Elections

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Three Months After Coup, Myanmar Returns to the ‘Bad Old Days’

      by

      Every night at 8, the stern-faced newscaster on Myanmar military TV announces the day’s hunted. The mug shots of those charged with political crimes appear onscreen. Among them are doctors, students, beauty queens, actors, reporters, even a pair of makeup bloggers.Some of the faces look puffy and bruised, the likely result of interrogations. They are a warning not to oppose the military junta that seized power in a Feb. 1 coup and imprisoned the country’s civilian leaders.As the midnight insects trill, the hunt intensifies. Military censors sever the internet across most of Myanmar, matching the darkness outside with an information blackout. Soldiers sweep through the cities, arresting, abducting and assaulting with slingshots and rifles.The nightly banging on doors, as arbitrary as it is dreaded, galvanizes a frenzy of self-preservation. Residents delete their Facebook accounts, destroy incriminating mobile phone cards and erase traces of support for Myanmar’s elected government. As sleep proves elusive, it’s as if much of the nation is suffering a collective insomnia.Little more than a decade ago, the most innocuous of infractions — owning a photograph of pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi or an unregistered cellphone or a single note of foreign currency — could mean a prison sentence. Some of the military’s Orwellian diktats rivaled those of North Korea.Security forces search for protesters as they crack down on a peaceful demonstration against the military coup in Yangon, in April.The New York TimesThree months after Myanmar’s experiment in democracy was strangled by the generals’ power grab, the sense of foreboding has returned. There is no indication that it will ease. For the better part of 60 years, the military’s rule over Myanmar was animated not by grand ideology but by fear. Today, with much of the population determined to resist the coup-makers, a new junta is consolidating its grip by resorting, yet again, to a reign of terror.“Myanmar is going back to the bad old days when people were so scared that their neighbors would inform on them and they could get arrested for no reason at all,” said Ko Moe Yan Naing, a former police officer who is now in hiding after opposing the coup.Prisons are once again filled with poets, Buddhist monks and politicians. Hundreds more, many young men, have disappeared, their families ignorant of their whereabouts, according to a group that tracks the military’s detentions. More than 770 civilians have been killed by security forces since the putsch, among them dozens of children.As they did years before, people walk the streets with the adrenaline-fueled sense of neck hairs prickling, a glance from a soldier or a lingering gaze from a passer-by chilling the air.Protesters fight with security forces in Yangon in March.The New York TimesYet if the junta is reflexively returning to rule by fear, it is also holding hostage a changed country. The groundswell of opposition to the coup, which has sustained protests in hundreds of cities and towns, was surely not in the military’s game plan, making its crackdown all the riskier. Neither the outcome of the putsch nor the fate of the resistance is preordained.Myanmar’s full emergence from isolation — economic, political and social — only came five years ago when the military began sharing power with an elected government headed by Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi. A population that barely had any connection to the internet quickly made up for lost time. Today, its citizenry is well versed in social media and the power of protests tethered to global movements. They know how to spot a good political meme on the internet.Their resistance to the coup has included a national strike and a civil disobedience movement, which have paralyzed the economy and roiled the government. Banks and hospitals are all but shut. Although the United Nations has warned that half the country could be living in poverty by next year because of the pandemic and the political crisis, the democratic opposition’s resolve shows no sign of weakening.More than 770 civilians have been killed by security forces since the putsch.The New York TimesIn late March, Ma Thuzar Nwe, a history teacher, branded her skin with defiance. The tattoo on the nape of her neck reads: “Spring Revolution Feb. 2021.”The police are now stopping people on the streets, looking for evidence on their phones or bodies of support for the National Unity Government, a civilian authority set up after the elected leadership was expelled by the military. A popular tactic is to affix an image of Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the coup leader, on the sole of a shoe, smashing his face into the ground with each step. During spot checks, the police now demand that people show their soles.Ms. Thuzar Nwe says she wears her hair down to cover her tattoo, hoping the police won’t be too inquisitive.“In Myanmar culture, if a woman has a tattoo, she’s a bad girl,” she said. “I broke the rules of culture. This revolution is a rare chance to eradicate dictatorship from the country.”But the Tatmadaw, as the Myanmar military is known, has built an entire infrastructure dedicated to one purpose: perpetuating its power for power’s sake.Its bureaucracy of oppression is formidable. An army of informers, known as “dalan,” has reappeared, monitoring whispers and neighbors’ movements.The blandly named General Administration Department, a vast apparatus that remained under military control even after the army had started sharing authority with the civilian government, is once again pressuring administrators to keep tabs on everyone’s political views. And local officials have taken to banging on doors and peering in homes, as a dreaded system of household registration is reintroduced.Military vehicles during the national Armed Forces Day in Naypyidaw, Myanmar, in March.Associated PressEach morning, as residents count the dead and missing, the military’s media present its version of reality, all the more pervasive since the junta has revoked the publishing licenses of major private newspapers. Democracy will return soon, the military’s headlines insist. Banking services are running “as usual.” Health care with “modern machinery” is available. Government ministries are enjoying English-proficiency courses. Soft-shell crab cultivation is “thriving” and penetrating the foreign market.The Tatmadaw may have modernized its military arsenal, acquiring Chinese-made weapons and Russian fighter jets. But its propaganda is stuck in a time warp from back when few challenged its narrative. There is no mention in its media of the military’s killing spree, the broken economy or the growing armed resistance. On Wednesday, the State Administration Council, as the junta calls itself, banned satellite TV.For all the fear percolating in Myanmar, the resistance has only hardened. On Wednesday, the National Unity Government said it was forming a “people’s defense force” to counter the Tatmadaw. Two days before, ethnic insurgents fighting in the borderlands shot down a Tatmadaw helicopter.Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing in 2016.Hein Htet/European Pressphoto AgencyIgnoring such developments, the Tatmadaw’s media instead devote space to the supposed infractions of thousands of civilians who must be locked up for “undermining state peace and stability.” Among them are AIDS patients so weak they can barely walk.More than for the civilian population, such propaganda is meant to convince the military ranks that the coup was necessary, Tatmadaw insiders said. Sequestered in military compounds without good internet access, soldiers have little ability to tap into the outrage of fellow citizens. Their information diet is composed of military TV, military newspapers and the echo chambers of military-dominated Facebook on the rare occasions they can get online.Still, news does filter in, and some officers have broken rank. In recent weeks, about 80 Myanmar Air Force officers have deserted and are now in hiding, according to fellow military personnel.“Politics are not the business of soldiers,” said an air force captain who is now in hiding and does not want his name used because his family might be punished for his desertion. “Now the Tatmadaw have become the terrorists, and I don’t want to be part of it.”Myanmar’s citizens are now well versed in social media and the power of protests tethered to global movements, since the country opened up a few years ago.The New York TimesIn the cities, almost everyone seems to know someone who has been arrested or beaten or forced to pay a bribe to the security forces in exchange for freedom.Last month, Ma May Thaw Zin, a 19-year-old law student, joined a flash mob protest in Yangon, the country’s biggest city. The police, she said, detained several young women and crammed them into an interrogation center cell so small they barely had room to sit on the floor.For a whole day, there was no food. Ms. May Thaw Zin said she resorted to drinking from the toilet. The interrogations were just her and a clutch of men. They rubbed against her and kicked her breasts and face with their boots, she said. On the fourth day, after men shoved the barrel of a pistol against the black hood over her head, she was released. The bruises remain.Since she returned home, some family members have refused to have anything to do with her because she was caught protesting, Ms. May Thaw Zin said. Even if they hate the coup, even if they know their futures have been blunted, the instincts of survival have kicked in.“They are afraid,” she said, but “I can’t accept that my country will go back to the old dark age.”Riot police prepared to remove protesters who attempted to block a motorcade of security forces in February.The New York Times More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      DeSantis Shuts Out Reporters as he Signs Florida Voting Restrictions Into Law

      by

      MIAMI — Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida signed new voting restrictions into law on Thursday that put him in line with other Republicans around the country — with a display of nose-thumbing contempt toward journalists that evoked former President Donald J. Trump.Mr. DeSantis’ brash style has made him stand out from other potential heirs to Mr. Trump’s populist legacy. But his actions are part of a national effort by Republicans to limit the use of popular ballot drop boxes, add identification requirements for voters requesting absentee ballots and do away with local laws that allow automatic registration for absentee voting.The next big move could happen in Texas, although the situation at the State Capitol in Austin is in flux. There is movement in virtually every state with a Republican-controlled legislature — including in Arizona, where G.O.P. lawmakers are conducting an audit of the November results, an exercise that has been plagued by lapses in basic security and accounting procedures.All of this comes in the wake of Mr. Trump’s loss, and his subsequent false claims that expansion of ballot access led to rampant voter fraud. Official audits of election results around the country, conducted by officials from both parties, found no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.Mr. DeSantis enacted the legislation even after he had promoted Florida’s handling of the November elections. Mr. Trump won the state by three percentage points.The governor gave Fox News, his preferred major cable news outlet — and Mr. Trump’s — an exclusive to broadcast the bill signing ceremony from West Palm Beach on Thursday morning, in an event that resembled a campaign rally as much as an official act of state government.Supporters of Mr. DeSantis gathered inside a Hilton near the airport, donning DeSantis and Trump campaign gear. Before they entered, some people waved Trump-DeSantis and DeSantis 2024 banners, according to photos on social media shared by journalists locked outside the doors.“Right now, I have what we think is the strongest election integrity measures in the country,” a seated Mr. DeSantis told Fox as a rowdy crowd cheered behind him.Mr. DeSantis and his predecessors have been known to sign bills, especially controversial ones, in private. Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, a lower-key politician who has kept Mr. Trump at a relative arm’s length, signed his state’s bill in a conference room in his office, as a Democratic state legislator knocked on the door, demanding to be let in.Giving exclusive access to a cable news network was unusual, if not unprecedented. A reporter from a local CBS station said it was supposed to carry the broadcast feed for other stations, a practice known as pooling, but was also not allowed inside.Florida is the latest state to pass voter restrictions as Republicans move to reverse gains made by Democrats in Georgia, Arizona and elsewhere. In Texas, Republicans in the legislature are brushing aside objections from corporate titans like Dell Technologies, Microsoft and American Airlines and moving on a vast election bill that would be among the most severe in the nation. It would impose new restrictions on early voting, ban drive-through voting, threaten election officials with harsher penalties and greatly empower partisan poll watchers. The main bill passed a key committee in a late-night session on Thursday, and could head to a full floor vote in the House as early as next week.Bills to restrict voting have also been moving through Republican-led legislatures in Arizona and Michigan. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Réquiem por el centro en España. Se suicidó y lo mataron

      by

      MADRID — En mitad de la campaña electoral más crispada de la democracia, y con las encuestas en contra, Edmundo Bal se abrazó a un lema sencillo para desmarcarse de la competencia: “Vota al partido que no insulta”. El aspirante de Ciudadanos a la presidencia de la región de Madrid quedó último. El resultado deja a su partido, que en sus orígenes fue visto como una esperanza frente a los bandos tradicionalmente enfrentados, fuera del parlamento y al centro político español moribundo. Aunque Bal trató de focalizar su campaña en planes de acción concretos, nadie escuchaba en medio del ruido.Edmundo Bal, el aspirante de Ciudadanos a la presidencia de la región de Madrid, quedó último.David Fernandez/EPA, via ShutterstockEl debate político en Madrid quedó reducido a las consignas de los salvapatrias de uno y otro bando. Mientras la derecha sostenía que la democracia solo sobreviviría en sus manos —“comunismo o libertad”—, la izquierda se presentó como muro de contención frente a un fascismo que supuestamente estaba a punto de tomar la Puerta del Sol.La victoria fue para la conservadora Isabel Díaz Ayuso, que disparó su popularidad durante la pandemia al mantener la economía abierta y resistirse a aplicar las restricciones impuestas en otras regiones españolas. La presidenta madrileña, del Partido Popular, consolida con su triunfo aplastante el ayusismo, una nueva variante de la derecha populista que ha explotado con habilidad la polarización de la política nacional.La votación confirmó la maldición histórica del centro en España. Los intentos de reinventar la tercera vía española han fracasado desde el declive de la Unión de Centro Democrático (UCD), el partido que pilotó los primeros años de transición democrática tras la dictadura del general Francisco Franco, entre 1975 y 1982. Las razones de ese fiasco continuo hay que buscarlas en una mezcla de errores propios, traiciones internas y sabotajes externos, a los que suelen unirse con similar entusiasmo derecha e izquierda. Ciudadanos es el mejor ejemplo de cómo llevar un partido desde lo más alto a la destrucción en apenas dos años.La formación “naranja” nació en Cataluña con el liderazgo carismático de Albert Rivera, un político entonces rompedor que en su campaña de 2006 se presentó literalmente desnudo ante la ciudadanía. Era su manera simbólica de ofrecer transparencia, reformismo, meritocracia y diálogo, la oferta con la que atrajo a las clases urbanas, liberales y profesionales de las grandes ciudades. Al partido no le importó pactar con los socialistas en Andalucía y con los conservadores en Madrid, porque sus objetivos regeneradores se imponían a las preferencias ideológicas.En abril de 2019, Ciudadanos se convirtió en la tercera fuerza del país.La idea era que Albert Rivera cambiaría la política, pero la política lo cambió antes a él. El éxito alimentó sus ambiciones y lo apostó todo a convertirse en el líder hegemónico de la derecha, alejándose del centro e incluso legitimando a la extrema derecha en un movimiento que traicionó los principios liberales de su partido. Su negativa a pactar un gobierno de coalición con Pedro Sánchez, forzando una repetición electoral, hizo que Ciudadanos pasara de 57 diputados a 10 entre las elecciones de abril y noviembre de 2019. Rivera dimitió y su sucesora, Inés Arrimadas, ha intentado desde entonces un regreso al centro.Inés Arrimadas, su sucesora, ha intentado regresar al centro, pero todo indica que ya es tarde.Seguidores de Isabel Díaz Ayuso en Madrid.Bernat Armangue/Associated PressEl espacio moderado se ha achicado y estos días la estrategia que mejor funciona pasa por la retórica agresiva, el enfrentamiento y la creación de enemigos, reales o ficticios. La extrema derecha lo comprendió muy pronto y en Madrid ha renovado esa estrategia, con la colaboración a veces voluntaria y otras entusiasta de medios de comunicación que se han convertido en altavoces de su histrionismo. Vox captó la atención estigmatizando con datos falsos a menores migrantes, redobló su lenguaje guerracivilista y alimentó miedos populares como el crimen, a pesar de que Madrid es una de las ciudades más seguras del mundo, con el único propósito de presentarse como solución. El partido mejoró sus resultados, incluso con el ayusismo amenazando parte de su espacio electoral.La política española sube el tono con cada votación y devora cada vez más rápido a sus líderes, quemados en un ambiente de polarización extrema y un sistema de partidos que castiga la disidencia interna. La renuncia en estos años de destacados dirigentes con talento y capacidad de diálogo —el socialista Eduardo Madina, el popular Borja Sémper o el centrista Toni Roldán, que abandonó Ciudadanos por su viraje a la derecha—, empobrece el debate público y deja el espacio abierto a demagogos y oportunistas. Triunfan políticos que, a izquierda y derecha, carecen de preparación o curiosidad intelectual, desprecian la inteligencia o la razón sin el menor complejo, ofrecen soluciones simples para problemas graves y explotan sin escrúpulos el hartazgo de la gente.El centro, mientras tanto, vuelve a quedar huérfano y no se vislumbra una alternativa a las expectativas que una vez generó Ciudadanos. Es una mala noticia porque se necesita con urgencia un partido dispuesto a acercar a las dos Españas, aún a riesgo de recibir golpes de ambas. En otro momento de gran tensión, cuando en los años setenta el país vivía un pulso entre fuerzas autoritarias y democráticas, la figura de Adolfo Suárez y la desaparecida UCD fueron clave para crear una atmósfera que lograra un consenso por el bien común.España vuelve a necesitar un partido que ejerza ese papel mediador y sea capaz de dejar las trincheras ideológicas para buscar soluciones pragmáticas a los problemas de los ciudadanos. En mitad del embrutecimiento actual de la política nacional, el coraje no reside en gritar más alto al adversario, hoy convertido en enemigo, sino en sentarlo a dialogar las diferencias. Un país sin espacio para el centro está condenado a enfrentarse en los extremos.David Jiménez (@DavidJimenezTW) es escritor y periodista. Su libro más reciente es El director. More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      I Know What It Takes to Defeat Narendra Modi

      by

      KOLKATA, India — I am a member of the Indian Parliament, and on Sunday, the political party I belong to, the All India Trinamool Congress, defeated the party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in elections for the West Bengal State legislature. Our party and my leader, Mamata Banerjee, the only female chief minister of a state in India today, showed what it takes to defeat Mr. Modi’s divisive, misogynist politics.Out of the 292 seats in West Bengal’s state legislature, Mr. Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party won 77. We won 213 seats. But we weren’t simply fighting to form a state government. We were fighting to stop Mr. Modi’s centralizing, authoritarian juggernaut, which seeks to destroy India’s federalism and its secular character, and transform our country into an autocratic Hindu state.Mr. Modi and Amit Shah, India’s home minister, have systematically hollowed out the institutions that India held sacred and trusted. During the course of the West Bengal election, I witnessed how they reduced the once-respected Election Commission of India, a supposedly independent body that conducts state and national elections, to an errand boy serving their political agenda.On Feb. 26, when the second wave of Covid-19 was rising in India, the commission announced that elections in West Bengal would be conducted in eight phases staggered from March 27 to April 29. Four other Indian states were also going to polls, but the commission restricted them to one or two phases.By scheduling the West Bengal election in this way, the commission made it possible for Mr. Modi to campaign extensively in West Bengal. Indian elections are energetic, festive and crowded affairs. Our party protested and petitioned the commission to limit the election to fewer phases, as a dangerous second wave of Covid-19 had set in. The commission refused to listen.Mr. Modi and Mr. Shah, whose ministry is responsible for disaster management in the country, held numerous public meetings in West Bengal. Both men often appeared unmasked in the public rallies, setting a terrible example for the tens of thousands who attended and the millions who watched the widely televised events.Mr. Modi’s government did absolutely nothing to prevent religious gatherings such as the Kumbh Mela, a festival in Haridwar in the northern state of Uttarakhand, where millions of Hindus gathered for a dip in the Ganges River.On April 17, when India was reporting more than 250,000 new Covid-19 cases, Mr. Modi made a mild and vague appeal to the pilgrims at the Kumbh Mela, asking them to consider going home, and suggested that the festival should be “symbolic.” Yet by late afternoon on that day, Mr. Modi attended a public meeting of over 50,000 people in West Bengal. “Wherever I look, I just see people,” he gloated.The election was turning out to be a super spreader of coronavirus infections. The commission continued ignoring us while the second wave was battering India’s health care systems. The craven dereliction of duty compelled the Madras High Court to remark that the commission “should be put up on murder charges probably!”Mr. Modi prioritized pursuit of political power above Indian lives. The vital first three weeks of April, when the prime minister and his cabinet should have been working on ramping up critical health infrastructure and coordinating with state governments to prevent our catastrophic situation, were lost.India’s women will also remember Mr. Modi’s campaign in West Bengal for its brazen misogyny and toxic masculinity. On April 1, while at a public rally at Uluberia, a city in the state’s Howrah district, Mr. Modi referred to Ms. Banerjee, the leader of my party and the chief minister of West Bengal known affectionately as Didi, as “Didi Ooo Didi!” — to stupendous applause from crowds of men. He continued using that tone and phrase in other public rallies.To my ears, the tone and phrase were ominously close to what a neighborhood cat-caller may call out to girls walking past. To the Bengali middle class, the prospect of handing over the reins of the state to someone who openly endorsed a practice so much at odds with their sensibilities was frightening. Female voters in West Bengal, who make up 49.1 percent of the state’s electorate, cringed. A majority of women voted for our party. They did not allow such misogynist politics to win the day.A supporter of Mamata Banerjee, the leader of the All India Trinamool Congress, which supports a secular, inclusive ideology.Rupak De Chowdhuri/ReutersAnd culture matters. Mr. Modi and his B.J.P. hoped they would win by equating Bengali identity with Hindu culture. They failed to understand that Bengali culture is not a monolith; it combines secularism with non-vegetarianism and a strong contrarian instinct.We joke that laid-back middle-class Bengalis are content with three things: educating our children, the matinee on Saturday (“shoni bar e matinee”) and a mutton curry on Sunday (“robi baar e mangsho”).At the very least, the Bengalis reject anyone who wants to control what we eat, whom we love and what we wear.The Bengal experience has demonstrated that the B.J.P. is not invincible, that all Indians are not attracted to the idea of a majoritarian Hindu state and that Mr. Modi and Mr. Shah are not the master election strategists they are made out to be. Despite their huge financial resources, their misuse of federal investigative agencies to target opponents and accusations that they have been buying off opposition politicians, the B.J.P. can still be defeated by a focused regional party that stays true to its grass roots and a secular, inclusive ideology.It took a catastrophic pandemic for even Mr. Modi’s supporters to see they need oxygen cylinders more than they need a Hindu state. And it took the Bengal election for the rest of India to realize they don’t need toxic machismo. What India needs in a leader is a heart and a spine.Mahua Moitra is a member of the Indian Parliament from the All Indian Trinamool Congress.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

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Who Is Yair Lapid, Israel’s Would-Be Prime Minister?

      by

      Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed the former television host and centrist opposition leader as a lightweight. Now Mr. Lapid has a chance to oust him.JERUSALEM — Yair Lapid, the centrist politician and former media celebrity whose party took second place in Israel’s March election, had pledged to forgo the premiership if that’s what it would take to form a coalition of diverse parties that could oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from power.The unusual exercise in political humility stemmed not from modesty, but from the difficulties he knew he would face in mustering enough parliamentary support to form an alternative government.Now, after Mr. Netanyahu failed to form a viable coalition by Tuesday’s midnight deadline, Mr. Lapid’s political skills and sincerity will be put to the test. The president, Reuven Rivlin, has given him the next shot at cobbling together a government that might send Mr. Netanyahu into the opposition and end Israel’s political gridlock.Mr. Lapid’s party, Yesh Atid (There is a Future), won 17 seats in the inconclusive election, Israel’s fourth in two years. But its path to power is hampered by the disparate nature of the anti-Netanyahu bloc, which is made up of numerous small parties with clashing agendas. Some of its right-wing elements view Mr. Lapid as too left-wing to lead an alternative government.Mr. Netanyahu had cast his own campaign as a head-to-head contest against Mr. Lapid, dismissing him as a lightweight.Mr. Lapid ran a quiet campaign calling for preserving liberal democracy and thwarting Mr. Netanyahu’s stated goal of forming a government made up of right-wing and religious parties, reliant on ultra-Orthodox rabbis and ultranationalist extremists.Mr. Lapid last month in Tel Aviv.Amir Cohen/ReutersMr. Lapid has also called to protect the judiciary from Mr. Netanyahu, who is standing trial on corruption charges and who, together with his right-wing and religious allies, intended to curb the powers of the Supreme Court and possibly seek some kind of immunity from prosecution.Speaking to party activists before the election, Mr. Lapid described the coalition that Mr. Netanyahu wanted to form as “an extremist, homophobic, chauvinistic, racist and anti-democratic government,” and said, “it’s a government where nobody represents working people, the people who pay taxes and believe in the rule of law.”As a former finance minister in the Netanyahu-led government formed in 2013, Mr. Lapid instituted reforms meant to share the national burden more equally between mainstream Israelis and ultra-Orthodox men who choose full-time Torah study over work and army service, and depend on charity and welfare payouts. Most of his policies were undone by succeeding governments.In three elections in 2019 and 2020, Mr. Lapid’s Yesh Atid ran in a three-party, centrist alliance called Blue and White, led by Benny Gantz, a former army chief of staff. Mr. Lapid parted ways with Blue and White after Mr. Gantz reneged on a main election promise and joined forces with Mr. Netanyahu to form an uneasy — and short-lived — unity government after last year’s election.After a highly successful career as a journalist and popular television host, Mr. Lapid was the surprise of the 2013 election when, as a political novice, his party surpassed expectations and placed second, turning him into the chief power broker in the formation of the coalition.His father, Yosef Lapid, a Holocaust survivor and an antireligious politician, once also headed a centrist party and served as justice minister. His mother, Shulamit Lapid, is a well-known novelist.An amateur boxer known for his casual-chic black clothing, Mr. Lapid launched his political career on the back of the social justice protests of 2011, giving voice to Israel’s struggling middle class. On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he has stuck to the middle ground, presenting safe positions within the Israeli Jewish consensus. He has said that he supports a two-state solution but opposes any division of Jerusalem, which the Palestinians envision as their future capital. More

    • 88 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      Isabel Díaz Ayuso Wins Madrid's Regional Election

      by

      Isabel Díaz Ayuso, a conservative politician dubbed a “Trumpista” by her opponents, won the Madrid regional election by a landslide after she refused to shut down the capital’s bars and shops.MADRID — She is a conservative who campaigned on a slogan that came down to one word: Freedom. She offered herself as a champion of small business and scoffed at national coronavirus restrictions.Her critics called her a “Trumpista.” But Isabel Díaz Ayuso is now a rising force in Spanish politics. Voters rewarded the right-wing leader of the Madrid region with a landslide victory on Tuesday after she defied the central government by keeping the capital’s bars and shops open throughout much of the pandemic.She suggested that her victory showed that pandemic fatigue and economic distress had left Spaniards unwilling to endure more of the measures favored by the left-wing national government led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.“Madrid is freedom — and they don’t understand our way of living,” she told her supporters about her left-wing opponents who suffered a crushing loss in the vote.Ms. Ayuso’s Popular Party more than doubled its number of seats in Madrid’s regional assembly, trouncing other parties, including Mr. Sánchez’s Socialists. Her party fell just short of an absolute majority but will hold onto power with support from the far-right Vox party.She is the most talked-about politician in Spain right now. But with nationwide elections not planned for another two years, analysts are divided over whether she could make the leap to the national political stage, or would even want to.Even so, Ms. Ayuso’s victory, could signal that a shift to the right is underway more broadly as the country struggles to emerge from the ravages of the pandemic.Ms. Ayuso, 42, stuck to a simple and clear message that connected with voters who have endured more than a year of pandemic, said Lluís Orriols, a professor of politics at the Carlos III University in Madrid.“Maintaining Madrid open and economically active was something visible to all, while demonstrating that lockdown measures really help keep people healthy is something harder to do,” Mr. Orriols said.Madrid was the epicenter of Spain’s pandemic in the spring of 2020, when its hospitals overflowed with Covid-19 patients. But after the central government lifted a nationwide state of emergency last June, Ms. Ayuso ensured that the city was one of the most bustling in Europe, even when its Covid-19 infection rate crept back up after Easter.This week, Covid-19 patients are filling 44 percent of the beds in Madrid’s intensive care units, which is about double the national average.Ms. Ayuso’s handling of the pandemic provoked tensions even within her administration. After resigning last year as the head of Madrid’s regional health services, Dr. Yolanda Fuentes, recently attacked Ms. Ayuso’s campaign slogan on Twitter.“To understand that freedom means to do whatever you want during a pandemic, when intensive care units are above capacity and colleagues feel defeated, seems to me indecent, to say the least,” Dr. Fuentes said.A busy restaurant in Madrid in March. Despite the pandemic, eateries and shops remained open at the direction of Ms. Ayuso.Susana Vera/ReutersOutside the headquarters of the Popular Party on Tuesday evening, a crowd of supporters danced to the sound of a D.J. Several of them said they were celebrating Ms. Ayuso’s personal victory, rather than that of her party and its national leader, Pablo Casado.“She’s totally a pop icon and a mass phenomenon,” Mariola Vicario, a 25-year-old student, said of Ms. Ayuso. “I don’t consider Casado to have her strength.”In terms of handling the pandemic, Ms. Vicario said that Ms. Ayuso “took measures when needed, but what she did not do is let people starve to death” by keeping Madrid’s economy shut down as long as that of other cities.Madrid’s vote was a resounding defeat for left-wing parties, but it also showed that Ms. Ayuso can keep conservative votes that might have gone to Vox.Mr. Casado has sought to distance his party from Vox, notably last year when he refused to back a thwarted attempt by Vox to oust Prime Minister Sánchez in a parliamentary vote of no confidence.In contrast, Ms. Ayuso said during her campaign that the Popular Party differed on specific issues from Vox, but also suggested that the two had enough common ground to work together in Madrid if needed.Outside the Vox party headquarters in Madrid. The Popular Party’s lead over Vox in Madrid widened significantly compared with 2019.Manu Fernandez/Associated PressEven in the midst of the pandemic, turnout in Madrid reached a record 76 percent on Tuesday, 12 percentage points higher than in the 2019 vote. It was also significantly higher than most other elections recently in Europe, where voters have been reluctant to turn out amid the health concerns.In her closing campaign speech on May 2, which was a public holiday in Madrid that commemorates the city’s fight against the occupation of Napoleon’s troops, Ms. Ayuso made a thinly veiled comparison between the 1808 resistance against the French and her own stance against the central government during the pandemic.Ms. Ayuso, who studied journalism, was a second-tier politician when Mr. Casado unexpectedly handpicked her in early 2019 to be his party’s lead candidate ahead of an election in the Madrid region.She then took charge of the capital region, which the Popular Party has run since 1996, but was forced to govern with the support of a center-right party, Ciudadanos. Tensions between the partners mounted earlier this year, and Ms. Ayuso called a snap election.On Tuesday, Ciudadanos failed to pick up enough votes to even hold a single seat within Madrid’s regional assembly — votes that likely benefited Ms. Ayuso’s party instead.The election ended the political career of Pablo Iglesias, the founder of the far-left Unidas Podemos party. He had unexpectedly abandoned his post as deputy prime minister of Spain to run in the Madrid regional election.In a farewell address to his supporters, Mr. Iglesias said he was sorry to witness “the impressive success of the Trumpist right that Ayuso represents.” More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      U.K. Elections Likely to Favor Boris Johnson, and Scottish Separatists

      by

      The prime minister’s Conservative Party stands to gain at the polls on Thursday, despite ethical accusations against him. But growth in support for the Scottish Nationalist Party could create turmoil.LONDON — For an ordinary politician, heading into midterm elections on an unsavory plume of scandal over cellphone contacts with billionaires and a suspiciously funded apartment makeover might seem like the recipe for a thumping. But Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain is not an ordinary politician.As voters in the country go to the polls on Thursday for regional and local elections that have been swollen by races postponed from last year because of the pandemic, Mr. Johnson’s Conservative Party stands to make gains against a Labour Party that has struggled to make the ethical accusations against him stick.Far from humbling a wayward prime minister, the elections could extend a realignment in British politics that began in 2019 when the Conservative Party won a landslide general election victory. That would put the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, on the back foot and ratify Mr. Johnson’s status as a kind of political unicorn.“No politician in the democratic West can escape the consequences of political gravity forever, but Boris Johnson has shown a greater capacity to do it than most,” said Tony Travers, a professor of politics at the London School of Economics. “People see his behavior as evidence of his authenticity.”Yet there is peril as well as promise for Mr. Johnson in the elections, which will decide thousands of seats, including that of London’s mayor, and which the British press has perhaps inevitably nicknamed “Super Thursday.”In Scotland, the Scottish National Party could win a clear majority in Scotland’s Parliament that the nationalists would brandish as a powerful mandate to demand another referendum on independence from the United Kingdom after an earlier one was defeated in 2014.Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, left, with a supporter in Edinburgh last week.Pool photo by Russell CheyneIn that event, Mr. Johnson could emerge in a stronger position in Westminster only to find that he will spend the next few years scrambling to avert a breakup of the union. That could make the tempest over his WhatsApp texting and who paid for the wallpaper in his Downing Street apartment look quaint.“The test of the Johnson premiership is going to be the integrity of the union — not Covid, not Brexit, not Europe, not sleaze,” said Mujtaba Rahman, an analyst with the political risk consultancy Eurasia Group.Whether the Scottish National Party wins an outright majority or is forced to enter a coalition with the pro-independence Scottish Greens, pollsters said, was still unclear. But the numbers are less important than the direction, which is expected to be emphatically behind a new campaign for Scottish independence.In the English elections, the big prize is Hartlepool, a struggling northern port city and Labour bastion where a new poll suggests that the Conservatives could win a bellwether seat in a parliamentary by-election. The Tories could make further inroads in other Labour cities and towns in the industrial Midlands and North, where they picked off dozens of seats in 2019, running on Mr. Johnson’s promise to “Get Brexit Done.”The prime minister did get Brexit done, as of last January. Yet while the split with the European Union brought predicted chaos in shipments of British seafood and higher customs fees on European goods, its effects have been eclipsed by the pandemic — a twist that ended up working to the government’s benefit.Although the pandemic began as a negative story for Mr. Johnson, with a dilatory response to the first wave of infections that left Britain with the highest death toll in Europe, it turned around with the nation’s rapid rollout of vaccines.Customers at a London pub after England began lifting pandemic lockdown restrictions last month.Mary Turner for The New York TimesAs new cases, hospitalizations and deaths have plunged, voters have rediscovered their affection for Mr. Johnson. His poll numbers rebounded from their lows last fall and show little damage from the charges and countercharges about his conduct, even though those have riveted London’s political circles.More important, Mr. Johnson’s message of “leveling up” the economically blighted Midlands and North with the more prosperous south still seems to resonate with people, including many who traditionally voted for Labour. And the government’s free-spending response to the pandemic has pulled the Conservative Party even further from its roots as the party of fiscal austerity.“The party of Margaret Thatcher is becoming the party of a big state and higher taxes, which can quite easily become the party of economic nationalism and ‘Buy British,’” said Mr. Travers, the London School of Economics professor.For Mr. Starmer, the Labour leader, this shape shifting has been confounding. A disciplined former prosecutor who lacks Mr. Johnson’s raffish manner, he has found it difficult to attack the government on its pandemic response, particularly the vaccine rollout, which is the largest peacetime mobilization in British history.Instead, Mr. Starmer has grilled Mr. Johnson in Parliament weekly about who picked up the initial bill for the upgrade of his apartment and why he was texting the billionaire James Dyson about the tax status of his employees, when the two were discussing a plan for Mr. Dyson’s company to manufacture ventilators.But there is little evidence that voters are particularly surprised or concerned that Mr. Johnson does not play by the rules. As political commentators have taken to saying this week, the prime minister’s behavior is “priced in.”The Labour Party leader, Keir Starmer, has grilled the prime minister about ethical issues but has struggled to attack the government’s recent pandemic response.Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA, via ShutterstockThe same is not true of Scottish independence. Analysts say Mr. Johnson’s government is not prepared for the wall of pressure it will face if the Scottish National Party wins a majority. The last time the party achieved that, in 2011, Britain’s then-prime minister, David Cameron, yielded to demands for a referendum. In 2014, Scots voted against leaving Britain by 55 percent to 44 percent.Polls now put the split at roughly 50-50, after a stretch in which the pro-independence vote was solidly above 50 percent. Analysts attribute the slight softening of support to both the vaccine rollout, which showed the merits of staying in the union, as well as an ugly political dispute within Scottish nationalist ranks.Mr. Johnson holds a trump card of sorts. To be legally binding, an independence referendum would almost certainly have to gain the assent of the British government, so the prime minister can simply say no and hope the problem goes away. But that strategy can work for only so long before becoming untenable.“I don’t see any way in the world that Boris Johnson turns around the day after the election and says, ‘OK, you can have a referendum,’” said Nicola McEwen, a professor of politics at the University of Edinburgh.And yet the calls could only grow. “If they manage to peel off a single-party majority,” she said, “it does put pressure on the U.K. to answer the question, ‘If a democratic vote isn’t a mandate for independence, then what is?’” More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Netanyahu Fails to Form New Israeli Government, Prolonging Deadlock

      by

      The prime minister’s opponents may now get a chance to oust him from power. But it is too soon to write off Benjamin Netanyahu, a political survivor.JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel failed to form a new government by the midnight Tuesday deadline, putting his political future in jeopardy as he stands trial on corruption charges and prolonging a political deadlock that has only worsened after four elections in two years.Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, may now give a rival, eclectic camp of anti-Netanyahu parties a chance to form a government, which could oust Mr. Netanyahu from power after 12 consecutive years in office.Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party is by far the largest on Israel’s fractured political scene, having won 30 seats in a general election in March. Despite that, he was not able to muster enough coalition partners to command a majority of at least 61 seats in the 120-member Parliament.His hopes for a right-wing and religious coalition ultimately fell short because his far-right allies refused to join a government supported by a small Islamist Arab party. The Arab party, Raam, was willing to back a Netanyahu administration in return for benefits for Israel’s Arab minority.Mr. Netanyahu also failed in a last-gasp effort to persuade a right-wing rival, Naftali Bennett, to join him in a power-sharing agreement that would have seen the pair take turns as prime minister.Mr. Bennett had dismissed the offer, saying that even with his support Mr. Netanyahu could not muster a majority.Three minutes before midnight, Likud issued a terse statement blaming Mr. Bennett for foiling Mr. Netanyahu’s chances by refusing to commit to a right-wing government, “which would certainly have led to the formation of a government joined by additional members of Parliament.”Mr. Rivlin may now ask one of Mr. Netanyahu’s rivals — representing a disparate group of parties ranging from the pro-settlement right to the secular left — to try to cobble together a governing coalition that would send the prime minister into the opposition. Or Mr. Rivlin could ask Parliament to put forward a candidate.He has three days to make that decision. His office said that he would restart the process on Wednesday morning by contacting each of the political parties represented in Parliament.Mr. Netanyahu would still remain in power as a caretaker prime minister until a new government is formed. If no one can form a government, Israel will be heading to a fifth election.But with his failure to build a majority coalition, Mr. Netanyahu may have lost his best chance of gaining some kind of legal immunity from criminal prosecution. Charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust, he has denied wrongdoing and insists the cases against him will collapse in court.A protest against Mr. Netanyahu outside his residence in Jerusalem last month. Sebastian Scheiner/Associated PressSome of his political allies had pledged to make moves or advance legislation that could put his trial on hold until he leaves office. A new Netanyahu government could also have appointed a more sympathetic attorney general to replace the current one, whose term is up early next year.The failure to create a new government could also prolong a political stalemate that has left Israel without a state budget for two consecutive years in the middle of a pandemic, and has delayed appointments to several key administrative and judicial posts.The largest party challenging Likud, and the runner-up in the election, is Yesh Atid, a centrist group that won 17 seats. But its leader, Yair Lapid, a former finance minister, does not have an easy path to forming a government either.The bloc opposing Mr. Netanyahu is made up of numerous other small parties with clashing agendas. The smaller right-wing parties in the bloc view Mr. Lapid as too left-wing to lead the government.Instead, discussions in Mr. Lapid’s bloc have centered around the possibility of Mr. Lapid sharing power with another candidate, such as Mr. Bennett, the leader of Yamina, a right-wing party that won just seven seats. Under such an agreement, Mr. Bennett might lead the country for a year, before handing the prime ministry to Mr. Lapid.Mr. Lapid’s party has championed taxpaying middle-class Israelis and called for limits on the autonomy afforded to Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community — many of whom are exempted from military service, and study religious texts instead of entering the work force. That has made him an enemy of the ultra-Orthodox parties that have long kept Mr. Netanyahu in power.Mr. Lapid pledged during the election campaign to put his ego aside and concede the premiership if that was what it took to unseat Mr. Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.Yair Lapid, center, the leader of the centrist Yesh Atid party, pledged during the election campaign to concede the premiership if that’s what it took to unseat Mr. Netanyahu.Amir Levy/Getty ImagesTo make up a majority, this bloc would also need to rely on the support of an Arab party, something they have been reluctant to do in the past. Even if they succeed in forming a government with the limited goal of steadying the country after a long period of political chaos, many analysts believe its heterogeneity would make it short lived.Mr. Bennett is also seeking a chance to try to form the next government. He has said that his preference is to build a right-wing coalition including Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud and the religious parties but, failing that, he would work to form a more diverse “unity” government including parties from the anti-Netanyahu bloc.If no government has been formed within the allotted time — 28 days for a lawmaker other than Mr. Netanyahu, or up to five weeks for a candidate nominated by Parliament — the assembly will automatically dissolve itself and Israelis will head back to the ballot box for the fifth time since the spring of 2019.Aside from the country’s usual tensions between secular and religious, right-wing and left-wing, and Jewish and Arab, Israelis have become increasingly divided about Mr. Netanyahu himself. Those on the ideological right are now split between pro- and anti-Netanyahu camps.Mr. Netanyahu had the solid support of only 52 lawmakers, from his own Likud, two loyal ultra-Orthodox parties and a far-right alliance. Three right-wing parties ultimately chose not to return him to government.In total, 13 parties entered Parliament, all but Likud and Yesh Atid with seats in the single digits.Any government that is formed is likely to be unstable and dependent on the demands and whims of small parties with disproportionate power.This latest failure to form a government is a severe blow to Mr. Netanyahu. He campaigned hard for the March election and had staked his fortunes on Israel’s successful vaccination drive, which had allowed the economy and cultural life to reopen just in time for the ballot.But commentators say it is still too early to write him off.He similarly failed to form a government after two elections in 2019. But when his rivals also failed to cement a coalition, he remained in place as a caretaker prime minister. An election in April 2020 produced an ill-fated unity government that collapsed after seven months of political and administrative paralysis.Some analysts say that Mr. Netanyahu, a political survivor, is happy to function as a caretaker prime minister, riding the wave of electoral turmoil from one transitional government to another, as long as he remains in office. And if the latest imbroglio ends in a fifth election, he is likely to run again. More