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      Latin America’s Former Presidents Have Way Too Much Power

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      It’s time to take them down from their pedestals.On Sunday, voters elected Guillermo Lasso, a former banker and a supporter of free-market policies, as president of Ecuador over Andrés Arauz, a left-wing populist. Some analysts are decrying the end of progressivism, but what we are really seeing is a welcome setback for a strange form of strongman politics: the phenomenon of former presidents seeking to extend their control and influence by choosing and backing their protégés in national elections.Mr. Arauz was handpicked by former President Rafael Correa, a semiauthoritarian economist who governed Ecuador from 2007 to 2017. The election was a referendum not just on the role of the state in the economy but also more fundamentally on the question, “What, if any, role should former presidents play in politics?”In Latin America, it has become normal for former presidents to promote surrogate candidates. This is a bizarre form of caudillismo, or strongman politics, combined with continuismo, or lineage continuity, intended to keep rivals at bay.Today, former presidents are the new caudillos, and they are hoping to extend their rule through their chosen heirs — in what is called delfinismo, from “dauphin,” the title given to the heir apparent to the French throne in the 14th through 19th centuries.In the last decade, at least seven democratically elected presidents in Latin America were handpicked by a predecessor. The most recent, Luis Arce, came to power in Bolivia in 2020, sponsored by former strongman Evo Morales. These surrogate candidates owe much of their victory to their patron’s blessing, which comes with a price. The new presidents are expected to stay loyal to their patron’s wishes.The practice binds those newly elected in golden handcuffs, undermining democracy in the process. More than passing the torch, former presidents issue a sort of noncompete contract. In Argentina, a former president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, ran as vice president with her chosen candidate, Alberto Fernández.After serving as Argentina’s first lady and then president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, right, became vice president under her chosen candidate, Alberto Fernández, left.Pool photo by Natacha PisarenkoThis current style of strongman politics is an update of an update. In the classic version of the strongman politics, which dominated Latin American politics after the wars of independence during the 19th century until the 1970s, many caudillos sought to stay in office by banning or rigging elections, a tactic famously utilized by the Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz, or by staging coups if they couldn’t win office, a tradition employed by the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1952.This classic model of continuismo was intensely traumatic. In Mexico and Cuba, the model incited nothing less than two world-historic revolutions.Latin America updated this model of caudillismo. Coups and election bans became unfashionable by the 1980s, and so rather than abolish democracy, it became more common for leaders to rewrite constitutions and manipulate institutions to permit re-election. A re-election boom followed. From Joaquín Balaguer in the Dominican Republic in 1986 to Sebastián Piñera in Chile in 2017, Latin America saw 15 former presidents return to the presidency.But lately, the model of continuismo through re-election has run into trouble after a number of former presidents found themselves entangled in legal troubles.In Central America alone, 21 of 42 former presidents have had brushes with the law. In Peru, six ex-presidents from the past 30 years have faced corruption charges. In Ecuador, Mr. Correa was convicted of trading campaign finance contributions for state contracts. He claimed he was a victim of political persecution. His response was to use Mr. Arauz’s campaign as the ticket back to influence. At some point during the campaign, the candidate even promoted the idea that a vote for him was a vote for Mr. Correa.During Ecuador’s presidential campaign, the candidate Andrés Arauz promoted the idea that a vote for him was a vote for former President Rafael Correa.Dolores Ochoa/Associated PressThese legal complications encourage former presidents to promote surrogates who might, at the very least, pardon them if elected.Former presidents seem to think that this latest update of caudillismo liberates the country from trauma. President Alberto Fernández claimed that when her sponsor, former president Fernández de Kirchner, chose him as her candidate, she justified her decision by arguing that the country didn’t need someone like her, “who divides,” but someone like him, who can “draw people together.” Ms. Fernández de Kirchner was herself chosen as an heir by her late husband, former president Néstor Kirchner.But this political surrogacy hardly solves the trauma associated with its inherent continuismo. In fact, that makes it more toxic. Except for the former president’s followers, the country sees the gimmick for what it is: an obvious effort at restoration.The problems with delfinismo go beyond intensified polarization by exacerbating political fanaticism and can lead to even greater problems. In Mexico until the 1990s, where presidents essentially handpicked their successors, former presidents typically observed the norm of retiring from politics, granting the successor sufficient autonomy.But in the most recent version of delfinismo, successors are not that lucky. The sponsoring former presidents keep meddling. This interference produces governance travails. The sitting presidents either become premature lame ducks, with all eyes turned to the former presidents’ views, or eventually seek a break from their patrons. Splits can unleash nasty civil wars.Such breaks are often inevitable. Elected delfines face new realities that sponsors never confronted. Frequently they have to clean up messes their sponsors left behind.Lenín Moreno, the current president of Ecuador, who was selected by Mr. Correa, broke with him on a number of leftist-authoritarian policies, prompted by revelations of corruption. The result was a power struggle that splintered the ruling coalition and hindered the government’s ability to cope with the economic crisis and then the Covid-19 pandemic.A similar battle occurred in Colombia when President Juan Manuel Santos, chosen by the then president Álvaro Uribe, decided to make peace with guerrillas, defying Mr. Uribe’s preference. The result was a near civil war between those men that rivaled in intensity the war against guerrillas that the government was trying to settle.There is no easy solution to this type of continuismo. Parties need to stop placing their former presidents on a pedestal. They need to reform primaries to ensure leaders other than former presidents have the means to compete internally. Latin American countries have done a lot to ensure strong competition among parties, but less so within parties.Nothing screams oligarchy and corruption like a former president trying to stay alive through surrogate candidates. And Ecuador has demonstrated that this political maneuver may end up also empowering rather than weakening the very same political ideologies the former presidents were trying to contain.Javier Corrales is a professor and the chair of the political science department at Amherst College.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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      Election Overhaul Plan Threatens to Sideline Hong Kong’s Opposition

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      The proposal, initiated by the Chinese central government, is intended to make it difficult for democracy advocates to hold office and would criminalize organized protest votes.HONG KONG — The Hong Kong government on Tuesday introduced the final details of a push to drastically overhaul the city’s election system, including a proposal that would make it illegal to encourage voters to cast blank ballots or boycott elections.The electoral changes are the latest effort by the central Chinese government to stamp out political opposition in Hong Kong, after months of fierce antigovernment demonstrations in 2019. Last month, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, an arm of China’s Communist Party-run legislature, unanimously approved a plan that would give national security bodies the authority to select candidates for political office.That proposal, which followed the enactment last year of a harsh national security law, dictated that less than a quarter of Hong Kong’s legislature would be directly elected, compared to half before. It also created a candidate vetting committee with the power to unilaterally bar anyone deemed insufficiently loyal to the government. And it reshuffled the membership of another election committee that selects Hong Kong’s top leader, stacking it with more Beijing loyalists.But some details of the new system, including exactly who would sit on the reconstituted election committee, remained unclear until Tuesday, when the Hong Kong government published a bill of more than 500 pages. The bill made clear that the election committee — already tilted in favor of the central government — would be filled with even more pro-establishment business and interest group leaders, as well as members of pro-Beijing political bodies.Also included was a proposal that would criminalize encouraging voters to cast blank or modified ballots, or to forgo voting altogether. Boycotting elections is an idea that has been discussed among some in the pro-democracy camp.The bill is expected to be passed easily by the Legislative Council, Hong Kong’s local lawmaking body which is composed entirely of pro-establishment figures after the mass resignation of the opposition last year.“We all want elections to be very fair, so any manipulation to jeopardize or sabotage an election should not be permitted,” Carrie Lam, the city’s chief executive, said at a news conference.The bill also laid out dates for upcoming electoral contests. The 1,500 members of the election committee are scheduled to be elected on Sept. 19.Legislative elections are set for Dec. 19. They had originally been slated for last September, but the government postponed the vote, citing coronavirus concerns, though opposition figures accused it of trying to forestall an election defeat.A demonstration in September protesting the government’s decision to postpone legislative council elections.Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesThe chief executive election is scheduled to be held in March.While the majority of the proposal focused on the composition of the election committee — which in addition to choosing the chief executive will also be empowered to fill 40 legislative seats — it also included several changes to the few remaining directly elected seats. Some geographic districts for those seats will be redrawn, combining areas that had leaned pro-democracy with those more staunchly pro-establishment.Still, some experts said that the changes were unlikely to have much effect on the already-battered political opposition. After all, the changes to the directly elected seats could disadvantage pro-democracy candidates only if any stood for office in the first place — a scenario that seemed increasingly unlikely given the new vetting procedures, said Ma Ngok, an associate professor of government at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.“The key issue is who in the pro-democracy camp will still run and who will be allowed to run,” Professor Ma said. “If you have already built in a very stringent screening system, then I don’t think it is actually necessary for the government to change” the system.In the weeks since Beijing approved the electoral plans, the authorities have repeatedly said that Hong Kong’s residents had broadly embraced the changes.But in moving to criminalize protest voting, Professor Ma said, the government seemed to be acknowledging that the changes were in fact unpopular, at least among some segment of the population.“It seems that the government thinks that actually a lot of people will try to boycott or cast a protest vote,” he said. More

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      Peru Election for the 5th President in 5 Years Goes to Runoff

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      Pedro Castillo, a far-left former union activist and teacher, is leading, according to election officials.LIMA, Peru — Peru’s presidential election is headed for a runoff, with Pedro Castillo, a far-left former union activist and teacher, in the lead, according to data released Monday by the country’s electoral body.He will likely face a right-wing candidate in a second round of voting in June.Mr. Castillo, a social conservative, was one of 18 candidates, and tapped into a wave of anti-establishment sentiment in an election characterized by widespread frustration with the political system.He is likely headed into a runoff with Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of the jailed former authoritarian leader Alberto Fujimori, according to a survey of electoral tallies by the firm Ipsos for a local television channel. Trailing behind Ms. Fujimori is an ultraconservative, Rafael López Aliaga.Either pairing would set the stage for a highly polarized second-round election, the results of which could steer the country in radically different directions.“This is the vote of a country tired, depressed, frustrated, and also fed up,” Fernando Tuesta, a Peruvian political analyst, said in a statement on Monday. The election comes at a low point for Peru. Over the last five years, the country cycled through four presidents and two Congresses and witnessed repeated clashes between the legislative and executive branches.Keiko Fujimori speaking at her party’s headquarters in Lima, Peru, on Sunday.John Reyes/EPA, via ShutterstockThree former presidents have spent time in jail during bribery investigations, including one candidate in this year’s election; a fourth killed himself to avoid arrest; and a fifth, Martín Vizcarra, one of the most popular recent leaders, was impeached in November.His replacement, who lasted less than a week in office, is under investigation in connection with the fatal shootings of two young men at protests, which led to his resignation.With 84 percent of the votes tallied, Mr. Castillo was leading with 18.5 percent of the vote on Monday afternoon, more than five points ahead of his closest rival.Mr. Castillo, 51, wants to nationalize the country’s natural resources to help pay for investments in health care and education; promises to have a top court elected by popular mandate; and is proposing a new constitution to favor ordinary Peruvians and not business interests.In the run-up to the election, Mr. Castillo drew large crowds in rural towns, but did not receive broad coverage in national media until polls showed him surging to around 6 percent a week before the election.He celebrated his surprise victory from the poverty-stricken highland region of Cajamarca, where as a youth he was part of the peasant security patrol that enforces local laws and customs.“The blindfold has just been taken off the eyes of the Peruvian people,” Mr. Castillo told throngs of supporters in Cajamarca on Sunday night, wearing the wide-brimmed hat of farmers in the region.“We’re often told that only political scientists, constitutionalists, erudite politicians, those with grand degrees can govern a country,” he said. “They’ve had time enough.”A polling place in Recuay, Peru, on Sunday. A record 18 candidates participated in the presidential race, which is headed to a runoff.Ricardo Moreira/Getty ImagesMs. Fujimori, who is making her third bid for president, has been jailed three times in recent years in connection with an ongoing money laundering probe. In this election, she vowed to stop pandemic lockdowns and crack down on crime.On Sunday, Marianela Linares, 43, a Castillo supporter, said he represented “the big change” voters have been looking for but have thus far failed to find in traditional politicians.“We’ve always been deceived by high-level people who always said they’d help us get ahead but have lied to us,” said Ms. Linares, a public-school teacher in the Amazonian town of Puerto Maldonado. “He knows what need is. He knows what hunger is, and what it means to live in misery.” More

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      In Peru’s Presidential Election, the Most Popular Choice Is No One

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      Peruvians head to the polls at a moment that many are calling one of the lowest points in the country’s young democracy, and many plan to cast empty ballots.LIMA, Peru — Vicenta Escobar, 62, sells fruit from a stand on the streets in Peru’s capital, Lima. In every presidential election over the last four decades, she has chosen a candidate she believed in, in the hope that he or she would deliver change.Not this time, though. This Sunday, she plans to arrive at her polling station to vote — as is required by Peruvian law. But she will cast her ballot without making a single mark.“I’m planning on leaving it blank,” she said on Thursday afternoon. She was fed up, she said, with “all the lies and robberies.”Peruvians are voting on Sunday at a moment many are calling one of the lowest points in the country’s young democracy. Eighteen candidates are on the ballot, but about 15 percent of voters are expected to cast a blank vote, according to several recent polls, and no candidate has been able to garner much more than 10 percent support. The leading two candidates will advance to a runoff if no one captures more than half the vote.The election follows a tumultuous five-year period in which the country cycled through four presidents and two Congresses, and it comes amid growing frustration over corruption, the pandemic and a political system that many say has served the interests of corporations and officials — but not of regular people.Whoever is sworn in later this year is likely to have the weakest mandate of any elected president in recent history, and will be forced to deal with dual economic and health crises likely to shape the country for years to come.Peru has one of the highest coronavirus death rates in the world, and daily deaths climbed to new highs this month as the Brazilian variant of the virus spread through the country. Many Covid patients have died amid lack of access to oxygen or ventilators, working-class families are struggling to secure enough food, and school closures have pushed children into the labor force.The economy shrank 12 percent last year in the country’s worst recession in three decades — the second-worst downturn in Latin America, after Venezuela’s.Voters interviewed this month in Lima, the capital, appeared to coalesce around their shared frustration with the system.“We used to trust our leaders somewhat. But now no one believes any of them,” said Teresa Vásquez, 49, a housekeeper.Ms. Vásquez had supported one of the recent presidents, Martín Vizcarra, even as legislators impeached him amid corruption charges.Then she learned he had been secretly vaccinated last year with extra doses from a clinical trial in Peru that researchers distributed among political elites.This year, she had narrowed her options to two candidates who seemed clean. But with less than a week to go before the election, was still struggling to decide.“It’s the same with my whole family,” she said. “No one knows who to trust.”Opinion polls released before Sunday’s vote showed that any two of half a dozen candidates might move on to a likely June runoff.Among the candidates pulling in about 10 percent of the vote in recent polls are Pedro Castillo, a socially conservative union activist who has surged in the last week on promises to invest heavily in health care and education, and Keiko Fujimori, a right-wing opposition leader and the daughter of the former authoritarian president Alberto Fujimori, who has said she would end Covid lockdowns and crack down on crime with an “iron fist.”Residents of the Villa El Salvador neighborhood in Lima observed a campaign rally last week.Sebastian Castaneda/ReutersThis year’s election coincides with the 200th anniversary of Peru’s independence. But instead of celebrating, many Peruvians are questioning the validity of their democracy and their free-market economic model.Even before the pandemic threw the country into disarray, support for democracy in Peru had slipped to one of the lowest levels in the region, according to a 2018-2019 survey by the Latin American Public Opinion Project, with the military seen as the most trustworthy institution.Since the last general election produced a divided government five years ago, Peru has seen constant clashes between the legislative and executive branches, as opposition lawmakers have sought to impeach two presidents and Mr. Vizcarra dissolved Congress, calling new legislative elections to push through reforms.Three former presidents have spent time in jail during bribery investigations, including one candidate in this year’s election; a fourth killed himself to avoid arrest; and a fifth, Mr. Vizcarra, one of the most popular recent leaders, was impeached in November.His replacement, who lasted less than a week in office, is under investigation in connection with the fatal shootings of two young men at protests, which led to his resignation.One reason for the country’s endemic corruption is that political parties often barter their loyalties to presidential candidates in back-room deals, and are often captive to special interests.A soldier stands guard near voting booths in Lima, Peru on Saturday.Sebastian Castaneda/Reuters“Political parties are no longer a vehicle for representation of the citizenry,” said Adriana Urrutia, a political scientist who leads the pro-democracy organization Transparencia.“There are parties in the current Parliament that represent the interests of private universities facing penalties for failing to fulfill minimum requirements,” she added. “There are parties that represent the interests of illegal economies, like illegal logging and illegal mining.”Some candidates are tailoring their messages to appeal to the growing skepticism about democracy.Mr. Castillo, the union activist, has promised to replace the Constitutional Tribunal with a court elected “by popular mandate,” and said he would dissolve Congress if it blocked a proposal to replace the Constitution. Rafael López Aliaga, a businessman and a member of the ultraconservative Catholic group Opus Dei, has said Peru must stop a leftist “dictatorship” from consolidating power and has promised to jail corrupt officials for life.Ms. Fujimori has abandoned efforts to moderate her platform in her third presidential bid. She has promised to pardon her father, who is serving a sentence for human rights abuses and graft.The constant political turmoil has analysts worried for the country’s future.“I think the scenario that’s coming is really frightening,” said Patricia Zárate, the lead researcher for the Institute of Peruvian Studies, a polling organization. “Congress knows they can impeach the president easily and it’s also easy for the president to close Congress. Now it will be easier to do again. It’s dispiriting.”Reporting was contributed by More

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      Elecciones en Perú: los votantes van a las urnas sin candidato favorito

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      Los peruanos votarán en lo que muchos califican como el peor momento de su joven democracia. Numerosos electores se inclinan por el voto en blanco.LIMA, Perú — Vicenta Escobar, de 62 años, vende fruta en un puesto de las calles de Lima, la capital de Perú. En todas las elecciones presidenciales de las últimas cuatro décadas, ella ha votado a un candidato en el que creía, con la esperanza de que esa persona fuera a cambiar las cosas.Pero no en esta ocasión. Este domingo, piensa llegar a la casilla para votar, como lo exige la ley peruana. Pero dejará la boleta sin poner una sola marca.“Esta vez pienso marcar blanco”, comentó el jueves por la tarde. Dijo que estaba harta de “todos los engaños, los robos”.Los peruanos votan este domingo en un momento que muchos consideran uno de los peores en su joven democracia. En la boleta hay 18 candidatos, pero se calcula que el 15 por ciento de los electores anularán su voto, según diversas encuestas recientes; además, ningún candidato ha logrado reunir un apoyo de más del 10 por ciento. Los dos candidatos con más votos pasarán a una segunda vuelta si ninguno obtiene más de la mitad de los votos.Las elecciones se dan tras cinco años tumultuosos en los que el país pasó por cuatro presidentes y dos congresos, y en medio de una frustración creciente debido a la corrupción, la pandemia y un sistema político que muchos afirman que ha estado al servicio de los funcionarios y las corporaciones, pero no del pueblo.Es probable que cualquiera que asuma el cargo este año tenga el mandato más débil que ningún otro presidente electo en la historia reciente, y tendrá que lidiar con crisis en materia de salud y economía que muy probablemente afectarán al país en los años venideros.Perú tiene una de las tasas de muerte por coronavirus más altas del mundo, y las muertes diarias alcanzaron nuevos máximos este mes a medida que la variante brasileña del virus se extendía por el país. Muchos pacientes de COVID-19 han muerto por falta de acceso a oxígeno o respiradores, las familias de clase trabajadora luchan por conseguir alimentos y el cierre de escuelas ha provocado que los niños tengan que trabajar.El año pasado la economía se contrajo un 12 por ciento en la peor recesión del país en tres décadas, la segunda peor contracción en América Latina después de la de Venezuela.Los votantes a los que se entrevistó este mes en Lima, la capital del país, parecían coincidir en su frustración con el sistema.“Antes confiábamos algo en nuestros líderes, pero ya nadie confía en nadie”, expresó Teresa Vásquez, de 49 años, un ama de casa.Vásquez había apoyado a uno de los últimos presidentes, a Martín Vizcarra, incluso cuando los legisladores emprendían un juicio político contra él bajo cargos de corrupción.Pero se enteró de que el entonces presidente se había vacunado en secreto el año pasado con dosis extras de un ensayo clínico realizado en Perú, las cuales los investigadores distribuyeron entre las élites políticas.Este año, ya redujo sus opciones a dos candidatos que parecen impolutos, pero seguía teniendo dificultades para decidirse a menos de una semana de las elecciones.“Toda la familia está igual”, continuó. “Nadie sabe a quién creer”.Las encuestas de opinión publicadas antes de la votación del domingo mostraban que había seis candidatos con posibilidad de pasar a una probable segunda vuelta en junio.Entre los candidatos que obtienen alrededor del 10 por ciento de los votos en los últimos sondeos se encuentran Pedro Castillo, un activista sindical socialmente conservador que ha repuntado en la última semana gracias a sus promesas de invertir grandes cantidades de dinero en sanidad y educación, y Keiko Fujimori, una líder de la oposición de derecha e hija del antiguo líder autoritario Alberto Fujimori, la cual ha dicho que pondría fin a los confinamientos por la COVID-19 y reprimiría la delincuencia con “mano dura”.Vecinos de Villa el Salvador, un barrio de Lima, observaban un mitin electoral la semana pasada. Sebastián Castañeda/ReutersLa votación de este año cae en el 200.º aniversario de la independencia de Perú. Pero, en lugar de celebrar, muchos peruanos están cuestionando la validez de su democracia y su modelo económico de libre mercado.Incluso antes de que la pandemia sumiera al país en el caos, el apoyo a la democracia en Perú había caído a uno de los niveles más bajos de la región, según una encuesta de 2018-2019 realizada por el Proyecto de Opinión Pública de América Latina; los militares se consideraban la institución más confiable.Desde que la última elección general hace cinco años produjo un gobierno dividido, Perú ha tenido enfrentamientos constantes entre la rama legislativa y el poder ejecutivo, pues los legisladores de la oposición han intentado someter a juicio político a dos presidentes; asimismo, Vizcarra disolvió el Congreso y convocó nuevas elecciones legislativas para llevar a cabo reformas.Tres expresidentes han estado en la cárcel debido a investigaciones de cohecho en su contra, incluido uno que postula para las elecciones de este año; un cuarto se suicidó para evitar ser detenido; un quinto, Vizcarra, uno de los líderes más populares de los últimos años, fue destituido en noviembre.Su remplazo, que estuvo menos de una semana en el cargo, se encuentra bajo investigación debido a la muerte de dos jóvenes durante unas protestas, por lo cual tuvo que dimitir.Una de las razones que explica la corrupción endémica del país es que los partidos políticos suelen alquilar su apoyo a los candidatos presidenciales en acuerdos a puerta cerrada, y a menudo son presa de intereses particulares.Un soldado resguardaba las casetas de votación en Lima, la capital peruana el sábado.Sebastián Castañeda/Reuters“Los partidos políticos han dejado de ser un vehículo de representación ciudadana”, sostuvo Adriana Urrutia, politóloga que está a cargo de la organización prodemocrática Transparencia.“Hay partidos en el actual parlamento que representan intereses de las universidades privadas que están siendo sancionadas por no cumplir con los requisitos mínimos”, añadió. También “hay partidos que representan los intereses de las economías ilegales, como la tala ilegal o minería ilegal”.Algunos candidatos están apelando con sus mensajes al creciente escepticismo hacia la democracia.Castillo, el activista sindical, ha prometido remplazar el Tribunal Constitucional por un tribunal elegido “por mandato popular”, y ha dicho que disolverá el Congreso si este bloquea una propuesta para cambiar de Constitución. Rafael López Aliaga, empresario y miembro del grupo católico ultraconservador Opus Dei, ha dicho que Perú debe impedir que una “dictadura” de izquierda se consolide en el poder y ha prometido encarcelar de por vida a los funcionarios corruptos.Fujimori ha dejado de lado todo esfuerzo por moderar su plataforma en su tercera candidatura presidencial y ha prometido indultar a su padre, que cumple una condena por violaciones de los derechos humanos y corrupción.La turbulencia política incesante tiene a los analistas preocupados por el futuro del país.“El escenario que se nos viene es de verdad de terror”, dijo Patricia Zárate, investigadora principal de la organización de encuestas Instituto de Estudios Peruanos. “El Congreso sabe que puede vacar al presidente y es muy fácil y también es muy fácil cerrar el Congreso. Entonces ya vieron que se puede hacer y no hay problema”, añadió. “Es desesperanzador”.Julie Turkewitz More

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      Elecciones en Ecuador: el ganador no aparece en la boleta

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      Su candidato no llegó a la segunda vuelta del domingo, pero el avance del partido indígena Pachakutik en la primera ronda de votación ha transformado la agenda política nacional.TARQUI, Ecuador — Aunque su candidato no está en la boleta electoral, el gran ganador de la segunda vuelta presidencial del domingo en Ecuador estaba claro antes de que se emitiera el primer voto: el movimiento indígena del país que ha sido marginado durante mucho tiempo.El partido indígena y sus aliados sacudieron la nación en la primera ronda electoral en febrero, al ganar la mitad de todos los estados, con lo que se convirtieron en la segunda presencia más grande en el Congreso y transformaron la agenda de los finalistas de la contienda presidencial del domingo: el izquierdista Andrés Arauz y el conservador Guillermo Lasso.“La política ecuatoriana nunca será la misma”, aseveró Farith Simon, profesor de Derecho y columnista ecuatoriano. “Todavía hay racismo, pero también hay una reivindicación del valor de la cultura indígena, del orgullo en su papel nacional”.Ansiosos por atraer a los votantes indígenas y conscientes de la necesidad de trabajar con el nuevo y poderoso bloque indígena en el Congreso, Arauz y Lasso renovaron sus mensajes y desplazaron la contienda de la discusión polarizadora centrada en el socialismo versus el conservadurismo que ha definido la política nacional durante años. En vez de eso, los debates giran en torno a la desigualdad tan arraigada en Ecuador y a un modelo económico que depende de la exportación de petróleo y la extracción minera en las tierras indígenas.Ambos candidatos han prometido promulgar mayores protecciones medioambientales y conceder a las comunidades indígenas más poder de decisión sobre la extracción de recursos. Lasso, un banquero de 66 años, se comprometió a mejorar las oportunidades económicas de los indígenas que, a pesar de décadas de progreso, están muy por debajo del promedio nacional en el acceso a la educación, la atención sanitaria y el empleo.Ambos candidatos han prometido más salvaguardas ambientales y otorgar a las comunidades indígenas participación en las decisiones de extracción de recursos.Johanna Alarcón para The New York TimesArauz, de 36 años, un economista que lideró la contienda durante la primera ronda electoral, prometió gobernar Ecuador como un verdadero país “plurinacional” en reconocimiento de sus 15 naciones indígenas. La designación, aunque más bien simbólica, había sido solicitada durante décadas por Pachakutik, el partido indígena del país, como un poderoso reconocimiento del lugar central que ocupa su pueblo en Ecuador.El ascenso de Pachakutik en la escena nacional no solo llamó la atención de la minoría indígena del país, sino que también planteó cuestiones de identidad más profundas para todo el electorado. Aunque solo el ocho por ciento de los ecuatorianos se identificó como indígena en el último censo, gran parte de la población es mestiza.“Esta es una conversación difícil para nosotros como nación, pero no hay vuelta atrás”, afirmó Simon.El principal responsable del cambio político es el activista medioambiental Yaku Pérez, el candidato presidencial de Pachakutik en la primera ronda electoral de febrero.Pérez, de 52 años, se quedó fuera de la segunda ronda por muy poco, pero amplió en gran medida el atractivo histórico de Pachakutik con su apoyo a los derechos de la mujer, la igualdad de las personas que pertenecen a la comunidad LGBTQ y los esfuerzos para luchar contra el cambio climático. Pérez también apoyó el derecho al aborto y el matrimonio entre personas del mismo sexo, lo que creó tensiones dentro de su electorado indígena, socialmente conservador.Partidarios de Pachakutik en febrero. Yaku Pérez, el candidato a la presidencia de Pachakutik, por poco se perdió la segunda vuelta, pero amplió enormemente el atractivo de su partido.Rodrigo Buendia/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“Yaku Pérez tuvo una enorme capacidad para abrir sus horizontes, su discurso, para incorporar otros temas que no habían estado ahí” en la política ecuatoriana, comentó Alberto Acosta, excandidato presidencial de Pachakutik.El ascenso de Pérez forma parte de un cambio generacional más extenso en los movimientos de izquierda de Latinoamérica. Impulsados en parte por las redes sociales y las protestas políticas en Estados Unidos, donde la mayoría de los países latinoamericanos cuentan con grandes diásporas, los políticos más jóvenes de la izquierda están dando prioridad a los temas relacionados con el medioambiente, el género y las minorías frente a la doctrina marxista de sus mentores.En el vecino Perú, Verónika Mendoza, de 40 años, figura entre los principales contendientes a la presidencia en las elecciones del domingo, y como parte de su plataforma promete conceder títulos de propiedad a las comunidades indígenas y proteger el medioambiente. En Bolivia, la lideresa indígena Eva Copa, de 34 años, ganó hace poco la alcaldía de El Alto, una ciudad que es un crisol de culturas y que se considera un referente.Esta nueva generación de líderes va más allá de la tradicional división izquierda-derecha y desafía la dependencia histórica que tienen sus países en los grandes proyectos mineros, petroleros y agroindustriales para el crecimiento económico, afirmó Carwil Bjork-James, antropólogo de la Universidad de Vanderbilt en Tennessee.“Se trata de grandes cuestiones continentales que los movimientos indígenas han planteado desde hace mucho tiempo”, señaló Bjork-James. “Ver que estas preguntas se plantean en la esfera política es un nuevo nivel”.Sus rivales afirman que este marco de referencia es corto de miras. Las naciones sudamericanas no tienen otra alternativa que depender de los ingresos procedentes de las materias primas para recuperarse de la pandemia. Y solo a través del desarrollo económico, dicen, se pueden abordar plenamente las desigualdades.En Ecuador, Pérez consiguió casi el veinte por ciento de los votos en febrero, pero su partido, Pachakutik, y sus aliados pasaron de nueve a 43 escaños en el Congreso, con lo que se convirtieron en los líderes de la fracturada legislatura de 137 escaños.En un principio, la campaña se centró en el legado de Rafael Correa, el presidente democrático que más tiempo ocupó el cargo en Ecuador. Durante el auge de las materias primas en la década de 2000 sacó a millones de personas de la pobreza, pero su estilo autoritario y las acusaciones de corrupción en su contra dejaron a la nación sumida en una amarga división.Andrés Arauz, candidato de izquierda, en un acto de campaña en Quito la semana pasada. Presentó un mensaje especial para los votantes indígenas. Cristina Vega Rhor/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesCorrea, quien dejó el cargo en 2017, eligió a Arauz para que representara su movimiento de izquierda este año, lo cual catapultó a este hombre de 36 años a la cima de las encuestas a pesar de su limitada experiencia y reconocimiento nacional. Lasso centró su mensaje de campaña inicial en el temor de que Correa siguiera ejerciendo su influencia.Sin embargo, los resultados de la primera vuelta demostraron “que gran parte de la población no se deja encasillar en aquel enfrentamiento de correístas y anticorreístas, que es muy simple y limita los problemas ecuatorianos a una visión binaria”, comentó Acosta, el excandidato.El éxito electoral de Pachakutik se deriva de una ola de protestas nacionales en octubre de 2019, cuando el movimiento indígena marchó en Quito, la capital, para exigir la derogación de un muy impopular recorte del subsidio a la gasolina. Las protestas se tornaron violentas y en ellas murieron al menos ocho personas, pero el gobierno retiró el recorte del subsidio tras doce días de disturbios.“Eso ha demostrado que los pueblos indígenas estamos buscando la transformación de este sistema dominante, capitalista que busca solamente atender a los sectores más pudientes”, declaró Diocelinda Iza, lideresa de la nación quichua en la provincia central de Cotopaxi.La vida de Pérez, candidato a la presidencia, refleja las penurias del movimiento indígena. Nació en un valle alto de los Andes, en el sur de Ecuador, en una familia de campesinos empobrecidos. Su padre era quichua y su madre cañari.Guillermo Lasso, el candidato conservador, en campaña en Guayaquil. También ha ampliado su plataforma.Rodrigo Buendia/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSus padres trabajaban en la finca de un terrateniente local sin remuneración, a cambio de vivir en su propiedad, un acuerdo rural que ha cambiado poco desde la época colonial.De su infancia, Pérez dice que recuerda el trabajo aparentemente interminable en el campo, las punzadas de hambre y la humillación que sentía en la escuela cuando su madre acudía a las reuniones de padres vestida con faldas tradicionales.“Yo sentía mucha vergüenza de ser indígena, de venir del campo, de ser campesino, de mi padre ser chacarero”, declaró Pérez en una entrevista en marzo. Para tener éxito en la escuela, “uno terminaba blanqueándose, colonizándose, renegando de nuestra identidad”.Pérez acabó estudiando en una universidad local, ejerciendo el derecho e involucrándose en la política a través de asociaciones locales que defienden los derechos comunales del agua. Ascendió hasta convertirse en gobernador de la región ecuatoriana de Azuay, la quinta más poblada del país, antes de renunciar para presentarse a la presidencia.Su historia resuena en otros indígenas, muchos de los cuales ven los esfuerzos políticos actuales en el contexto de los cinco siglos transcurridos desde la conquista colonial de Ecuador.“No lo hacemos por una persona”, dijo la dirigente indígena, Luz Namicela Contento, “sino por un proyecto político”.José María León Cabrera More

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      Indigenous Party, Not on the Ballot, Is Still a Big Winner in Ecuador Election

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      Its candidate didn’t reach Sunday’s presidential runoff, but the party’s powerful showing in the first round of voting has transformed the national agenda.TARQUI, Ecuador — Though its candidate is not on the ballot, one big winner in Sunday’s presidential runoff in Ecuador was clear before the first vote was cast: the nation’s long-marginalized Indigenous movement.The Indigenous party and its allies jolted the nation in the first round of voting in February, winning half of all states, becoming the second-largest presence in Congress and transforming the agenda of the finalists in Sunday’s presidential race, the leftist Andrés Arauz and the conservative Guillermo Lasso.“The politics of Ecuador will never be the same,” said Farith Simon, an Ecuadorean law professor and columnist. “There’s still racism, but there’s also a re-vindication of the value of Indigenous culture, of pride in their national role.”Eager to court Indigenous voters and mindful of the need to work with the newly powerful Indigenous bloc in Congress, Mr. Arauz and Mr. Lasso have revamped their messages and shifted the contest from the polarizing socialist-versus-conservative ground that has defined national politics for years. Debates are emerging instead on Ecuador’s deep-seated inequality and on an economic model reliant on the export of oil and metals extracted from Indigenous lands.Both candidates have promised to enact greater environmental safeguards and to grant Indigenous communities more say over the extraction of resources. Mr. Lasso, 66, a banker, has vowed to improve economic opportunities for Indigenous people, who, despite decades of progress, lag far behind national averages in access to education, health care and jobs.Both candidates have promised to enact greater environmental safeguards and to grant Indigenous communities more say over the extraction of resources. Johanna Alarcon for The New York TimesMr. Arauz, 36, an economist who led in the first round of voting, has promised to lead Ecuador as a true “plurinational” country in recognition of its 15 Indigenous nations. Though largely symbolic, the designation had been sought for decades by the country’s Indigenous party, Pachakutik, as a powerful acknowledgment of its people’s central place in Ecuador.The rise of Pachakutik on the national stage has not only brought attention to the country’s Indigenous minority, it has posed deeper questions of identity for the entire electorate. Though just 8 percent of Ecuadoreans identified themselves as Indigenous in the last census, much of the population is ethnically mixed.“This is a difficult conversation for us as a nation, but there’s no turning back,” Mr. Simon said.The man most responsible for the political sea change has been the environmental activist Yaku Pérez, the Pachakutik presidential candidate in February’s first round of voting.Mr. Pérez, 52, narrowly missed the runoff, but he greatly broadened Pachakutik’s historic single-digit appeal with his support for women’s rights, equality for L.G.B.T.Q. people and efforts to fight climate change. Mr. Pérez also backed abortion rights and same-sex marriage, creating tensions inside his socially conservative Indigenous constituency.Pachakutik supporters in February. Yaku Pérez, the Pachakutik presidential candidate, narrowly missed the runoff, but he greatly broadened the party’s appeal.Rodrigo Buendia/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“Pérez had an enormous capacity to open his horizons, his discourse, to incorporate themes that weren’t there” in Ecuadorean politics, said Alberto Acosta, a former Pachakutik presidential candidate.Mr. Pérez’s rise is part of a larger generational shift in Latin America’s leftist movements. Partly driven by social media and political protests in the United States, where most Latin American nations have large diasporas, younger left-leaning politicians are prioritizing environment, gender and minority issues over the Marxist doctrine of their mentors.In neighboring Peru, Verónika Mendoza, 40, is among the top contenders in Sunday’s presidential election, promising to grant land titles to Indigenous communities and protect the environment. In Bolivia, the 34-year-old Indigenous leader Eva Copa recently won a mayor’s race in El Alto, a melting-pot city considered a bellwether.This new generation of leaders is going beyond the traditional left-right divide, challenging their countries’ historic reliance on large mining, oil and agribusiness projects for economic growth, said Carwil Bjork-James, an anthropologist at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.“These are big continental questions that the Indigenous movements have been asking for a long time,” Mr. Bjork-James said. “To see these questions being asked politically is a new level.”Such a framework is shortsighted, their rivals say. South American nations have no alternative but to rely on revenue from raw materials to recover from the pandemic. And only through economic development, they say, can inequalities be fully addressed.In Ecuador, Mr. Pérez managed to win nearly 20 percent of February’s vote, but his party and its allies soared from nine to 43 congressional seats in the election, becoming kingmakers in the country’s fractured 137-seat legislature.The campaign had initially focused on the legacy of Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s longest-serving democratic president. He had lifted millions from poverty during a commodities boom in the 2000s, but his authoritarian style and the corruption allegations that trailed him had left the nation bitterly divided.Andrés Arauz, a leftist candidate for president, campaigning in Quito last week. He has tailored a message for Indigenous voters.Cristina Vega Rhor/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Correa, who left office in 2017, picked Mr. Arauz to represent his leftist movement this year, catapulting the 36-year-old to the top of the polls despite his limited experience and national recognition. Mr. Lasso centered his early campaign message on fears that Mr. Correa would continue to exert influence.But the first-round results “showed that a great part of the population doesn’t want to be boxed into this conflict between Correa’s supporters and opponents, which reduces Ecuadoreans’ problems to a binary vision,” said Mr. Acosta, the former candidate.Pachakutik’s electoral success this year traces to a wave of national protests in October 2019, when the Indigenous movement marched on the capital, Quito, to demand the repeal of a deeply unpopular cut in gasoline subsidies. The protests turned violent, claiming at least eight lives, but the government withdrew the subsidy cut after 12 days of unrest.“We showed the country that the Indigenous people are looking for a transformation of this dominant system that only serves the most affluent,” said Diocelinda Iza, a leader of the Kichwa nation in the central province of Cotopaxi.The life of Mr. Pérez, the presidential candidate, embodies the travails of the Indigenous movement. He was born in a high Andean valley in southern Ecuador to a family of impoverished farmers. His father was Kichwa, his mother Kañari.Guillermo Lasso, the conservative, campaigning in Guayaquil. He, too, is broadening his platform.Rodrigo Buendia/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHis parents worked on the estate of a local landowner without pay in return for living on his property, a rural arrangement that has changed little since colonial times.From his childhood, Mr. Pérez said he remembers the seemingly endless toil in the fields, the pangs of hunger, and the humiliation he felt at school when his mother came to parent meetings dressed in traditional skirts.“I felt a lot of shame to be Indigenous, to come from the field, to be a farmer, to have a sharecropper father,” Mr. Pérez said in an interview in March. To succeed at school, he said, “I ended up whitening myself, colonizing myself, rejecting our identity.”Mr. Pérez ended up studying at a local university, practicing law and becoming involved in politics through local associations defending communal water rights. He rose to become the governor of Ecuador’s Azuay region, the country’s fifth-most populous, before quitting to run for president.His story has resonated with other Indigenous people, many of whom see the political efforts of today in the context of the five centuries since Ecuador’s colonial conquest.“We’re not campaigning for a person,” said one Indigenous leader, Luz Namicela Contento, “but for a political project.”Jose María León Cabrera reported from Tarqui, Ecuador, and Anatoly Kurmanaev from Moscow. Mitra Taj contributed reporting from Lima, Peru. More

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      ‘Tell Us if He’s Dead’: Abductions and Torture Rattle Uganda

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      Hundreds have been detained, many brutalized, after a bloody, contested election. The government of Yoweri Museveni appears intent on breaking the back of the opposition.KAMPALA, Uganda — Armed men in white minivans without license plates picked up people off the streets or from their homes.Those snatched were taken to prisons, police stations and military barracks where they say they were hooded, drugged and beaten — some left to stand in cellars filled with water up to their chests.The fear is still so palpable in the capital, Kampala, that many others have gone into hiding or left the country.Three months after Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, won a sixth five-year term in office in the most fiercely contested election in years, his government appears to be intent on breaking the back of the political opposition. The president of Uganda, a strategically located country in East Africa, is a longtime U.S. military ally and major recipient of American aid.His principal challenger, Bobi Wine, a magnetic musician-turned-lawmaker who galvanized youthful crowds of supporters, is now largely confined to his house in Kampala. Mr. Wine’s party said on Friday that 623 members, supporters and elected officials have been seized from the streets and arrested in recent weeks, many of them tortured.The musician-turned-oppostion politician Bobi Wine is now largely confined to his home, his party members and supporters arrested.Esther Ruth Mbabazi for The New York TimesFor many Ugandans, the enforced disappearances suggest a slide toward the repressive policies of dictators such as Idi Amin and Milton Obote — who was ousted by Mr. Museveni. Ugandans now say they worry that President Museveni, after 35 years in power, is adopting some of the harsh tactics used by the autocrats he railed against decades ago.“I didn’t know if I was going to make it out dead or alive,” said Cyrus Sambwa Kasato, his eyes darting as he spoke, his hand tugging at the rosary around his neck. A district councilor with Mr. Wine’s opposition party, he said he was held at military intelligence headquarters, his hands chained to the ceiling, whipped by several men at once.President Museveni has acknowledged arresting 242 people, branding them “terrorists” and “lawbreakers,” and admitted that an elite commando unit had “killed a few.” But he denied that his government was disappearing its own citizens.Cyrus Sambwa Kasato, a district councilor with the opposition party,  said he was held at military intelligence headquarters, chained to the ceiling and whipped.Esther Ruth Mbabazi for The New York TimesA military spokesman, Lt. Col. Deo Akiiki, said in an email, “Terrorism has changed the modus operandi of some security operations across the world.”He defended the use of the unmarked white vans, saying that using “unidentifiable means of transport” was not unique to Uganda and that other countries — including the United States and Britain — have deployed similar methods to deal with “hard-core criminals.” He added that military officers are well trained in upholding human rights.The detentions and disappearances, in Uganda’s central region and elsewhere in the country, have targeted both young and middle-aged men and women.Some of those detained say they had collected evidence of vote tampering to present to the Supreme Court to challenge the official election results — which gave Mr. Museveni 59 percent of the vote to 34 percent for Mr. Wine. Mr. Wine has since dropped his challenge.Many of those who agreed to be interviewed were initially afraid to meet, fearing that journalists were actually government operatives. They asked to meet in public spaces or in party offices. Most did not want their names used for fear of retribution.They said uniformed soldiers or plainclothes gunmen whisked them away in unmarked minivans, known as “drones,” and shuffled them between prisons, police stations and military barracks — making it hard for their families and lawyers to find them.Campaign billboards for President Museveni, who was elected to his sixth five-year term.Esther Ruth Mbabazi for The New York TimesThey were ordered to turn over evidence of vote-rigging, accused of orchestrating violence and participating in an American plot to start a “revolution.” Mr. Museveni has claimed that the opposition was receiving support from “outsiders” and “homosexuals” who don’t like the “stability of Uganda.”Some said they were charged in a military court with possessing “military stores,” including the red berets worn by supporters of Mr. Wine, which the government banned in 2019.David Musiri, a member of Mr. Wine’s National Unity Platform Party, said he was shopping at a supermarket in Kampala on Jan. 18 when six gunmen in plainclothes assaulted him and injected him twice with a substance that made him lose consciousness.Mr. Musiri, 30, said he was placed in solitary confinement with his hands and feet tied together. Like most of those arrested, he said that his jailers interrogated him about what they called “Plan B” — Mr. Wine’s postelection strategy.Soldiers made him listen to recordings of his own phone calls with party officials, and kicked and hit him so much that he started urinating blood, he said. When he was released four days later, he couldn’t walk.“We are the very people funding the dictator to do this to us,” he said.David Musiri, a member of the opposition party, said soldiers beat him so badly he couldn’t walk, and interrogated him about a suspected “Plan B.”Esther Ruth Mbabazi for The New York TimesMr. Kasato, the district councilor, said that plainclothes officers picked him up from a church meeting on Feb. 8, threw him, hooded, into a car and clobbered him.He said the men asked him for the evidence of election rigging he’d collected, and whether he had sent it to Mr. Wine’s party. He said, yes, he had.Mr. Kasato, a 47-year-old father of 11, said that while he was chained to the ceiling, his feet barely touching the ground, military officers whipped him with a wire and pulled at his skin with pliers. “It was a big shock,” he said. “I was praying deeply that I really survive that torture.”In late February, Mr. Kasato was charged with inciting violence during the November protests in which security forces killed dozens of people — accusations he denies. He has been released on bail, but said he was still in intense physical pain, and that his doctors advised he seek medical attention abroad.Analysts say that Mr. Museveni, 76, who has ruled Uganda since 1986, is trying to avoid history repeating itself. He himself was a charismatic young upstart who accused his predecessor, Mr. Obote, of rigging an election, and led an armed rebellion that after five years managed to take power.Mr. Wine, 39, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, has become the face of this young movement, promising to shake up the country’s stifled politics. As his campaign gained ground last year, he was arrested and beaten and placed under de facto house arrest.“We are seeing a movement toward full totalitarianism in this country,” said Nicholas Opiyo, a leading human rights lawyer. He was abducted last December and released, charged with money laundering after his legal advocacy group received a grant from American Jewish World Service, a New York-based nonprofit.“I have never felt as restricted and constrained as I am today,” said Nicholas Opiyo, a human rights lawyer, who was detained.Esther Ruth Mbabazi for The New York TimesAfter years of working to defend civil liberties in Uganda, Mr. Opiyo said, “I have never felt as restricted and constrained as I am today,” adding, “It feels like the noose is tightening on our neck.”Authorities have started releasing some of those forcibly disappeared following weeks of public outcry.On a March morning in Kyotera, a town 110 miles southwest of the Ugandan capital, news spread that 18 of the 19 local people who went missing had been returned.One was Lukyamuzi Kiwanuka Yuda, a 30-year-old trader who was taken from his home on the night of Jan. 8. Mr. Yuda said that 15 to 20 men in black counterterrorism police uniforms broke down his door, beat him and asked whether he was training “the rebels.”Lukyamuzi Kiwanuka Yuda, embraced by friends upon his release, said he was detained for more than 70 days in a hood and shackles.Esther Ruth Mbabazi for The New York TimesFor more than 70 days, he said, he and others detained with him remained hooded and shackled, allowed to lift their hoods only up to their lips when eating their one meal a day.“We would count the days based on when the meal for the day arrived,” he said, while continuously gazing at the sky. When asked why he kept looking up, he said, “I miss the sun.”In the hours after the reunion, neighbors and local officials gathered, cheering, ululating and hugging the returnees. A tent was pitched, and soon families arrived dressed in their best as a pastor delivered a prayer of thanks.But one resident quietly slipped out.After rushing over, Jane Kyomugisha did not find her brother among those released. Her brother, who is 28, had run in the local council election as an independent. He was taken away on Jan. 19 and has not been seen since. Ms. Kyomugisha said she has asked about him at numerous police stations, but in vain.“I feel a lot of pain that others have come back and my brother is not here,” she said in an interview at her convenience store in town. With each passing day, she feels more hopeless.“They should tell us if he’s dead,” she said. “Give us back the body and let our hope end there.”Jane Kyomugisha said that her brother, who ran as an independent in a local council election, was abducted in January and has not been seen since.Esther Ruth Mbabazi for The New York Times More