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      Dueling Claims to Power. Broken Institutions. How Does Haiti Fix This?

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      Other countries have faced similar challenges, often with poor results, from protracted limbo to, in the worst cases, civil war.PARIS — Battered by gang violence and corruption, its Parliament near vacant, its judiciary in tatters, its Constitution subject to dispute, its poverty crushing and its history a chronicle of unrest, Haiti was in bad shape even before its president was assassinated and rival factions laid claim to power.Now, it’s in meltdown.“Haitian democracy has been slipping away for a long time and with each round it’s been getting worse,” said Peter Mulrean, a former United States ambassador to Haiti. “There is not much left to save.”Claude Joseph, the interim prime minister, and eight of the 10 remaining members of Parliament in the entire country of 11 million people have both said they have a legitimate right to assume power and fill Haiti’s vacuum of authority.Mr. Joseph, as the incumbent, has tepid backing from a Biden administration desperate not to be sucked into a quagmire. The vestigial Senate, having been elected, has some legal imprimatur, but is dogged by accusations of corruption and self-dealing.When power is disputed, institutional strength and the rule of law become paramount. Haiti has little or none. It finds itself in a desperate void. As the battle for power escalates, there is scarcely a Haitian democratic institution standing that can adjudicate the dispute stemming from the assassination of the president, Jovenel Moïse, in his home on Wednesday.After the last United States election result was contested, a mob incited by former President Trump stormed the capitol on Jan. 6, but American legal checks and balances held in the end. Further violence was averted, but only just.Haiti’s interim prime minister, Claude Joseph, claims to be in charge of the country. Haiti’s senate says he is not.Joseph Odelyn/Associated PressAbsent strong institutions, some powerful international investment in stability is critical. Afghanistan is scarcely more stable than Haiti. Neither state can make a claim to have a monopoly on the use of organized violence within its own borders, a classic definition of a government’s authority.Yet Afghanistan overcame a similar crisis last year. After the 2020 election, both the incumbent, Ashraf Ghani, and his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, claimed victory. Mr. Abdullah initially denounced the election result as a “coup.” A violent clash seemed possible. But the United States, through intense diplomacy, was able to mediate a compromise.“The United States had troops in the country,” said Barnett Rubin, a former State Department official with deep knowledge of Afghanistan. “It had advisers. It was invested. It was tacitly on Mr. Ghani’s side.”The United States had an overriding national interest in resolving the conflict and opening the way for peace talks with the Taliban — even if those efforts seem fleeting now that the United States is withdrawing its troops and the Taliban advances across the country.In Haiti, there is no clear rule of law nor any indication that the United States is eager to intervene militarily and force a resolution. If it has any national interest, it lies in preventing upheaval so close to its shores and avoiding another mass Haitian migrant exodus like the one that followed the 1991 coup that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.The potential for the crisis in Haiti to worsen is evident. Mr. Joseph immediately declared “a state of siege,” a form of martial law, but his right to do so was unclear. In many ways rampant gang violence had already reduced Haiti to a condition resembling a country under siege.The Senate, or what’s left of it, wants Joseph Lambert, its president, to become provisional president and Mr. Joseph replaced as provisional prime minister by Ariel Henry. Before his death, Mr. Moïse had named Mr. Henry, a neurosurgeon, to the prime minister’s position, but he had not yet been sworn in.The Haitian senate has said that the senate president, Joseph Lambert, center, should be Haiti’s president.Hector Retamal/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe path to breaking a standoff is murky. Under Mr. Moïse, Parliament was eviscerated. The terms of two thirds of the nation’s senators had expired, as did those of every member of the lower house, with no elections to replace them.Critics accused Mr. Moïse of presiding over the collapse deliberately, to further consolidate power. When he was assassinated, the nation was suddenly rudderless.Countries can function, to varying degrees, with nobody in power, or power disputed. In the postwar years, Italy and Belgium have managed with no government for long periods, but they had solid democratic institutions.Lebanon, in dire financial straits, has limped along for many years with two military forces — the national army and the Hezbollah militia — and a sectarian power-sharing system that looks to a millennial generation like a license for the political elite to loot with impunity while the country suffers. Still, it has avoided spiraling back into civil war.In the Ivory Coast, though, violence ultimately settled dueling claims to power after two people declared victory in the 2010 presidential election. The incumbent, Laurent Gbagbo, refused to step down despite the fact that international electoral observers had recognized his rival, Alassane Ouattara, as the winner. Several thousand people were killed in a brief civil war before the French army helped pro-Ouattara forces oust Mr. Gbagbo.In Venezuela, also deep in economic misery, Nicolás Maduro, the nation’s authoritarian leader, has clung to power through more than two years of turmoil despite the rival claims of Juan Guaidó, an opposition leader who has been backed by dozens of foreign governments, including the United States, as the rightful president.President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela has clung to power despite the rival claims of Juan Guaidó, who was backed by the United States. Miraflores Palace, via ReutersAmerican sanctions have cut off much of the Maduro government’s revenue. The result has been mass migration of precisely the kind the Biden administration wants to avoid in the case of Haiti.Democracies take root slowly and painfully, and Haiti, since becoming the first independent state of Latin American and the Caribbean in 1804, has suffered turmoil almost without respite. Crippled by debt imposed by France, occupied by the United States for almost two decades in the early 20th century, undermined by corruption and coups, hit in 2010 by an earthquake and over the past year by the coronavirus pandemic, the country is at its most vulnerable and combustible.But the Biden administration, at the very moment when the president has been pulling the country back from its forever wars, is wary of any deep Haitian involvement, especially of a request from Haitian officials to deploy American troops. Haitian leaders tend to look to Washington for backing and approval to reinforce their political credentials.For the United States, the European Union and the United Nations, the path of least resistance may well be to seek to resolve the power conflict by urging Haiti to move forward with elections planned for September. The Biden administration has already done just that, as if voting was some panacea.But in an article in Just Society, Mr. Mulrean, who was the American ambassador to Haiti between 2015 and 2017, wrote that holding the elections would be “a mistake.”“It is tempting to think that new elections will clarify the situation and restore stability, but experience teaches us the opposite,” he wrote. “What Haiti needs is to take stock of what is broken and fix it.”A broad coalition of opposition parties and civil society is calling for just that. Voting, they note, solves nothing if the institutions that secure democracy have ceased to function. More

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      Its President Assassinated, Haiti’s Future Is Uncertain

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      For years, the United States has adopted a wary tolerance of Haiti, batting aside the horror of kidnappings, murders and gang warfare. The more convenient strategy generally seemed to be backing whichever government was in power and supplying endless amounts of foreign aid.Donald Trump supported President Jovenel Moïse mainly because Mr. Moïse supported a campaign to oust President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. And in February, the Biden administration accepted Mr. Moïse’s tenuous argument that he still had another year to serve despite opposition calls for his departure and large street protests. Mr. Moïse, though initially elected to a five-year term due to end in 2021, did not take office until 2017, thus his claim to an extra year as president.There had appeared to be a tacit understanding during Mr. Moïse’s rule: Haiti is turbulent and difficult, a bomb waiting to explode in the hands of anyone who attempts to defuse it. After all, why should Mr. Biden take on the unrewarding task of “fixing” Haiti when there was already an elected president in office who could bear the brunt of criticism about the deteriorating political situation there?But the assassination of Mr. Moïse on Wednesday will now force a reluctant administration to focus more carefully on the next steps it wants to take concerning Haiti. There are no simple options.The killing has destroyed the Biden administration’s hopes (however far-fetched) for a peaceful transfer of power with elections presided over by Mr. Moïse. But that’s not to say that Haiti’s future is entirely up to the United States nor should it be. When the United States has stepped in, Haitians have ended up worse off. When President Jean Vilbrun Guillaume Sam was killed by an angry crowd in 1915, U.S. Navy ships lay on the Haitian coast waiting to quell unrest to keep Haiti stable for American business interests there. In the wake of the killing, U.S. Marines occupied Haiti and remained there for 19 years.U.S. interventions didn’t stop there. In 1986, the dictatorship of Jean-Claude Duvalier (and his father before him) fell to a combination of popular unrest in Haiti and political maneuvering by Washington. The country managed to hold its first free and fair elections in 1990, in which Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a former liberation-theology priest, was elected. Three years after Mr. Aristide was removed in a coup, the Clinton administration reinstated him.Haiti was never able to shake off the foreign yoke, except, one might argue, during the darkest days of the Duvalier regime. Over the years it has been at the mercy of the United States, of course, and of the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, the Organization of American States and the United Nations, which deployed a peacekeeping force there from 2004 until 2017. Yet Haiti has ended up just as poor and unstable as ever, if not more so. And the country never truly recovered from a devastating earthquake in 2010.Drug cartels and their Haitian connections have also played a damaging role. Observers say that much of the violence in recent years has stemmed from turf wars between street gangs operating in a largely lawless environment.The presidential mandate of Mr. Moïse itself was iffy, to say the least. Only 21 percent of the electorate voted in that election. Nevertheless, it was easier for the United States and other parties to tolerate Mr. Moïse and wait for the next elections, no matter how flawed they were likely to be, than to deal with a void created by his assassination.President Biden has called Mr. Moïse’s killing “very worrisome.” But Haiti was very worrisome even before the killing. Now the United States is confronted by an even murkier situation there: no leader, no legislature, a justice system in disarray, a nonfunctioning and dispirited police and army, and gangs roaming the streets. It’s not clear what will emerge from the vacuum at the top — perhaps a new strongman or, less likely, an interim government.Despite that precariousness, the United States has still called for elections before the end of the year. But it’s hard to imagine how elections can proceed in an atmosphere of security and freedom, leading to a truly democratically elected president and legislature. As it stands, two men are claiming the role of prime minister, accentuating the sense of instability.Haiti’s problems cannot be solved by U.S. intervention. The United States no longer has the standing, the stomach or even the desire to impose its vision on Haiti. The best option right now for the United States is to wait and watch and listen not just to the usual suspects but to a broad new generation of Haitian democrats who can responsibly begin to move toward a more workable Haitian polity.Haiti still needs the cooperation of international friends who pay attention to the character and the goals of those to whom they extend financial and political support, rather than choosing a convenient candidate in a quickie election, with the catastrophic results for the country that we’ve seen in the past.A majority of Haitians want to build back their institutions and return to a normal life: schools, clinics and businesses opening again, a plan to deal with the Covid-19 crisis, produce markets functioning and safe streets free from the threat of armed gangs. This is the best of all possible outcomes for Haiti — but sadly, it’s improbable, at least in the near future.Amy Wilentz (@amywilentz) is the author of “The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier” and “Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter From Haiti,” among other books. She is a Guggenheim fellow and teaches in the Literary Journalism Program at the University of California, Irvine.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      White House Offers Assistance After Haiti's President Is Assassinated

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      Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, on Thursday offered U.S. assistance to Haiti in the wake of the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse and renewed American support for legislative and presidential elections that had been scheduled for September.Ms. Psaki did not say if the U.S. recognized Haiti’s interim prime minister, Claude Joseph, as the leader of the country, as a power struggle brewed between him and Ariel Henry, who had been appointed as prime minister by Mr. Moïse two days before his death.“We recognize the democratic institutions of Haiti, and we are going to continue to work with them directly,” Ms. Psaki said.Asked again about the power struggle in Haiti, Ms. Psaki suggested that the situation would be resolved with new elections.“We have been in touch with the acting prime minister, and we echo his call for calm,” Ms. Psaki said. “But I would again reiterate that’s one of the reasons we have called for elections this year, and we believe that they should proceed.”Opposition groups and protesters in Haiti had called for the elections to be canceled, citing violence and unrest in the country as well as a political crisis intensified by Mr. Moïse’s refusal to step down at the end of a five-year term in February.Ms. Psaki wasn’t asked about reports that at least one American citizen is among the six people detained in the assassination of Mr. Moïse. Haitian officials said another American may also be among the six, adding to their assertions that “foreigners” had been involved in the brazen attack.The Biden administration had publicly supported Mr. Moïse throughout the crisis — continuing the stance of the Trump administration on Haiti. In a statement, the State Department said that Mr. Moïse’s term of office could be extended to February 2022 — contradicting a ruling by Haiti’s judiciary branch.The Biden administration had also supported the Haitian president’s plans to hold elections and a constitutional referendum in September that would have centralized power in the presidency and allowed Mr. Moïse to seek an additional term in office.America has a long history of intervening in Haitian politics. The ruthless dictator François Duvalier enjoyed American support in the form of aid and military training. American support continued under the despotic rule of Mr. Duvalier’s son, Jean-Claude. The Central Intelligence Agency funded far-right Haitian paramilitaries during a period of military rule in Haiti in the 1990s. The U.S. then invaded the country to overthrow the military government in 1994, and deployed marines to restore order after another coup in 2004. More

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      Judge Declines, For Now, to Block Parts of Georgia Voting Law

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      A federal judge let parts of Georgia’s sweeping voting law stand on Wednesday, declining to block them from taking effect a week before runoff elections for state legislative seats.In his order, Judge J. P. Boulee of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia said he was basing his decision on the imminence of the July 13 elections and not the merits of the case.“The court certainly appreciates the gravity of the First and Fourteenth Amendment harms plaintiffs have alleged,” Judge Boulee wrote, but “concerns in this case with respect to the July 13, 2021 runoff elections, including the risk of disrupting the administration of an ongoing election, outweigh the alleged harm to plaintiffs at this time.”He continued, “The Court reserves judgment regarding the propriety of relief as to future elections and will issue a separate order on this question at a later date.”The Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, celebrated the decision, saying in a statement: “This is just another in the line of frivolous lawsuits against Georgia’s election law based on misinformation and lies. We will continue to meet them and beat them in court.”The lawsuit was filed by the Coalition for Good Governance, a nonprofit group whose stated mission is to protect election security and transparency. It challenges several provisions in the Georgia law, S.B. 202, including one that shortened the time frame for requesting absentee ballots and others that banned people from photographing ballots or intentionally observing a voter’s choices.The suit argues that the provisions create an unconstitutional burden for voters and violate the rights of citizens and journalists to share information about elections.“Of course we are disappointed that the unconstitutional measures in S.B. 202 will control” the July 13 runoffs, “with all the dangers they bring to the integrity and transparency of that election,” Marilyn R. Marks, the coalition’s executive director, said on Wednesday. “We are concerned about the voter confusion that will no doubt occur with these little-known rapid changes to the rules.”Ms. Marks said she hoped the court would block the provisions for subsequent elections.The Coalition for Good Governance lawsuit is separate from a Justice Department lawsuit filed last month, which argues that the Georgia law intentionally discriminates against Black voters. More

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      Daniel Ortega está destrozando el sueño nicaragüense

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      ¿Vendrán por mí? ¿Qué se sentirá ser encarcelada por la misma gente con la que peleé hombro a hombro para derrocar la dictadura de 45 años de los Somoza en Nicaragua, mi país?En 1970, me uní a la resistencia urbana clandestina del Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, conocido como FSLN. Tenía 20 años. La larga y sangrienta lucha para librarnos de Anastasio Somoza Debayle ahora es un recuerdo que produce un orgullo agridulce. Alguna vez fui parte de una generación joven y valiente dispuesta a morir por la libertad. De los diez compañeros que estaban en mi célula clandestina, tan solo sobrevivimos dos. El 20 de julio de 1979, tres días después de que Somoza fue expulsado gracias a una insurrección popular, entré caminando a su búnker en una colina desde donde se veía Managua, llena del sentimiento de haber logrado lo imposible.Ninguna de esas ilusiones sobrevive el día de hoy. En retrospectiva, para mí está claro que Nicaragua también pagó un costo demasiado alto por esa revolución. Sus jóvenes líderes se enamoraron demasiado de sí mismos; pensaron que podíamos superar todos los obstáculos y crear una utopía socialista.Miles murieron para derrocar a Anastasio Somoza y muchos más perdieron la vida en la guerra de los contras que le siguió. Ahora, el hombre que alguna vez fue elegido para representar nuestra esperanza de cambio, Daniel Ortega, se ha convertido en otro tirano. Junto con su excéntrica esposa, Rosario Murillo, gobiernan Nicaragua con puño de hierro.Ahora que las elecciones de noviembre se acercan cada vez más, la pareja parece poseída por el miedo de perder el poder. Atacan y encarcelan a quien consideren un obstáculo para ellos. En las últimas semanas, encarcelaron a seis candidatos presidenciales y arrestaron a muchas personas más, entre ellas a figuras revolucionarias prominentes que alguna vez fueron sus aliadas. El mes pasado, incluso fueron tras mi hermano. Para evitar ser capturado, huyó de Nicaragua. No estaba paranoico: tan solo unos días más tarde, el 17 de junio, más de una veintena de policías armados hicieron una redada en su casa; lo estaban buscando. Su esposa estaba sola. Buscaron en cada rincón y se fueron después de cinco horas.La noche siguiente varios hombres enmascarados y armados con cuchillos y un rifle entraron a robar a su casa. Se escuchó a uno de ellos decir que era un “segundo operativo”. Otro amenazó con matar a su esposa y violar a mi sobrina, que había llegado para pasar la noche con su madre. Ortega y Murillo parecen estar usando la forma más cruda de terror para intimidar a sus opositores políticos.En lo personal, nunca admiré a Ortega. A mí siempre me pareció un hombre mediocre e hipócrita, pero su experiencia en la calle le permitió aventajar a muchos de sus compañeros.En 1979, fue la cabeza del primer gobierno sandinista y el presidente de 1984 a 1990. La derrota frente a Violeta Chamorro en las elecciones de 1990 dejó una cicatriz en la psique de Ortega. Regresar al poder se volvió su única ambición. Después del fracaso electoral, muchos de nosotros quisimos modernizar el movimiento sandinista. Ortega no aceptó nada de eso. Consideró nuestros intentos de democratizar el partido como una amenaza a su control. A quienes no estuvimos de acuerdo con él nos acusó de venderle el alma a Estados Unidos, y se rodeó de aduladores. Su esposa se puso de su lado aun después de que su hija acusó a Ortega, su padrastro, de haber abusado sexualmente de ella a la edad de 11 años, un escándalo que habría sido el fin de la carrera de otro político.De hecho, Murillo, a quien se le ha caracterizado como una Lady Macbeth tropical, renovó la imagen de Ortega con astucia luego de que este perdió dos elecciones más. Sus ideas New Age aparecieron en símbolos de amor y paz y pancartas pintadas con colores psicodélicos. De manera muy conveniente, Ortega y su esposa se metamorfosearon en católicos devotos tras décadas de ateísmo revolucionario. Para tener a la Iglesia católica más de su lado, su némesis en la década de 1980, Ortega accedió a respaldar una prohibición total al aborto. También firmó en 1999 un pacto con el presidente Arnoldo Alemán, quien luego fue declarado culpable de corrupción, para llenar puestos de gobierno con cantidades iguales de partidarios. A cambio, el Partido Liberal Constitucionalista de Alemán accedió a reducir el porcentaje de votos necesarios para ganar la presidencia.Funcionó. En 2006, Ortega ganó con tan solo el 38 por ciento de los votos. En cuanto asumió el cargo, comenzó a desmantelar instituciones estatales ya de por sí debilitadas. Obtuvo el apoyo del sector privado al permitirle tener voz y voto en las decisiones económicas a cambio de que aceptara sus políticas. Modificó la Constitución, la cual prohibía expresamente la reelección, para que se permitiera una cantidad indefinida de reelecciones. Luego, en 2016, en la campaña para su tercer periodo, Ortega eligió a su esposa para la vicepresidencia.Ortega y Murillo parecían haber asegurado su poder hasta abril de 2018, cuando un grupo de esbirros sandinistas reprimió con violencia una pequeña manifestación en contra de una reforma que iba a reducir las pensiones de seguridad social. Varias protestas pacíficas arrasaron todo el país. Ortega y Murillo reaccionaron con furia y combatieron la revuelta con balas: 328 personas fueron asesinadas, 2000 lesionadas y 100.000 exiliadas, de acuerdo con la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos. Paramilitares armados deambularon por las calles matando a diestra y siniestra, y los hospitales tenían la orden de negar la asistencia médica a los manifestantes heridos. Los doctores que desobedecieron fueron despedidos. El régimen impuso un estado de emergencia de facto y suspendió los derechos constitucionales. Se prohibieron las manifestaciones públicas de cualquier índole. Nuestras ciudades fueron militarizadas. Ortega y Murillo justificaron estas acciones con una gran mentira: el levantamiento era un golpe de Estado planeado y financiado por Estados Unidos.Las siguientes elecciones de Nicaragua están programadas para el 7 de noviembre. A finales de la primavera, los dos principales grupos de oposición acordaron elegir a un candidato bajo el cobijo de Alianza Ciudadana. Cristiana Chamorro, hija de la expresidenta Chamorro, tuvo un sólido respaldo en las encuestas. Poco después de que anunció su intención de contender por la presidencia, le impusieron un arresto domiciliario. El gobierno parece haber fabricado un caso de lavado de dinero con la noción equivocada de que eso iba a legitimar su arresto. Le siguieron más detenciones: otros cinco candidatos a la presidencia, periodistas, un banquero, un representante del sector privado, dos contadores que trabajaban para la fundación de Cristiana Chamorro y hasta su hermano, todos ellos acusados bajo leyes nuevas y de una ambigüedad conveniente que en esencia hacen que cualquier tipo de oposición a la pareja en el poder sea un delito de traición. Ortega insistió en que todos los detenidos eran parte de una inmensa conspiración apoyada por Estados Unidos para derrocarlo.Ahora, los nicaragüenses nos encontramos sin ningún recurso, ninguna ley, ninguna policía que nos proteja. Una ley que le permite al Estado encarcelar hasta por 90 días a las personas que estén bajo investigación ha remplazado el habeas corpus. La mayoría de los presos no ha podido ver a sus abogados ni a sus familiares. Ni siquiera estamos seguros de dónde los tienen detenidos. Por las noches, muchos nicaragüenses se van a la cama con el temor de que su puerta sea la siguiente que derribe la policía.Soy poeta, soy escritora. Soy una crítica manifiesta de Ortega. Tuiteo, doy entrevistas. Con Somoza, me juzgaron por traición. Tuve que exiliarme. ¿Ahora enfrentaré la cárcel o de nuevo el exilio?¿Por quién irán después?Gioconda Belli es una poeta y novelista nicaragüense. Fue presidenta del centro nicaragüense de PEN International. More

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      Daniel Ortega and the Crushing of the Nicaraguan Dream

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      Will they come for me? What will it be like to be jailed by the same people I fought alongside to topple the 45-year Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua, my country?I joined the clandestine urban resistance of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, known as the FSLN, in 1970. I was 20. The long and bloody struggle to get rid of Anastasio Somoza Debayle is now a bittersweet memory of pride. I was once part of a brave young generation willing to die for freedom. Of the 10 “compañeros” who were in my clandestine cell, only two of us survived. On July 20, 1979, three days after Mr. Somoza was forced out by a popular insurrection, I walked into his office bunker on a hill overlooking Managua, filled with the empowering feeling that the impossible had been made possible.None of those illusions survive today. It is clear to me, looking back, that Nicaragua paid too high a cost for that revolution. Its young leadership became too enamored of itself; it thought we could defy the odds and create a socialist utopia.Thousands died to topple that dictator, and many more lost their lives in the Contra war that followed. Now, the man once chosen to represent our hope for change, Daniel Ortega, has become another tyrant. Along with his eccentric wife, Rosario Murillo, they rule Nicaragua with an iron fist.As the November elections approach, the couple seem possessed by the fear of losing power. They lash out and imprison whoever they think might stand in their way. In the past month, they have jailed five presidential candidates and arrested many others, including iconic revolutionary figures who were once their allies. Last month they even came for my brother. To avoid capture, he left Nicaragua. He wasn’t paranoid: Just a few days later, on June 17, over two dozen armed police officers raided his house looking for him. His wife was alone. They searched every corner and left after five hours. The next night several masked men armed with knives and a rifle robbed his house. One of them was heard to say it was a “second operation.” Another threatened to kill his wife and rape my niece who had arrived to spend the night with her mother. Mr. Ortega and Ms. Murillo appear to be using the crudest form of terror to intimidate their political opponents.I never admired Mr. Ortega personally. To me, he always seemed like a duplicitous, mediocre man, but his street smarts allowed him to outwit many of his companions. He was the head of the first Sandinista government in 1979 and president from 1984 to 1990. Losing the election to Violeta Chamorro in 1990 scarred Mr. Ortega’s psyche. Returning to power became his sole ambition. After the electoral defeat many of us wanted to modernize the Sandinista movement. Mr. Ortega would have none of it. He viewed our attempts to democratize the party as a threat to his control. He accused those who disagreed with him of selling our souls to the United States, and he surrounded himself with sycophants. His wife sided with him even after her daughter accused Mr. Ortega, her stepfather, of sexually abusing her from the age of 11, a scandal that might have ended another politician’s career.In fact, Ms. Murillo, who has been characterized as a tropical Lady Macbeth, cleverly reshaped his image after he ran in two more elections and lost. Her New Age ideas appeared in symbols of peace and love and banners painted with psychedelic colors. Rather conveniently, Mr. Ortega and his wife metamorphosed into devout Catholics after decades of revolutionary atheism. To further win over the Catholic Church, Mr. Ortega’s nemesis in the ’80s, he agreed to back a complete ban on abortion. He had also signed a pact in 1999 with President Arnoldo Alemán, who would later be found guilty of corruption, to stack government posts with equal shares of loyalists. In exchange, Alemán’s Liberal Party agreed to lower the percentage of votes needed to win the presidency.It worked. In 2006, Mr. Ortega won with only 38 percent of the vote. No sooner did he take office than he set about dismantling already weak state institutions. He obtained the support of the private sector by giving it a say in economic decisions in exchange for acquiescence to his politics. He trampled on the Constitution, which expressly forbade re-election, to allow for indefinite re-elections. Then, in his run for his third term in 2016, he chose his wife to be vice president.Mr. Ortega and Ms. Murillo seemed securely in power until April 2018, when a small demonstration against a reform that would have lowered social security pensions was violently repressed by Sandinista thugs. The entire country was swept by peaceful protests. Mr. Ortega and Ms. Murillo reacted with fury and crushed the revolt with firepower: 328 people were killed, 2,000 were wounded, and 100,000 went into exile, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Armed paramilitaries roamed the streets in a killing spree, and hospitals were ordered to deny assistance to wounded protesters. Doctors who disobeyed were fired. The regime imposed a de facto state of emergency and suspended constitutional rights. Public demonstrations of any sort were banned. Our cities were militarized. Mr. Ortega and Ms. Murillo justified their actions by fabricating a big lie: The uprising was a coup planned and financed by the United States.Nicaragua’s next elections are scheduled for Nov. 7. In late spring, the two major opposition groups agreed to choose one candidate under the umbrella of the Citizens Alliance. Cristiana Chamorro, daughter of former President Chamorro, had strong showings in the polls. Soon after she announced her intent to run for president she was placed under house arrest. The government appears to have fabricated a case of money laundering in its deluded notion that this would legitimize her detention. More arrests followed: four more presidential candidates, journalists, a banker, a private sector representative, two accountants who worked for Cristiana Chamorro’s foundation and even her brother, all of them accused under new and conveniently ambiguous laws that essentially make any opposition to the ruling couple a treasonous crime. Mr. Ortega insisted that all the detainees are part of a vast U.S.-sponsored conspiracy to overthrow him.Nicaraguans now find ourselves with no recourse, no law, no police to protect us. Habeas corpus has been replaced by a law that allows the state to imprison people who are under investigation for up to 90 days. Most of the prisoners have not been allowed to see their lawyers or members of their families. We are not even sure where they are being held. Every night, too many Nicaraguans go to bed afraid that their doors will be the next that the police will break down.I am a poet, a writer. I am an outspoken critic of Mr. Ortega. I tweet, I give interviews. Under Mr. Somoza, I was tried for treason. I had to go into exile. Will I now face jail or exile again?Who will they come for next?Gioconda Belli is a Nicaraguan poet and novelist. She is the former president of the Nicaraguan PEN center.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Fraud Claims, Unproved, Delay Peru’s Election Result and Energize the Right

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      A month after polls closed, officials have yet to declare a victor in the presidential vote, as they consider Keiko Fujimori’s demand that ballots be thrown out.LIMA, Peru — They showed up for the rally by the thousands in red and white, the colors of their right-wing movement, swapping conspiracy theories and speaking ominously of civil war, some brandishing shields with crosses meant to exalt European heritage.On the stage, their leader, the presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori, let loose on her headline issue: election fraud.Though electoral officials say her opponent, the leftist union leader Pedro Castillo, leads by more than 40,000 votes with all the ballots counted, they have yet to declare a victor a month after the polls closed, as they consider Ms. Fujimori’s demand that tens of thousands of ballots be thrown out.No one has come forward, even weeks later, to corroborate Ms. Fujimori’s claims of fraud; international observers have found no evidence of major irregularities; and both the United States and the European Union have praised the electoral process.But Ms. Fujimori’s claims have not only delayed the certification of a victor, they have also radicalized elements of the Peruvian right in a way that analysts say could threaten the country’s fragile democracy, just as it struggles to beat back the pandemic and mounting social discontent.Many in Peru have pointed out that Ms. Fujimori’s assertions echo those made by Donald J. Trump in 2020, and by Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel this year. The difference, they say, is that Peru’s democratic institutions are far weaker, leaving the country more susceptible to increasing turmoil, a coup or an authoritarian turn.In Peru, those who think the election was stolen are concentrated in the upper classes of the capital, Lima, and include former military leaders and members of influential families. Some of Ms. Fujimori’s supporters have openly called for a new election, or even a military coup if Mr. Castillo is sworn in.Ms. Fujimori during a rally in Lima last month. She wants as many as 200,000 votes to be thrown out.Marco Garro for The New York Times“It’s a danger for democracy,” said the Peruvian political scientist Eduardo Dargent, calling Ms. Fujimori part of a growing “denialist global right.”“I think in the end Keiko will leave the stage,” he went on. “But a very complicated scenario for the next government has been built.”Going into the June election, Peru’s two-decade-old democracy was badly in need of a boost. The country had cycled through four presidents and two Congresses in five years, as lawmakers became enmeshed in corruption scandals and score-settling that diminished trust in political institutions.Peru has also recorded the world’s highest per capita death toll from Covid-19 and has seen the virus push nearly 10 percent of its population into poverty, highlighting cracks in the country’s economic and social safety nets.Voters could hardly have faced a starker choice when they went to the polls on June 6 to decide between Mr. Castillo, the son of peasant farmers who enjoys broad Indigenous and rural support, and Ms. Fujimori, a towering symbol of the Peruvian elite and the heir to a right-wing populist movement started three decades ago by her father, the former President Alberto Fujimori.Millions of Peruvians who did not feel represented by previous governments were eager to celebrate the rise of Mr. Castillo, who has lived most of his life in an impoverished rural region.Since the election, supporters of both candidates have taken to the streets in competing rallies.Supporters of the leftist candidate Pedro Castillo. He enjoys broad support among the nation’s Indigenous people. Marco Garro for The New York Times“We’re Peruvians, too. We want to take part in the country’s political and economic decisions,” said Tomás Cama, 38, a teacher and Castillo supporter from southern Peru, standing outside the election office on a recent day.But Mr. Castillo’s links to more radical politicians — his party is headed by a man who has praised President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela for consolidating power — and his proposal to change the Constitution to give the state a greater role in the economy have fanned fears among affluent Peruvians. Such fears have fertile ground in Peru after decades in which a violent insurgency with communist aims, the Shining Path, terrorized much of the country. They have also allowed Ms. Fujimori’s unsubstantiated fraud claims to gain strength: One recent poll showed that 31 percent of Peruvians thought the claims were credible.Alleging that Mr. Castillo’s party manipulated official tallies at polling stations across the country, Ms. Fujimori is seeking to toss out up to 200,000 votes, mainly from rural and Indigenous regions where Mr. Castillo won by a landslide.With a new president scheduled to be sworn in on July 28, many members of Peru’s elite are backing Ms. Fujimori’s efforts to nullify the votes. Hundreds of retired military officers have sent a letter to top military chiefs urging them to not recognize “an illegitimate president.” A former Supreme Court justice filed a lawsuit requesting that the entire election be annulled.The country’s best-known public intellectual, the Nobel Prize-winning author and former presidential candidate Mario Vargas Llosa, has said he supports Ms. Fujimori’s efforts because a win by Mr. Castillo would be a “catastrophe.”“That is evident to the immense majority of Peruvians,” he told a local television channel, “especially Peruvians from cities and Peruvians who are better informed.”The narrative of a stolen election has taken on racist and classist flourishes at times. On the eve of the vote, false news reports circulated on the messaging application WhatsApp that Indigenous people had surrounded Lima, implying that they would use violence if Ms. Fujimori won.In the crowd at one recent Fujimori rally, a group of young men wearing bulletproof vests and helmets marched with makeshift shields painted with the Cross of Burgundy, a symbol of the Spanish empire popular among those who celebrate their European heritage. One man flashed what looked like a Nazi salute.A Fujimoro rally in Lima last month. The narrative of a stolen election has taken on racist and classist flourishes at times. Marco Garro for The New York TimesMs. Fujimori, the granddaughter of Japanese immigrants, part of a larger Peruvian-Japanese community, has allied herself closely with the country’s often European-descended elite, just as her father eventually did.A number of her supporters have talked casually about their hope that the military will intervene.“Just for a moment, until the military can say: ‘You know what? New elections,’” said Marco Antonio Centeno, 54, a school administrator. “The alternative is totalitarianism.”At another pro-Fujimori rally, Mónica Illman, also 54, a translator who lives in an affluent part of Lima, said that until this year she had never taken part in a protest. But, citing assertions she had seen on Willax, a right-wing news outlet, she said she had been pushed to the streets by “an immense, terrible fraud.”If Mr. Castillo is declared president, she said, “there’s going to be a crisis, a civil war.”Ms. Fujimori’s election claims have also raised the profile of young right-wing activists like Vanya Thais, 26, who has been among the opening speakers at the candidate’s rallies and has used Twitter to summon some of her 40,000 followers to the streets.Vanya Thais recording a video for her social media followers last month. “This movement is here to stay,” she said.Marco Garro for The New York TimesIn an interview, Ms. Thais said she had no doubt Mr. Castillo would revive the Maoist insurgency that terrified much of Peru in the 1980s and 1990s.Ms. Thais said right-wing politicians and the business community had not taken a tough enough stance in recent years. But those days are over, she said: “This movement is here to stay.” More

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      Labour's Kim Leadbeater Wins U.K. By-Election in Batley and Spen

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      The election this week of the sister of Jo Cox, a lawmaker who was killed in 2016, was seen as a victory for Labour’s leader in a region where Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservatives had made big inroads.LONDON — Britain’s opposition Labour Party on Friday scored an unexpected if narrow victory in a battle for an open Parliament seat that was widely seen as a critical test for the party’s leader, Keir Starmer, who has been under pressure for failing to revive the party’s fortunes.Many had expected that the Conservatives would take the seat, which Labour has held since 1997, because of the spoiler campaign of George Galloway. The victory will be a big relief for Mr. Starmer, who faced criticism in May when his party lost a by-election in Hartlepool, another former stronghold in the north of England.That result added weight to the idea that support for Labour had collapsed in the “red wall,” former industrial areas of England in which Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservatives have been making big inroads.Results announced early Friday gave the Labour candidate, Kim Leadbeater, a win of just 323 votes over her Conservative Party rival, Ryan Stephenson, after an acrimonious contest in Batley and Spen, one of Labour’s traditional heartland seats in northern England.Voting in the by-election took place on Thursday after a campaign marred by claims of intimidation, including one episode in which Ms. Leadbeater was heckled aggressively and another that led to the arrest of a man on suspicion of assault in connection with an attack on Labour supporters.Ms. Leadbeater acknowledged that it had been “a grueling few weeks” but added, “I am absolutely delighted that the people of Batley and Spen have rejected division and they voted for hope.”Labour fought hard to retain Batley and Spen, which was represented in Parliament by Ms. Leadbeater’s sister, Jo Cox, until she was murdered by a far-right fanatic in 2016.Ms. Leadbeater’s narrow path to victory was a complicated one. She was competing not only against the Conservative candidate, Mr. Stephenson, but also against Mr. Galloway, a former lawmaker and veteran left-wing campaigner who sought to divert support from Labour.Although Labour held off the challenge from Mr. Galloway, its share of the vote in Batley and Spen was lower than in the 2019 general election.Since the Brexit referendum in 2016, Mr. Johnson’s Conservative Party has succeeded in winning over many of Labour’s core voters in working-class communities in the north and middle of England.Before the result in Batley and Spen, there had been news media speculation that Mr. Starmer would be vulnerable to a leadership challenge if Ms. Leadbeater lost, as many were expecting.Most analysts believed that Mr. Starmer would have been safe regardless of the result, because there is no credible alternative waiting in the wings. But the victory — narrow as it was — will be especially welcome news for the party leaders, because the contest could have been avoided.The by-election was triggered in May when the area’s former Labour lawmaker, Tracy Brabin, was elected to another job as West Yorkshire mayor, requiring her to step down from Parliament. Mr. Starmer was accused of mismanaging the situation and putting the seat at risk by allowing her to run for the mayoral position.Since he took the job of leader last year, Mr. Starmer, a former top prosecutor, has tried to unite the party after it was routed in 2019 parliamentary elections under the stewardship of Jeremy Corbyn, its left-wing leader at the time.Mr. Starmer’s critics have accused him of a lack of charisma and of failing to set out a convincing alternative policy agenda to that of the Conservatives.His defenders have appealed for patience and have contended that the pandemic has made it hard for the opposition to impress voters whose attention is focused on government efforts to bring Covid-19 restrictions to an end.In his election literature, Mr. Galloway had called on voters to abandon Labour to increase pressure on Mr. Starmer and force him out of his job.When the count was completed early Friday, Ms. Leadbeater won 13,296 votes, Mr. Stephenson was in second place with 12,973 and Mr. Galloway third with 8,264.Labour “won this election against the odds,” Mr. Starmer said. “And we did so by showing that when we are true to our values — decency, honesty, committed to improving lives — then Labour can win.” More