating a period where young people are functionally adults in terms of their capacities, but persist in the habits of children, devoid of serious responsibility.This change has created generations of narcissists, from the boomers to Gen Z. Abolishing one of the key markers of the end of adolescence and allowing children of any age to assume adult responsibilities whenever they are ready will help young people leap directly from childhood to “adulting.”Finally, much has been made of America’s lowest-in-history birthrates. Proposals to lift those rates have ranged from large cash transfers to parents, to child care, to maternity leave, to a renewal of nationalism and religious revival. Debates about the gendered politics around fertility can become rancorous. But offering children the vote would be an excellent form of soft, egalitarian natalism.Giving children the vote wouldn’t make a direct transfer of any kind to parents, but it would help to change the social narrative around children: They would no longer be just a burden we pay for until they hit the labor force. They would be part of society, valuable stakeholders, with worthwhile voices of their own.Giving children votes would communicate to parents and to children as they mature that wider society is invested in preparing for a better future, in listening to their ideas, and partnering in their ambitions. It would recognize the valuable work done by parents all around the country every day in making box lunches, waiting in lines to drop off their youngsters at school, and rocking a crying child back to sleep. And it would say to every child, “There is plenty of room in the American story for you.”Lyman Stone (@lymanstoneky) is a demographer, an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a research fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, and a Robert Novak journalism fellow.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.hed More

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      It’s Election Season in Germany. No Charisma, Please!

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      The race to replace Chancellor Angela Merkel after 16 years in office is the tightest in years. But the two leading candidates are anything but exciting, and that’s how Germans like it.BERLIN — The most popular politician who would like to be chancellor isn’t on the ballot. The leading candidate is so boring people compare him to a machine. Instead of “Yes, We Can!” voters are being fired up with promises of “Stability.”Germany is having its most important election in a generation but you would never know it. The newspaper Die Welt recently asked in a headline: “Is this the most boring election ever?”Yes and no.The campaign to replace Chancellor Angela Merkel after 16 years of her dominating German and European politics is the tightest in Germany since 2005, and it just got tighter. The Social Democrats, written off as recently as a month ago, have overtaken Ms. Merkel’s conservatives for the first time in years.But the campaign has also revealed a charisma vacuum that is at once typical of postwar German politics and exceptional for just how bland Ms. Merkel’s two most likely successors are. No party is polling more than 25 percent, and for much of the race the candidate the public has preferred was none of the above.Whoever wins, however, will have the job of shepherding the continent’s largest economy, making that person one of Europe’s most important leaders, which has left some observers wondering if the charisma deficit will extend to a leadership deficit as well.While the election outcome may be exciting, the two leading candidates are anything but.A campaign billboard in Berlin featuring Mr. Scholz — sometimes known as the “Scholz-o-mat.”John Macdougall/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesLess than a month before the vote, the field is being led by two male suit-wearing career politicians — one balding, one bespectacled, both over 60 — who represent the parties that have governed the country jointly for the better part of two decades.There is Armin Laschet, the governor of the western state of North-Rhine Westphalia, who is running for Ms. Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats. And then there is Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat who is Ms. Merkel’s finance minister and vice chancellor.The candidate of change, Annalena Baerbock, the 40-year-old co-leader of the Greens, has a bold reform agenda and plenty of verve — and has been lagging in the polls after a brief surge in the polls before the summer.It’s a nail-biter, German-style: Who can most effectively channel stability and continuity? Or put another way: Who can channel Ms. Merkel?For now it seems to be Mr. Scholz — a man Germans have long known as the “Scholz-o-mat” or the “Scholz machine” — a technocrat and veteran politician who can seem almost robotically on message. Where others have slipped up in the campaign, he has avoided mistakes, mostly by saying very little.“Most citizens know who I am,” was Mr. Scholz’s pitch to his party before being anointed chancellor candidate, conspicuously echoing Ms. Merkel’s iconic 2013 line to voters: “You know me.”More recently one of his campaign ads showed his reassuring smile with a caption using the female form of the word chancellor, telling voters that he has what it takes to lead the country even though he is a man. “Angela the second,” was the title of a Scholz profile in the magazine Der Spiegel this week.Mr. Scholz has tried so hard to perfect the art of embodying the chancellor’s aura of stability and calm that he has even been photographed holding his hands before him in the chancellor’s signature diamond shape — making what is known as the Merkel rhombus.Mr. Scholz at a campaign rally last week in Berlin. Opponents say he’s trying to sound like Chancellor Merkel.Florian Gaertner/Photothek, via Getty Images“Scholz is trying to be Merkel’s clone all the way down to the rhombus,” said John Kornblum, a former American ambassador to Germany who has been living in Berlin on and off since the 1960s. “The guy everyone likes best is the most boring guy in the election — maybe in the country. He makes watching water boil seem exciting.”But Germans, political observers point out, love boring.“There are few countries where such a premium is put on being dull,” said Timothy Garton Ash, a professor of European history at the University of Oxford who has written about the country.It’s not that Germans are resistant to charisma. When Barack Obama was running for president and delivered a rousing speech at the victory column in Berlin in 2008, 100,000 Germans cheered him on.But they don’t want it in their own politicians. That’s because the last time Germany had a rousing leader it didn’t end well, noted Jan Böhmermann, a popular TV-host and comedian.The haunting memory of Hitler’s Nazi party winning office in free elections has shaped Germany’s postwar democracy in various ways, Mr. Böhmermann said, “and one of them is that charisma is banned from politics.”Andrea Römmele, dean of the Berlin-based Hertie School, put it this way: “A Trump character could never become chancellor here.”Paradoxically, that’s at least in part thanks to an electoral system bequeathed to Germany by America and its Allies after World War II. Unlike in the American presidential system, German voters don’t get to elect their chancellor directly. They vote for parties; the parties’ share of the vote determines their share of the seats in Parliament; and then Parliament elects the chancellor.And because it just about always takes more than one party to form a government — and this time probably three — you can’t be too rude about the people you might rely on to be your coalition partners.“Your rival today might be your finance minister tomorrow,” Ms. Römmele said.Mr. Laschet, center, campaigning door to door last week in Berlin. He has promised to “secure stability.”Michael Kappeler/Picture Alliance, via Getty ImagesAs for the chancellor candidates, they are not chosen in primaries but by party officials who tend to pick people like themselves: career politicians who have given years of service to the party machine.Being good on television and connecting with voters doesn’t cut it, said Jürgen Falter, an electoral expert at the University of Mainz. “It’s a strict oligarchic system,” he said. “If we had primaries, Markus Söder would have been the candidate.”Mr. Söder, Bavaria’s ambitious governor, has heaps of beer-tent charisma and is the most popular politician in the country after Ms. Merkel herself. He was eager to run for chancellor, but the conservatives picked Mr. Laschet, a longstanding Merkel ally, not least, Ms. Römmele said, because at the time he looked most like “the continuity candidate.”But Mr. Scholz has beaten him at his game. During a televised debate between the chancellor candidates last Sunday, an exasperated Mr. Laschet accused Mr. Scholz of trying to “sound like Ms. Merkel.”“I find I sound like Olaf Scholz,” Mr. Scholz replied deadpan.“These days you’re doing the rhombus,” Mr. Laschet hit back — before himself invoking the chancellor in his closing statement.“Stability and reliability in difficult times,” he said. “That’s what marked us from Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl to Angela Merkel. The team C.D.U. wants to secure stability.”Recent polls give Mr. Scholz’ Social Democrats the edge with between 23 and 25 percent, followed by 20 to 22 percent for Mr. Laschet’s Christian Democrats, or C.D.U., and around 17 percent for the Greens.From second left: Mr. Laschet, Annalena Baerbock of the Green Party, and Mr. Scholz during a televised debate on Sunday.Pool photo by Michael KappelerTo his fans, Mr. Scholz is a voice of calm and confidence, a pragmatist from Germany’s taciturn north who represents the elusive silent majority. “Liberal, but not stupid,” is how he once described himself.But critics note that while crises have come crashing down on the election campaign — epic floods, the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, the pandemic — a sense of urgency is missing from the campaigns of the two leading candidates.Much like Mr. Laschet, Mr. Scholz talks about tackling climate change but above all promises stable pensions, safe jobs, a balanced budget and not getting out of coal too soon.“The big story is that we have a world in crisis and there isn’t any sense of real crisis in Germany,” said Mr. Garton Ash of Oxford University.A bold vision for change has never been a vote winner in Germany. Konrad Adenauer, the first postwar chancellor, won an absolute majority for the Christian Democrats by promising “No Experiments.” Helmut Schmidt, a Social Democrat, once famously said, “If you have visions you should go to the doctor.”As for Ms. Merkel, she has come to embody Germany’s distinctive political tradition of change through consensus perhaps more than any of her predecessors by co-governing with her traditional opponents for three out of her four terms.Mr. Böhmermann, the comedian, calls this a “democratic state of emergency” for Germany. “You could say we were well-managed over the last 16 years — or you could say we were anesthetized for 16 years.”“We need vision,” he lamented. “No one dares to articulate a clear political vision, especially the main candidates.”Chancellor Merkel last week at the Parliament in Berlin.Filip Singer/EPA, via ShutterstockChristopher F. Schuetze More

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      Venezuela Opposition Parties Will Take Part in November Elections

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      The opposition parties grouped in the so-called Unitary Platform and led by Juan Guaidó announced a reversal of their stance of boycotting recent votes.CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelan opposition parties announced Tuesday that they will participate in the regional and municipal elections scheduled for November, reversing their previous stance of boycotting recent votes.The announcement came days before the opposition and the government of President Nicolás Maduro are expected to meet in Mexico City to continue negotiations on finding a common path out of Venezuela’s political standoff. Both sides agreed to discuss electoral matters as part of the dialogue, which officially began earlier this month.The regional and municipal elections are scheduled for Nov. 21.The opposition parties grouped in the so-called Unitary Platform and led by Juan Guaidó boycotted previous elections, including the re-election of Mr. Maduro as president in May 2018, arguing that Venezuela lacked the conditions for free and just contests.The group decided to participate in the upcoming elections after a “difficult internal deliberation,” motivated by the serious challenges facing the country and the “urgency to find permanent solutions,” according to a statement issued by the group.The decision to enter the elections was agreed to by various parties, including Voluntad Popular, of which Mr. Guaidó is a member.Millions of Venezuelans live in poverty amid low wages and high food prices resulting from the world’s worst inflation rate. The food assistance agency of the United Nations has estimated that one of every three Venezuelans is struggling to consume enough daily calories.The country’s political, social and economic crises, attributed to plummeting oil prices and two decades of government mismanagement, have continued to deepen with the pandemic.“We know that these elections will not be fair, conventional elections; the dictatorship has imposed serious obstacles that put the expression of change of the Venezuelan people at risk; however, we understand that it will be a useful field of struggle” toward future presidential and legislative elections, the group’s statement said.Following the announcement, Mr. Maduro in televised remarks said that the “popular sovereignty has been reimposed.”“I’m going to sit in my armchair, with the TV on and my popcorn, to see Juan Guaidó voting on Nov. 21,” Mr. Maduro said. “And there, I will applaud because we managed to include him in democracy again.” More

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      Colombia’s Troubles Put a President’s Legacy on the Line

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      SEOUL — Iván Duque swept into Colombia’s presidency in 2018 as a young, little-known technocrat riding a surging right-wing movement. He tapped public anger against a peace deal that he said had treated the country’s deadly insurgents too softly. And he warned that the proposals of his left-wing opponent could stifle steady growth.Three years and a global pandemic later, it is Mr. Duque who is presiding over high unemployment and an angry electorate — and who is on the defensive about the steps he has taken to tame persistent violence by militants.Mr. Duque contends his policies have opened opportunities for the middle- and low-income classes, encouraged entrepreneurship and paved the way for Colombia to return to its prepandemic growth. He also touted social policies that could address issues of police conduct and social inequality that led to violent clashes this year, killing dozens.Mr. Duque after he won office in 2018, riding a surging right-wing movement. Three years into his term, he is presiding over high unemployment and an angry electorate.Andres Stapff/Reuters“The three pillars of our overall plan of government, which were legality, entrepreneurship and equality, have been producing results,” Mr. Duque said last week in an interview in South Korea with The New York Times. “Obviously, they were affected by the pandemic. But I think we have demonstrated our resilient spirit.”Mr. Duque’s legacy — and that of his patron, the firebrand former President Álvaro Uribe, who still dominates Colombian politics — is on the line. Colombian voters go to the polls in May, when Gustavo Petro, a former presidential candidate, previous mayor of Bogotá and a onetime guerrilla member, could become the country’s furthest-left leader in its history at a time when leftists are again claiming victories across South America.Mr. Duque can’t run again because of term limits, and his party’s candidate hasn’t been determined. Still, his government faces some of the lowest approval ratings of his presidency. Colombia’s economy, trade and investment from abroad were hit hard by the coronavirus, which exacerbated long-running social tensions over stark wealth inequality and police conduct.Colombia’s economy, trade and investment from abroad were hit hard by the coronavirus, which exacerbated long-running social tensions.Federico Rios for The New York TimesHe has also come under increased pressure to tame Colombia’s armed insurgencies and hasten the fulfillment of the government’s peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by the Spanish acronym FARC, despite his criticism of the terms of the deal on the 2018 campaign trail.In South Korea, Mr. Duque was seeking trade and investment opportunities, such as expansions by Korean manufacturers and increased sales of Colombian coffee, avocados and bananas. He even cited the filming of a South Korean movie — Mr. Duque has long championed creative investments in areas like the arts and research — in Bogotá.The president is trying “to get South Korean investors interested in playing big ball,” said Sergio Guzmán, of the Bogotá-based consulting firm Colombia Risk Analysis.The challenge for Mr. Duque, Mr. Guzmán added, is that a victory by Mr. Petro could undo what he and his predecessors had accomplished.“He’s a weak president,” said Mr. Guzmán. “He’s a lame-duck president. He’s a president whose most important legacy will be for his successor not to be able to undo his own policies.”FARC rebels in the mountains of Colombia in 2018. Mr. Duque has come under increased pressure to tame Colombia’s armed insurgencies.Federico Rios for The New York TimesMr. Duque disputed that, saying that his efforts — including wage subsidies and a proposal to widen university access — could help put the economy back on track. Though a protégé of Mr. Uribe, the charismatic leader who revved up the government’s offensive against FARC nearly two decades ago, Mr. Duque never fully fit the populist mold. Born into a politically prominent family, the 45-year-old president worked for years in development banking. He speaks in clipped, think-tank English: “I will give you very concise numbers,” he said at one point before doing exactly that.He was elected after campaigning on increasing economic growth and changing the terms of the peace accord with FARC, but he quickly ran into challenges. In 2019, frustration over the lack of opportunities and possible pension changes sparked mass protests. So did a tax proposal this year meant to close a fiscal hole exacerbated by the pandemic.Mr. Duque’s tax proposal had merit, said Luis Fernando Mejía, director of the Colombian research institute Fedesarrollo, but he seemed unable to sell it to the public.The firebrand former President Álvaro Uribe, who still dominates Colombian politics.Federico Rios for The New York Times“It was a very, very good reform,” he said, “but he was not able to consolidate political capital and to create an adequate strategy to push through a reform that I think had been very important.”Mr. Duque is also trying to thread the policy needle in a polarized time, making it increasing difficult to please both his party’s base and unhappy voters.The tax protests became part of broader unrest over inequality and police violence. Some police used brutal and deadly force on demonstrators.In the interview, Mr. Duque cited his efforts to increase scrutiny on the police and to equip them with body cameras. But he said some of the demonstrators had been spurred by “people producing fake news” and other instigators to elevate the violence.His trickiest balancing act may be enacting the peace accord with FARC. In 2019, his effort to alter the terms, including tougher sentencing for war crimes, failed on legal grounds. Internationally, he is under intense pressure to carry out the accord, but domestically, his party and other conservatives continue to criticize it.Students protesting against changes to the tax code in Bogotá, the capital, in 2019.Juan Barreto/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesJust weeks ahead of the deal’s five-year anniversary, more than half of its measures have not been applied or have barely begun, according to the Kroc Institute at the University of Notre Dame, an independent entity charged with oversight of the deal. Opposition groups and some of the electorate say Mr. Duque missed a critical window to push it forward.Mr. Duque and his supporters point to the accord’s time frame, which calls for its tenets to be enacted over 15 years. In the interview, he said that he had done more than his predecessor, Juan Manuel Santos, to put in place the peace deal’s landownership overhauls and development plans that would give poor farmers and former rebels jobs and opportunities.“We have been not only implementing, but the issues that we have been implementing are going to be decisive for the evolution of the accords,” he said, adding, “We have made a good progress.”Mr. Duque must balance competing interests overseas, as well. Tensions have risen between the United States — Colombia’s longtime ally — and China, a growing source of business for the country. China, Colombia’s second-largest trading partner after the United States, has invested in mines in the country and successfully bid on engineering contracts.A temporary hospital set up in April to house Covid patients in Bogotá.Federico Rios for The New York TimesMr. Duque said that the Chinese companies had won the work in open bids and that relations with the United States remained warm. “We try to build our relationship with our partners based on investment and trade and common opportunities. But usually I have to highlight that in the case of the United States, our alliance has been existing for almost 200 years, and we will continue to see the United States as No. 1.”With the United States, relations hit an awkward moment last year when members of Mr. Duque’s party endorsed Donald J. Trump and Republicans in the election, provoking a rare rebuke from the U.S. ambassador.“I think that was unwise,” Mr. Duque said. “I think that should have not been done.”These examples of polarization, he said, have complicated efforts to fix deep-rooted problems. The world is polarized, he said, as people “connect demagoguery and populism with violent sentiments and algorithms and people producing fake news and manipulating the truth.”He added, “That’s why we have concentrated in our administration not to promote polarization, but to move the country to the right direction.”Gustavo Petro, center, during a protest against tax changes in 2019. A former presidential candidate, he could become the country’s furthest-left leader in its history.Juan Barreto/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesCarlos Tejada More

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      President Duterte Plans to Run for the Vice Presidency

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      The president of the Philippines says he’ll run for the vice presidency next year. Critics see a plot to avoid prosecution for the killings in his drug war.MANILA — Rodrigo Duterte has dominated politics in the Philippines since becoming president five years ago, with an antidrug crusade blamed for thousands of extrajudicial killings and a pressure campaign against opposition leaders and the news media.Now, with mere months left in his six-year term, his opponents fear he is laying the groundwork to stay in power for years to come.Mr. Duterte announced this week that he intended to run for the vice presidency in the elections next May. Critics say it is a blatant attempt by Mr. Duterte, 76, to save himself from his “political sins” as he confronts possible prosecution by the International Criminal Court. An I.C.C. report last year said there was sufficient evidence to show that crimes against humanity had been committed in Mr. Duterte’s bloody drug war, which has left thousands dead.But Mr. Duterte says he still has unfinished business, chiefly the drug war and his fight against the country’s Communist insurgency.“I may not have the power to give direction or guidance, but I can always express my views in public,” he said of his potential new role as vice president.He has long flirted with the idea of staying on in government, though he repeatedly said during the past year that he was tired of the presidency, which he claimed had taken a toll on his health.Then, late Wednesday, during a nationally televised cabinet meeting, Mr. Duterte said unequivocally: “All right, I will run for the vice presidency. Then I will continue the crusade.”The political and defense analyst Chester Cabalza, founder of the Manila-based International Development and Security Cooperation, a research institute, said Mr. Duterte’s decision was clearly meant to save him from prosecution.Jimboy Bolasa, 25, of Manila was found dead in 2016 with gunshot wounds and signs of torture. His killing was one of thousands that have been attributed to Mr. Duterte’s drug war. Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times“However, international laws are tested to have teeth against world leaders who have committed crimes against humanity,” Mr. Cabalza said in an interview. “And this will not spare him from his political sins.”In addition, he said, Mr. Duterte likes to be portrayed as the man in charge, and playing second fiddle is clearly not his style.“We will see clashes and divides if this happens,” Mr. Cabalza said, adding that the president’s fading health could also work against him.In the Philippines, the president and vice president are elected separately, with each serving a single six-year term. The Constitution bars a president from seeking re-election, but it allows him or her to run for a lower office afterward.Two graft-tainted former presidents, Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, were elected to other public offices after their terms as leader of the country ended.There is no legal reason why Mr. Duterte cannot be prosecuted as president, but he has made it clear that he would defy any summons by the international court. A vice president would have less power to do so, but Mr. Duterte hopes to run in tandem with Senator Christopher Lawrence Go as the presidential candidate.If both men win, political experts say, Mr. Go can either resign to allow Mr. Duterte to step in as leader or let Mr. Duterte rule the country by proxy, ensuring he escapes prosecution.Harry Roque, the president’s spokesman, confirmed on Thursday said that all Mr. Duterte was waiting for now was for Mr. Go “to make up his mind” about his candidacy.Mr. Go did not return a phone call requesting comment and has not publicly addressed the issue of running for president. In a statement to local reporters, he said of Mr. Duterte: “I promised him that I will serve him as long as he lives. And that promise includes taking care of his children when he is gone.”Mr. Duterte hopes to run in tandem with Senator Christopher Lawrence Go, left, as the presidential candidate.King Rodrigues/Presidential Photo Division, via Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Duterte’s decision puts him on a collision course with his daughter, Sara Duterte, the mayor of the city of Davao. She has shored up popularity as a potential successor to his father but is not a member of his political party.She appeared not to be amused by the latest development. She said that her father had informed her ahead of time about his decision and that “it was not a pleasant event.”Mr. Roque, for his part, said he did not wish to comment on an internal “family affair.”Among other figures who have indicated they planned to contest the presidency are Senator Manny Pacquiao, the boxing star who parlayed his sports popularity into a career in politics; Francisco Domagoso, the current mayor of Manila, who was once a matinee idol known as Isko Moreno; and Vice President Leni Robredo, the opposition leader, who is a lawyer and a former member of Congress.The former congressman Neri Colmenares, a human rights lawyer, said Mr. Duterte’s announcement appeared to be an attempt to perpetuate his own political dynasty. He suggested that the president was exploiting the Constitution.Mr. Duterte remains popular in the impoverished Philippines, though his luster has been dimmed somewhat by corruption allegations and the extrajudicial killings, according to various surveys. Corruption accusations have also hounded Mr. Duterte’s Covid-19 response; he has refused to fire his health secretary over discrepancies in the accounting of state funds.“He is now a lame duck and will surely lose in the 2022 elections,” Mr. Colmenares predicted.Mr. Colmenares, who is one of a group of lawyers who brought charges against Mr. Duterte before the I.C.C., added, “His craving for immunity only shows he is afraid of the International Criminal Court after all his bluster of being a fearless president.”The only way for Mr. Duterte to escape prosecution is for him to stay on as president, Mr. Colmenares added, and the only way he can do that is through the back door.“He’s hoping to escape prosecution after he is out of power,” he said. “It is not only legally insane, but also exposes his real fear of going to prison.” More

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      Facebook Said to Consider Forming an Election Commission

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      The social network has contacted academics to create a group to advise it on thorny election-related decisions, said people with knowledge of the matter.Facebook has approached academics and policy experts about forming a commission to advise it on global election-related matters, said five people with knowledge of the discussions, a move that would allow the social network to shift some of its political decision-making to an advisory body.The proposed commission could decide on matters such as the viability of political ads and what to do about election-related misinformation, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the discussions were confidential. Facebook is expected to announce the commission this fall in preparation for the 2022 midterm elections, they said, though the effort is preliminary and could still fall apart.Outsourcing election matters to a panel of experts could help Facebook sidestep criticism of bias by political groups, two of the people said. The company has been blasted in recent years by conservatives, who have accused Facebook of suppressing their voices, as well as by civil rights groups and Democrats for allowing political misinformation to fester and spread online. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, does not want to be seen as the sole decision maker on political content, two of the people said.Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, testified remotely in April about social media’s role in extremism and misinformation. Via ReutersFacebook declined to comment.If an election commission is formed, it would emulate the step Facebook took in 2018 when it created what it calls the Oversight Board, a collection of journalism, legal and policy experts who adjudicate whether the company was correct to remove certain posts from its platforms. Facebook has pushed some content decisions to the Oversight Board for review, allowing it to show that it does not make determinations on its own.Facebook, which has positioned the Oversight Board as independent, appointed the people on the panel and pays them through a trust.The Oversight Board’s highest-profile decision was reviewing Facebook’s suspension of former President Donald J. Trump after the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol. At the time, Facebook opted to ban Mr. Trump’s account indefinitely, a penalty that the Oversight Board later deemed “not appropriate” because the time frame was not based on any of the company’s rules. The board asked Facebook to try again.In June, Facebook responded by saying that it would bar Mr. Trump from the platform for at least two years. The Oversight Board has separately weighed in on more than a dozen other content cases that it calls “highly emblematic” of broader themes that Facebook grapples with regularly, including whether certain Covid-related posts should remain up on the network and hate speech issues in Myanmar.A spokesman for the Oversight Board declined to comment.Facebook has had a spotty track record on election-related issues, going back to Russian manipulation of the platform’s advertising and posts in the 2016 presidential election.Lawmakers and political ad buyers also criticized Facebook for changing the rules around political ads before the 2020 presidential election. Last year, the company said it would bar the purchase of new political ads the week before the election, then later decided to temporarily ban all U.S. political advertising after the polls closed on Election Day, causing an uproar among candidates and ad-buying firms.The company has struggled with how to handle lies and hate speech around elections. During his last year in office, Mr. Trump used Facebook to suggest he would use state violence against protesters in Minneapolis ahead of the 2020 election, while casting doubt on the electoral process as votes were tallied in November. Facebook initially said that what political leaders posted was newsworthy and should not be touched, before later reversing course.The social network has also faced difficulties in elections elsewhere, including the proliferation of targeted disinformation across its WhatsApp messaging service during the Brazilian presidential election in 2018. In 2019, Facebook removed hundreds of misleading pages and accounts associated with political parties in India ahead of the country’s national elections.Facebook has tried various methods to stem the criticisms. It established a political ads library to increase transparency around buyers of those promotions. It also has set up war rooms to monitor elections for disinformation to prevent interference.There are several elections in the coming year in countries such as Hungary, Germany, Brazil and the Philippines where Facebook’s actions will be closely scrutinized. Voter fraud misinformation has already begun spreading ahead of German elections in September. In the Philippines, Facebook has removed networks of fake accounts that support President Rodrigo Duterte, who used the social network to gain power in 2016.“There is already this perception that Facebook, an American social media company, is going in and tilting elections of other countries through its platform,” said Nathaniel Persily, a law professor at Stanford University. “Whatever decisions Facebook makes have global implications.”Internal conversations around an election commission date back to at least a few months ago, said three people with knowledge of the matter. An election commission would differ from the Oversight Board in one key way, the people said. While the Oversight Board waits for Facebook to remove a post or an account and then reviews that action, the election commission would proactively provide guidance without the company having made an earlier call, they said.Tatenda Musapatike, who previously worked on elections at Facebook and now runs a nonprofit voter registration organization, said that many have lost faith in the company’s abilities to work with political campaigns. But the election commission proposal was “a good step,” she said, because “they’re doing something and they’re not saying we alone can handle it.” More