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      Australia Likely to Reject Indigenous ‘Voice’ Referendum

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      Sitting on the banks of the Fitzroy River in remote Western Australia, watching a plume of smoke swirling into the air from a distant wildfire, the Aboriginal elder lamented how his parents’ generation worked for sugar, flour and tea, not wages, and his community now relies heavily on welfare after employment programs were withdrawn by the government.But, “we’ve got something coming,” said Hector Angus Hobbs, 67, who is a member of the Walmajarri tribe. “We’re going to win.”His unwavering optimism will be tested on Saturday, when the nation votes on a referendum that would give Indigenous Australians a voice in Parliament in the form of an advisory body.The proposal, polls show, is broadly supported by the country’s Indigenous people, who make up less than 4 percent of the nation’s population. Many of them see it as a sign of Australia taking a step to do right by them after centuries of abuse and neglect. Mr. Hobbs and many of his neighbors in the town of Fitzroy Crossing believe it would help with everything from solving everyday issues like repairs for houses, to moving the needle on weighty aspirations like reparations.In reality, the measure, known as the Voice, is much more modest, making some of these expectations rather lofty.Joe Ross, a community leader in Fitzroy Crossing from the Bunuba tribe, untangling a fishing line from a crocodile in Danggu Geike Gorge, Australia. For him, the debate had “shown the real underbelly of this country.”The Mangkaja Arts Resource Agency in Fitzroy Crossing, Australia, an Aboriginal-owned art center representing the five language groups of the Fitzroy Valley.At the same time, it has given rise to unrealistic fears — like of homeowners being forced to return their land to Indigenous people — that have galvanized opposition to the Voice. And with many Australians perceiving the referendum as racially divisive, polling suggests its defeat is likely.“We now know where we sit,” said Joe Ross, a community leader in Fitzroy Crossing from the Bunuba tribe, adding that the debate had “shown the real underbelly of this country.”The coming vote has surfaced uncomfortable, unsettled questions about Australia’s past, present and future. Does it recognize its colonial history as benign or harmful? How does it understand the disadvantages facing Indigenous people? Should the hundreds of Indigenous tribes that first inhabited the continent have the right to decide if and how to meld their traditions and cultures into modern society, or just be encouraged to assimilate?The Voice was first conceived by Indigenous leaders as a response to entrenched and growing Indigenous disadvantage. Life expectancy in the community is eight years below the general population, while rates of suicide and incarceration are far higher than the national average. The issues are most severe in remote communities, where some Aboriginal people live in order to maintain their connection to their traditional lands.Experts and Indigenous leaders say that by and large Australians are aware of this disadvantage but generally do not understand it. Many in the country, they said, see these problems as failures of Indigenous people and communities, rather than of the systems that govern them.In Fitzroy Crossing, a town surrounded by over 30 small Aboriginal settlements, the historical impact of colonization feels immediate, as Aboriginal people in the region were hunted and killed by settlers well into the 1900s.A horse standing on the veranda of a house to escape the hot sun in Jimbalakudunj.It is something that Australians feel a sense of collective but unexamined shame over, said Julianne Schultz, the author of “The Idea of Australia” and a professor at Griffith University.“The genesis for the shame is when people look at it and think ‘We’ve got some responsibility for why this has happened — but we can’t quite figure it out,’” she said. “And how do you hide that? Well, you blame the victim.”The Voice, which would include constitutional recognition of Indigenous people, also has been criticized as toothless because it would have no power to create or veto government decisions or policies. But this was by design, say Indigenous leaders involved in the creation of the measure, who had hoped that it would be a benign enough to be acceptable to the Australian public. One of those leaders, Marcia Langton, described it as an offer from Aboriginal people to the broader public, to heal the wounds of colonization and “end the postcolonial politics of blame and guilt.” But with Voice expected to fail, she wrote, “The nation has been poisoned. There is no fix for this terrible outcome.”Part of why people in Fitzroy Crossing had such high hopes for the Voice was because many remember how much better things were under a previous policy. From 1990 to 2005, an elected body, the Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Commission, gave advice to the government and ran programs and services for Indigenous communities.Ree-alla Oscar looking after her niece in their camper van in the Wunaamin-Miliwundi Ranges, a temporary refuge after their house was destroyed during floods earlier this year.Wildfires across the Fitzroy River.“Aboriginal people had their own governments,” recalled Emily Carter, the chief executive of the local women’s resource center, who is from the Gooniyandi tribe. “They were able to look after their own finances. They made rules about what work people did in their communities.”That body was abolished by a prime minister who said that the future of Indigenous people “lies in being part of the mainstream of this country,” setting the tone for the next two decades of policy.Since then, residents say, that autonomy has been taken away, community-controlled employment programs have been replaced with what is effectively a welfare alternative, and services have been withdrawn. Indigenous leaders argue this system, under which policies are decided, enacted and withdrawn in their communities at what they see as whims of governments and ideologies, continues the disempowerment and trauma that Indigenous communities have experienced since colonization. That sense of powerlessness shows up in the form of social harms like suicide, domestic violence, and addiction to drugs and alcohol, they say.“What has led to our disadvantage has been our exclusion in the development of the nation state,” said June Oscar, who is the Australian Human Rights Commission’s head for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice program, and who lives near Fitzroy Crossing.Students in front of the Yiramalay Studio School, near Fitzroy Crossing. Students come from Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia to attend the boarding school, which seeks to improve educational outcomes for Aboriginal students.June Oscar, who heads the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice program, says that a history of powerlessness and exclusion lies behind Aboriginal disadvantage. Her home was damaged in a flood, and she is relying on canned food supplies until she has a proper kitchen again.In Fitzroy Crossing, a town surrounded by over 30 small Aboriginal settlements, the historical impact of colonization feels immediate. Aboriginal people in the region were hunted and killed by settlers well into the 1900s. For protection, many fled to stations, or ranches, where they were protected by the government, but also stripped of their culture.There, they worked, usually for little or no pay, and were often forbidden to speak their native languages.“Our people built stations, worked hard — only for flour, tea, sugar,” said Mr. Hobbs, the Walmajarri elder.In the 1960s, amid a push for Aboriginal workers to be paid the same as white ones, many were kicked off the stations by owners who didn’t want the extra cost. They settled in and around Fitzroy Crossing, creating the beginnings of the town that exists today.On a recent weekday, as the temperature rose to over 100 degrees, Eva Nargoodah, 65, sitting outside her home in the small community of Jimbalakudunj, about 60 miles from Fitzroy Crossing, explained how sometimes, the high level of chlorine in the water supply caused the residents to experience rashes, watery eyes and sore throats. Other times, it was filled with so much salt, it formed a thick layer on top.Ms. Nargoodah at home looking at family photos. She explained how sometimes, the amount of chlorine in the water supply in the area gave the residents sore throats, watery eyes and rashes.Tamati Smith for The New York TimesA leak from a solar heating system under the house of one of Ms. Nargoodah’s sons. Aboriginal residents of the area live in government-subsidized housing, where repairs have become frustratingly slow in recent years. She said she had been waiting for years for repairs to her home, including filling in holes through which snakes can crawl in. Such maintenance used to be handled by the Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Commission, but now the process is much slower. And she spoke of her father, who had been part of what is known as the Stolen Generation: Indigenous people forcibly removed from their families and culture in an effort to assimilate them into Western society.“They need to give us something back,” she said. If the Voice referendum passed, she was optimistic that “we’ve got the power.”An Indigenous family fishing by the river in Danggu Geike Gorge. More

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      Scenting Power, U.K. Business Flocks to the Labour Party

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      The governing Conservative Party was long seen as entrepreneurs’ natural ally and lobbyists’ most important target. With an election on the horizon, that’s changing.It was impossible to miss: a large green, yellow and blue off-road vehicle parked in a prime spot in the exhibition hall at the Labour Party’s annual conference. The car belonged to Ineos, one of the world’s largest chemical companies, and its outsize presence, among dozens of businesses and organizations, marked the company’s first time attending the gathering.Andrew Gardner, who runs Ineos’s huge refinery complex in Grangemouth, Scotland, was standing by the vehicle on Tuesday afternoon, grabbing time with passing Labour lawmakers to discuss the company’s goals.He had never attended a Labour conference before, and skipped the governing Conservative Party’s the previous week, but said he had come to this one, in the northern English city of Liverpool, because Labour was expected to form the next government. His colleague Richard Longden, Ineos’s head of communications, chimed in, describing “a vibe here of a party that’s changed, and one that’s looking forward to the future. And business needs to be speaking to them and needs to be seen.”“Which is exactly why we’re here,” Mr. Gardner added.In Britain, the Conservative Party has traditionally been seen as the party of business and the guardians of free enterprise. Now, under the centrist leadership of Keir Starmer, Labour is taking over that mantle. As the party inches closer to power, with a general election expected next year, it is engaged in a mutually beneficial love-in with the corporate sector.At the four-day conference this week, attended by 18,500 people, British executives and lobbyists representing industries from finance and technology to construction and defense crammed into bars, corridors and meeting rooms as Labour made its pitch to be “the undisputed party of business,” in the words of Jonathan Reynolds, a lawmaker who speaks for Labour on the issue.The record attendance was boosted by companies showing up for the first time, decamping from their more familiar habitat of Conservative Party gatherings, including Ineos, whose CEO and founder is the billionaire Brexit supporter Jim Ratcliffe.Ineos’s refinery complex in Grangemouth, Scotland. The company, whose founder is a billionaire Brexit supporter, had a strong presence at Labour’s conference.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesMr. Gardner said that Labour was already saying 80 percent of what he wanted to hear in terms of decarbonizing large-scale industry, as the company invests in reducing its carbon emissions. (That off-road vehicle was hydrogen-powered.) But he was there to push for the last portion, which was to lobby Labour not to end natural gas exploration in the North Sea too soon.That message was “slowly percolating,” he said. And there was some evidence that Ineos was being heard: Rachel Reeves, who would become Britain’s first female chancellor if Labour win next year, mentioned Grangemouth in her speech to party members.The party brought together about 200 executives on Monday at a forum within the conference to meet would-be cabinet ministers.“What we are experiencing is a party who tell us that, if elected, they want to be business-friendly government, that they want to work with the private sector in partnership,” said Chris Hayward, who speaks on policy questions for the City of London, Britain’s historic financial district.At a reception on Tuesday evening held by Labour Business, a forum to engage with the commercial sector, the mood was almost euphoric. As guests sipped wine and ate canapés, the group’s chairman, Hamish Sandison, said that not only had the tide turned in terms of Labour’s relationship with business, it had “become a tsunami.”That enthusiasm partly reflects strained relations with the governing Conservatives, particularly over Britain’s exit from the European Union, which many big corporations opposed.Boris Johnson, a former prime minister, famously dismissed the concerns of businesses over Brexit in crude terms. His short-lived successor, Liz Truss, caused markets chaos with her plans for unfunded tax cuts. And although her successor, Rishi Sunak, restored some calm, he has recently upset many businesses by abruptly changing targets on some net zero plans and canceling part of a high-speed train network.Labour has been on a journey, too. Its previous leader, Jeremy Corbyn, promised nationalization of key industries and big increases in public spending funded by higher taxes. That agenda has been unceremoniously junked by Mr. Starmer, who became leader in 2020 and moved to purge his predecessor.Labour’s shift attracted some surprising names, like JCB Hydrogen, an energy firm, which handed out tote bags to party members. Its chairman, Anthony Bamford, was a prominent supporter of Brexit and, during the last general election in 2019, hosted a campaign event for Mr. Johnson.Outside the Labour conference on Tuesday. It had 18,500 people in attendance.Jon Super/Associated PressWhat draws many businesses to Labour is the prospect of a more stable policy environment, which could be cemented by the party’s plans for a long-term industrial strategy — an idea that runs counter to Mr. Sunak’s free-market instincts.Carl Ennis, the head of Siemens in Britain and Ireland, was also at the Labour conference for the first time. He was there to lobby for an “overarching” and long-term approach, which was something that the Conservatives were struggling to provide, he said. “My job is to make the U.K. an attractive place for Siemens to invest its money in,” he said, adding that Labour’s industrial strategy appealed to him.In every meeting room, businesses had the same central plea: Give us consistency. And the Labour party was receptive, said Shevaun Haviland, the director general of the British Chambers of Commerce. “We feel very positive that the party’s listening to what we have to say and what our members have to say,” she said.Ben Wilson, vice president of public policy for Mastercard, said that his experience of engaging with the party was “indicative of how open Labour is to business,” saying that he and other executives had the opportunity to discuss policies that could form part of the platform of the “next government.”All this has revived memories of the 1990s when, in the years before Tony Blair became prime minister, the party wooed business over lunches and dinners in what was nicknamed the “prawn cocktail offensive.” This time much of the interaction has been over breakfast with Ms. Reeves, nicknamed the “scrambled eggs and smoked salmon offensive.”“Ever since I became shadow chancellor I’ve had this aim to reach out to business,” Ms. Reeves, a former economist at the Bank of England, said at a small event on the sidelines of the conference. “A lot of the businesses that I’ve met over the last two and a half years would have seen, in some of the announcements this week, their fingerprints on our policies.”While some on the left of the party were unnerved by the dominant presence of business and its influence on future policy, other supporters suggested it was the inevitable result of Labour’s double-digit poll lead.“Businesses are here in numbers,” said Stephen Kinsella, a former antitrust lawyer and Labour donor. “There are a lot of people who want to back a winner, think they have spotted a winner and realize they need to get to know the people who are going to be in government.” More

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      Airstrikes Intensify in Gaza, and More

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      The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists who are covering them, all in about 10 minutes. Hosted by Annie Correal, the new morning show features three top stories from reporters across the newsroom and around the world, so you always have a sense of what’s happening, even if you only have a few minutes to spare.Smoke rising after an airstrike in Gaza City on Wednesday, as seen from the city’s Al Shifa hospital.Smoke rising after an airstrike in Gaza City on Wednesday, as seen from the city’s Al Shifa hospital. Photo: Samar Abu Elouf for The New York TimesOn Today’s Episode:Palestinians Describe Calamity in Gaza as Israeli Bombing Intensifies, with Chevaz ClarkeBlinken Stresses Support for Israel While Urging Restraint on Gaza AirstrikesScalise Withdraws as Speaker Candidate, Leaving Republicans in ChaosAs Red States Curb Social Media, Did Montana’s TikTok Ban Go Too Far?, with Sapna MaheshwariEli Cohen More

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      Growing Wariness of Aid to Ukraine Hangs Over Polish Election

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      Last year, Poland was one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters. But pressure from the right to focus more on domestic problems is pushing that support to the center stage of Sunday’s election.The radical right-wing candidate running for Parliament in Poland’s deep south wants to slash taxes, regulations on business and welfare benefits. Most striking, however, is his vow to remove a small Ukrainian flag that was hoisted last year on a town hall balcony as a gesture of solidarity with Poland’s eastern neighbor.He wants it taken down, not because he supports Russia, he says, but because Poland should focus on helping its own people, not cheering for Ukraine.In a country where millions of citizens rallied last year to help fleeing Ukrainians, and where the government threw itself into providing weapons for use against Russia’s invading army, complaints about the burden imposed by the war used to be confined to a tiny fringe. A general election set for Sunday, however, is pushing them toward center stage.That is due in large part to the vocal carping about Ukraine from candidates like Ryszard Wilk, the owner of a small photography business in the southern Polish town of Nowy Sacz. He is the electoral standard-bearer in the region for Konfederacja, or Confederation, an unruly alliance of economic libertarians, anti-vaxxers, anti-immigration zealots and belligerent nationalists that is now unusually united in opposition to aiding Ukraine.“We have already given them too much,” Mr. Wilk said in an interview early this week. He was traveling during a campaign swing through his mountainous and deeply conservative home region, a longtime bastion of support for Poland’s right-wing governing party, Law and Justice.Candidates from the Konfederacja list in the upcoming parliamentary elections meeting with potential voters at a volunteer fire department station in Limanowa, Poland.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York Times“We don’t want Ukraine to lose the war, but the burden on Poland and its taxpayers is too high,” Mr. Wilk added. “Poland should be helping Poles.”The growing reservation in Poland comes at a critical time for Ukraine, which is struggling in its counteroffensive against Russia and scrambling to stem an erosion of support from Western allies. Sunday’s vote in Poland comes after an election two weeks ago in neighboring Slovakia that was won by a Russia-friendly populist party that wants to halt sending arms to Ukraine.Long dismissed by liberals as a collection of extremist cranks, Konfederacja has jumped on the question of how much Poland should help Ukraine as a potential vote-winner, channeling what opinion surveys show to be modest but growing currents of anti-Ukrainian sentiment.Konfederacja is still less a party than a jumble of niche and often contradictory causes — from small-state libertarianism to big-state nationalism — but “they are all anti-Ukrainian, though for different reasons,” said Przemyslaw Witkowski, an expert on Poland’s far-right who teaches at Collegium Civitas, a private university in Warsaw.“Anti-Ukraine feeling and sympathy for Russia is one of the few elements that glues them all together,” he added.Konfederacja has no chance of winning on Sunday and opinion polls indicate that its public support, which surged to 15 percent over the summer, slipped after Law and Justice started echoing some of its views, particularly on Ukraine. By threatening to outflank the governing party, itself a deeply conservative force, on the far right in a tight election, Konfederacja helped prod the Polish government into curbing its previously unbridled enthusiasm for backing Ukraine.The Ukrainian flag hanging from the town hall in Nowy Sacz, Poland. A radical right-wing candidate for Parliament wants the flag taken down.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York TimesThe result has been a sharp souring in recent weeks in relations between Warsaw and Kyiv, particularly over Ukrainian grain imports. The issue triggered an ill-tempered tiff last month when Poland’s government, led by Law and Justice, banned the import of grain from Ukraine in an effort to protect Polish farmers — and avoid defections in its vital rural base.President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine exacerbated tensions by insinuating in a speech at the United Nations that Poland, by blocking grain deliveries, had aligned itself with Russia. And last month, Ukraine filed a complaint against Poland with the World Trade Organization over grain.Infuriated by what it saw as Mr. Zelensky’s ingratitude, Poland denounced the Ukrainian president’s remark as “astonishing” and “unfair.” It also briefly suggested it was halting the delivery of weapons but, after an uproar, said arms would continue to flow.Fearful of losing its grip on Ukraine-skeptic voters to Law and Justice, Konfederacja leaders in Warsaw drew up a bill totaling 101 billion Polish zloty (around $24 billion) to cover all the money they said Ukraine owed Poland for military and other aid like assistance to the millions of Ukrainians who fled the war.Ryszard Wilk, center, the electoral standard-bearer for Konfederacja in southern Poland during a pre-election barbecue party for supporters in Zakopane, Poland.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York TimesIn Nowy Sacz — the capital of an electoral district encompassing farmland and resort towns — Mr. Wilk sent a letter to the local mayor demanding, unsuccessfully, the removal of a Ukrainian flag from the town hall and an end to welfare payments to refugees from Ukraine.“We see no reason to pay benefits to foreigners, we see no reason for Ukrainians to receive Polish pensions,” Mr. Wilk wrote. “We see no reason for hanging the flag of a country that is declaring a trade war on us and complaining to the W.T.O.”Sunday’s election, which opinion polls indicate will be a tight race between Law and Justice and its strongest rival, Civic Coalition, a grouping of center-right and liberal forces, is unlikely to put Poland on the same openly anti-Ukrainian path as Hungary or Slovakia.But the fight for votes has introduced a level of discord that has already comforted the Kremlin’s hopes that Western solidarity with Ukraine is fraying, even in Poland, where hostility to Russia runs very deep.And if, as opinion polls suggest is likely, neither of the top two parties wins enough seats to form a new government on its own, Konfederacja could become a potential kingmaker, though it insists it won’t join either of the front-runners in a coalition government.A billboard promoting candidates from Konfederacja in the upcoming parliamentary election hangs on an apartment building in Nowy Sacz, Poland.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York TimesIts Five Point election manifesto promises lower taxes, simplified regulations for entrepreneurs, cheaper housing for everyone and “zero social benefits for Ukrainians.” The program replaces an earlier agenda put forward by one of its national leaders, Slawomir Mentzen, in 2019: “We do not want: Jews, homosexuals, abortion, taxes and the European Union.”Mr. Wilk, who heads the party’s list of candidates in the south, said the earlier program was meant as a joke and did not reflect Konfederacja’s current direction. “We are definitely a right-wing party, but mostly on economics, not this other stuff,” he said.Surveys of public opinion suggest that bashing Ukraine is not something most Poles want, but that it resonates among some voters as the war drags on.Eighty-five percent of Poles, according to a study released this summer by the University of Warsaw, want to help Ukraine in its war with Russia, but the share of respondents with a strong preference in favor of Ukraine fell to 40 percent in June from 62 percent in January. And the study found that “for the first time, we are dealing with a situation when the majority of Poles (55 percent) are against additional aid.”An outdoor barbecue organized last Sunday by Konfederacja for voters in the mountain resort town of Zakopane drew only a handful of people, though it was cold and rainy. Those who did attend, all men, were fully behind the party’s stance on Ukraine.Wojciech Tylka, a Konfederacja supporter, with his son, listen to candidates in the parliamentary elections during a barbecue event organised in Zakopane, Poland.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York Times“I will never tolerate the Ukrainian flag flying here in Poland,” said Wojciech Tylka, a professional musician who brought his three children along to hear Mr. Wilk and fellow candidates rail against taxation, social benefits and Ukraine’s drain on Polish resources. “Only the Polish flag should fly.”“If Ukrainians don’t like this, they should go home,” Mr. Tylka added.Disgusted by politicians of all stripes, Mr. Tylka said he had not voted in an election for more than 15 years, but that he would definitely vote for Konfederacja on Sunday.Desperate to hang on to conservative voters in the region, Law and Justice sent one of its best-known known national figures, Ryszard Terlecki, to lead its list of candidates in the district.Appearing Monday at a raucous pre-election debate at a university in Nowy Sacz with Mr. Wilk and four other opposition candidates, Mr. Terlecki said that Law and Justice would continue to help Ukraine “but must also take Polish interests into account.” He defended the government’s ban on the import of Ukrainian grain.Józef Klimowski, a shepherd whose flock of sheep blocked access to a recent campaign event for Mr. Wilk, said he didn’t care about politics but would vote for Law and Justice because it had found sponsors for his favorite local ice hockey team.After the debate, Artur Czernecki, a local Law and Justice politician, said he understood why Mr. Wilk has made an issue of Ukraine and its flag on Nowy Sacz’s town hall: “Every party is looking for ways to stand out,” he said. But, as deputy speaker of the City Council, Mr. Czernecki added that he would not allow the flag issue to be put to a vote, at least not until the election is over.“I just hope that after the election everything will calm down,” he said.Election posters hanging on an abandoned building in Nowy Sacz, Poland. The country’s parliamentary elections are set for Sunday.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York TimesAnatol Magdziarz in Warsaw contributed reporting More

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      Scalise Bid for Speaker Meets Resistance From G.O.P. Factions

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      The holdouts who refuse to back the No. 2 Republican, the party’s nominee, reflect the many competing groups inside the divided G.O.P. conference.Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 Republican, may have narrowly won his party’s nomination for speaker on Wednesday, but he is still facing an uphill battle to secure the 217 votes he needs to win the leadership post.Mr. Scalise postponed a vote on the House floor Wednesday afternoon in an effort to win over some of the remaining holdouts who have said they are either undecided on whether to support him, or will refuse to. He has a difficult path ahead of him, in part because the fractious Republican conference includes so many different factions — some overlapping and some not — that make it difficult for any one person to corral.In fact, resistance against Mr. Scalise’s speakership appeared to have grown, with lawmakers newly declaring on Wednesday evening that they were irrevocably opposed to voting for him.Many of the holdouts against Mr. Scalise do not fall neatly into any specific category. Others may prove impossible to win over altogether.The eight lawmakers who voted to oust Representative Kevin McCarthy of California from the speakership have largely lined up behind Mr. Scalise’s candidacy. But Mr. Scalise’s nomination has unlocked a new group of dissidents. If all Democrats are present and voting during the vote for speaker, Mr. Scalise can lose only four Republican votes.Here’s a broad overview of the factions not yet sold on Mr. Scalise.The McCarthy LoyalistsThese are mainstream conservative lawmakers who are close to Mr. McCarthy and are still furious that he was ousted, including Representatives Carlos Gimenez of Florida, Mike Lawler of New York and Lloyd Smucker of Pennsylvania. Mr. Gimenez suggested to reporters that he intends to vote for Mr. McCarthy on the House floor, and Mr. Lawler told CNN in an interview that he had not yet decided who he would vote for.Mainstream conservative lawmakers who are close to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy are still furious that he was ousted, and some are reluctant to back Mr. Scalise.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesHours after the vote, Mr. Smucker wrote on X that the Republican conference was “broken,” and it did not make sense to oust Mr. McCarthy and then turn around and promote those immediately underneath him in leadership. He urged his colleagues to chart a different path forward, adding, “In the meantime, I plan to vote for Jim Jordan on the floor.”Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Scalise have an icy relationship, making the prospect of switching their allegiance even more unpalatable to the former speaker’s closest allies.The UltraconservativesA number of members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus who backed Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, a co-founder of the group, have said that they will either continue to vote for Mr. Jordan on the House floor, or at least continue to oppose Mr. Scalise.Many of them have said that they are concerned that Mr. Scalise could try to force through another short-term spending bill to avert a shutdown in mid-November. Bringing up such a measure was Mr. McCarthy’s final move as speaker, and right-wing Republicans called it the final straw for his ouster.“I let Scalise know in person that he doesn’t have my vote on the floor, because he has not articulated a viable plan for avoiding an omnibus,” Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky wrote on X, using the term for a single bill that funds the entire government.These holdouts include Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Bob Good of Virginia.Still other conservatives who have long demanded fundamental changes in the way the House operates complained that Mr. Scalise appeared unwilling to accept a new way of doing business.Representative Chip Roy pledged not to vote for Mr. Scalise.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesRepresentative Chip Roy of Texas, an influential conservative who led the bloc of lawmakers who opposed Mr. McCarthy’s speakership bid in January, said he was “not happy” with how Mr. Scalise quickly shot down his bid on Wednesday to change the party’s internal rules for nominating a speaker. And Representative Michael Cloud of Texas said Mr. Scalise had tried to rush his election on the floor, calling it “underhanded.”Mr. Scalise appeared on Wednesday evening to have won over one hard-right holdout, Representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida. She emerged from a meeting with the Louisiana Republican saying she would vote for him after being assured that he would prioritize issues like impeaching President Biden and defunding the office of the special counsel investigating former President Donald J. Trump.But in a reflection of the difficulty of the task ahead of Mr. Scalise, Ms. Luna tempered her endorsement hours later, and on Thursday afternoon, after Mr. Trump weighed in against Mr. Scalise, she said on X that she would not vote for him after all.“There is no consensus candidate for speaker,” she wrote. “We need to stay in Washington till we figure this out.”The Wild CardsThen there are the Republicans with their own, singular grievances. One of them is Representative Ken Buck of Colorado, a former prosecutor who has said he wants the next speaker to clearly state that the 2020 presidential election was not stolen from Mr. Trump and a commitment that the next speaker will secure deep cuts in federal spending.During closed-door discussions in the run-up to the nomination vote on Wednesday, Mr. Buck directly asked both Mr. Scalise and Mr. Jordan who won the 2020 election, and neither would flatly state that it was Mr. Biden.Representative George Santos of New York, who had originally supported Mr. Jordan for speaker, announced on X around 10 p.m. Wednesday that he had “yet to hear from the Speaker-Designate” and had “come to the conclusion that my VOTE doesn’t matter to him.”“I’m now declaring I’m an ANYONE but Scalise and come hell or high water I won’t change my mind,” wrote Mr. Santos, who has been indicted on a litany of charges including money laundering, wire fraud, and stealing the identities and credit card details of donors to his campaign.Representative Nancy Mace criticized Mr. Scalise on national television over a meeting he attended decades ago with white nationalists.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesThe group also includes Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina, one of the eight Republicans who voted to oust Mr. McCarthy. She showed up to a private meeting of House Republicans on Tuesday night wearing a tank top emblazoned with a scarlet letter “A,” to represent how she said she was being marginalized for her vote.Another holdout is Representative Victoria Spartz of Indiana, who has previously floated resigning from Congress. In a statement earlier this month, she called Washington a “circus” for which she would not sacrifice her time away from her children, adding that “I cannot save this republic alone.”Ms. Spartz said she voted “present” during the closed-door G.O.P. nominating contest and did not know how she would vote on the House floor. More

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      Poland Isn’t About to Be Saved

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      “Of all the arts, the most important for us is the cinema,” Vladimir Lenin supposedly said. It’s not often that his words feel apt in Poland, a post-Communist country once traumatized by Soviet propaganda. But in recent weeks, as the country has been convulsed by controversy centered on a film, Lenin’s declaration has acquired a surprising resonance.“Green Border,” by the Oscar-nominated director Agnieszka Holland, tells the story of the tragedy of migrants and those helping them at the Polish-Belarusian border. Awarded the special jury prize at the Venice Film Festival, it is refined, thought-provoking and full of nuance — exactly the opposite of politics in Poland today.The ruling Law and Justice party, threatened by Ms. Holland’s humanitarian approach, has gone on the attack. Government officials called the film “anti-Polish” and the prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, labeled it “a collection of blatant lies.” The justice minister even went so far as to compare the film to Nazi propaganda.The government is jumpy for a reason: On Sunday, Poland goes to the polls. The stakes are high. After eight years of rule by the Law and Justice party, in which the right-wing government has remade the country’s institutions in its image, the election is perhaps the most important since the democratic breakthrough in 1989.Given the country’s geopolitical significance, much expanded since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the vote will be closely watched across Europe. Yet for Poland itself, mired in nationalist sentiment and populist reason, the outlook is bleak. Even if the opposition coalition triumphs, there will be no easy salvation.First and foremost, the campaign has not been fair. As in Hungary and Turkey, where autocratic governments recently won re-election, the odds have been heavily stacked in favor of the incumbents. There are, in practice, two kinds of populism: one in opposition and another in power. The former participates in the democratic game as one of many players. The latter changes the rules of the game to become the only player in town.In Poland, the process is in full swing. State media has been churning out propaganda, presenting a glowing depiction of the government while spurning the opposition. In the run-up to the election, the administration has treated core voters to increased benefits and gerrymandered the electoral map, through the creation of new districts in government-supporting rural areas. Even the police and the military have appeared in campaign materials. Another victory for the ruling party is the order of the day.The cherry on the cake comes in the form of a referendum, also to be held on Sunday. Composed of four vaguely worded questions — one asks “Do you support the admission of thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa?,” another whether voters back “the sale of state assets to foreign entities” — the referendum sets the terms of debate, feeding into government talking points. Never mind that nobody is planning to carry out the policies asked about. What matters is cultivating a sense of grievance.Crucially, it also unlocks money. For all Law and Justice’s advantages, there are limits on campaign spending — but not for referendums. By holding one, Law and Justice has vastly expanded its access to funds. By the end of September, the party had already spent about four million Polish zloty, around $940,000, on internet campaigning; the biggest political group in the opposition, the Civic Coalition, had spent only about a quarter of that amount. In this unequal environment, opposition victory will be hard to come by.But the battle is not over. The opposition has run a charged campaign, culminating in a major march in Warsaw, where hundreds of thousands protested against the government. Days before voting, the race is too close to call. Two scenarios are possible.The first would be a government led by Law and Justice. That would mean deepening the systemic dismantling of Polish democracy: strengthening the executive at the cost of the judiciary, attacking independent media, imposing on the school system, and undermining the rights of minorities, especially women and the L.G.B.T.Q. community.But Law and Justice wouldn’t have things all its own way. It would most likely have to share power with the extreme right-wing Konfederacja, which has been spreading anti-vaccination, anti-minority and anti-Ukrainian sentiment. To judge from recent weeks — during which the administration, eyes on the election, threatened to withhold assistance to Ukraine — a government of this stripe would drastically worsen relations with Ukraine and the European Union.A second scenario is still possible, too: victory by the democratic opposition. In this case, Poland would have a colorful government, led by the Civic Coalition in compact with smaller parties, that would focus on restoring the independence of the judicial system and opening Poland back up to the West. Diplomatic support for Ukraine would be at the forefront, as would engaging with allies over the country’s future and that of Europe. Not everything would change. The country’s harsh migration policies would most likely remain in place and controls at the border with Belarus retained, albeit without pushbacks.But even if the opposition wins and the government quietly cedes power — far from a given — Poland would not simply be returned to political health. A deeply entrenched populist system, a president loyal to the Law and Justice party, a puppet Constitutional Tribunal and Supreme Court — these are just a few of the problems a new government would face. That’s before we get to the opposition itself, whose members, spanning the political spectrum from right to left, are by no means in agreement. Either way, the emotive languages of nationalism and sovereignty won’t be going anywhere. They remain too pervasive and deeply felt throughout Polish society.Such dominance of emotion is curious. In the past three decades, Poland has become immeasurably richer; economic success can be seen across the country. And yet, looking at its febrile politics, the words of Isaac Bashevis Singer come to mind: “Man was a pauper when it came to reason, but a millionaire when it came to emotions.” It will surely come as no surprise to learn that Singer was writing about the youthful years he spent in Poland.Jaroslaw Kuisz is the editor in chief of the Polish weekly Kultura Liberalna and the author of “The New Politics of Poland.” Karolina Wigura (@KarolinaWigura) is a board member of the Kultura Liberalna Foundation in Warsaw and an author of “A Polish Atheist Versus a Polish Catholic.” Both are senior fellows at the Center for Liberal Modernity in Berlin.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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      New Zealand’s Maori Party Uses Fashion as a Political Weapon

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      Politicians typically swat away questions about their appearance, but Te Pati Maori has wielded fashion as a political weapon.The outfit is distinctly Victorian. A high, vintage lace collar with ruffles cascades over the lapel of a black tailcoat. But it is not meant to be a throwback.For Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, the co-leader of Te Pati Maori, a New Zealand political party, it is a reclamation of the era when her ancestors first engaged with the British, who began colonizing New Zealand in the early 1800s. She has worn this attire, plus a top hat, in Parliament.“When you want to get a message out fast, fashion is a way to do it,” she said.The message is largely the same since the party had a surprise return to Parliament three years ago: keeping issues of its minority community in the public eye and building political support. Its members are feeling particular urgency now because the future of several pro-Maori policies is on the line. In Saturday’s election, Te Pati Maori is expected to win as many as five of the 120 seats in Parliament. It currently controls two.The party “has been great at getting a disproportionate amount of media attention,” said Lara Greaves, who teaches political science at the Victoria University of Wellington. “They play that as a positive for their voters that they’re really out there representing Maori politics.”Te Pati Maori’s policy proposals have included decoupling New Zealand from the British monarchy and enacting a wealth tax. It has faced criticism from the right that it exhibits too much political showmanship with few concrete results.A recent poll showed a slip in support for Te Pati Maori, which, like other minor parties in New Zealand, often struggles for significance. It is unlikely to be a major political force or kingmaker, because New Zealand’s next government is all but certain to be a conservative coalition led by the National Party, which has promised to defund pro-Maori programs such as a health agency for the community and has ignited racially charged debates.Below Ms. Ngarewa-Packer’s mouth is a traditional tattoo called a moko kauae. Around her neck is a large hei-tiki, carved out of jade, for protection.Ms. Ngarewa-Packer’s accessories, such as earrings and a hei-tiki carved out of jade, are part of her political message for the Maori minority in New Zealand.Ruth McDowall for The New York Times“We’re up against some yucky nastiness,” Ms. Ngarewa-Packer, who gave her age as “50s,” said of the race-baiting that has become more overt with this election.About 17 percent of New Zealand’s population identifies as Maori, and a significant portion of the community has long supported the incumbent center-left Labour Party. Te Pati Maori was formed in 2004 when two Maori politicians left Labour after a dispute.In 2021, the Te Pati Maori co-leader Rawiri Waititi made headlines when he forced a rule change that no longer required male politicians to wear neckties, which he called a “colonial noose.” His choice of parliamentary footwear — Air Jordan sneakers — was widely criticized.But Mr. Waititi has remained defiant, walking the runaway at New Zealand Fashion Week for the Maori designer Kiri Nathan in his signature sneakers and a carved jade necktie.“We must continue to decolonize our spaces down to our shoelaces.” Mr. Waititi, 43, wrote on TikTok after the show.Signs for political parties in Auckland ahead of the election. A recent poll showed a slip in support for Te Pati Maori, which, like other minor parties in New Zealand, often struggles for significance.Ruth McDowall for The New York TimesFar from being trivial, these acts of defiance are probably speaking to Te Pati Maori voters, according to Ms. Greaves.“Maori is an ethnicity, but it is also a culture, and people who feel connected to their cultural side are more likely to support Te Pati Maori,” she said, adding that many Maori voters still have an affinity for the Labour Party.The Te Pati Maori co-leaders heard about the tie rule during an induction into Parliament in 2020. Ms. Ngarewa-Packer wore a tie during the ensuing controversy because female politicians were not subject to the rule.Ms. Ngarewa-Packer’s style has been called “post-colonial.” The high collars, lace and ruffles of the Victorian era coincided with a period of trauma for the Maori that included land confiscation and wars with British colonizers.“It is something that is incredibly Western and incredibly English, and, at the same time, it is incredibly powerful and incredibly Maori,” Bobby Luke, a designer and university lecturer, said of how Maori artists and designers have reclaimed the look.Takutai Tarsh Kemp, a Te Pati Maori candidate, is a counterbalance to Ms. Ngarewa-Packer’s near-gothic style. She favors bold patterns, bright colors and streetwear like sneakers and tracksuits, which reflect her involvement in New Zealand’s hip-hop dance community.“It is all about being proud to be Maori,” Ms. Kemp, 49, said at a recent campaign event in Auckland with the party’s reggae theme song blasting in the background. She wore a dress from Jeanine Clarkin, another Maori fashion designer. The dress combined a printed cotton sheet with a vintage denim vest.Takutai Tarsh Kemp, a Te Pati Maori candidate, favors bold patterns, bright colors and streetwear. “It is all about being proud to be Maori.”Ruth McDowall for The New York TimesIt is also an example of sustainability common to many Maori designers. Ms. Nathan, the fashion designer who featured Mr. Waititi, uses organic materials like native flax.“The most sustainable processes and practices that you could possibly integrate into your fashion label or way of life is to look at Indigenous practices,” Ms. Nathan said.They also play a part in Te Pati Maori’s election campaign: Its climate policy states that Indigenous knowledge is needed to stabilize global temperatures. It has also proposed increasing the use of traditional Maori seeds for farming.Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, a 21-year-old Te Pati Maori candidate, called Mr. Waititi’s and Ms. Ngarewa-Packer’s fashion moments necessary “housekeeping” to introduce a new era to Te Pati Maori.“I don’t need to wear a tie, because I have a taonga,” said Ms. Maipi-Clarke, using the Maori word for “treasure” to describe the hei-tiki that Mr. Waititi wears instead of a tie. The next term is expected to be a combative one for Maori issues. The National Party has promised to ax the Maori Health Authority, and a likely coalition partner, the libertarian Act Party, wants to raise the retirement age to 67 from 65. That policy would disproportionately impact Maori, whose life expectancy is several years behind non-Maori New Zealanders.The leader of Act, David Seymour, recently said that he fantasized about sending Guy Fawkes to eliminate New Zealand’s Ministry of Pacific Peoples. Fawkes was hanged in 1606 for attempting to blow up the British House of Lords. Mr. Seymour later said that he was joking.In response, Ms. Maipi-Clarke launched a T-shirt brand called Original Navigator to remind “younger Pacific decedents that we navigated the greatest ocean with our hands, the stars and the moon,” she said.A small trial run of T-shirts sold out in two weeks. More

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      What to Know About the New Zealand Election

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      Voters head to the polls this weekend in an election that is likely to show a rightward and populist shift in the country’s politics.New Zealanders are exhausted. Their pocketbooks are threadbare, the dog years of the pandemic have dragged on, and there is a strong sense that the country has never been further off track.And so, when they head to the polls on Saturday, polls show, most will vote to punish the governing center-left Labour Party, which under Jacinda Ardern won a historic majority just three years ago.“There’s a real vibe around of tiredness, frustration,” said Bernard Hickey, an economic commentator. When New Zealanders last went to the polls, they were celebrating their coronavirus wins. From 2021, he said, “it was all downhill.”The opposition center-right National Party is therefore expected to form the next government with some smaller parties, despite what critics describe as a lack of vision for many of the country’s more vexatious issues.Still, New Zealand’s proportional voting system could deliver last-minute twists, and New Zealand First, a small and populist party known for opposing immigration and supporting retirees, may once again become kingmaker, as it did in 2017.Here’s how the campaign has played out, and what to watch for in Saturday’s results.Who are the main candidates?The incumbent leader is Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, who took over from Ms. Ardern early this year and who has spent the penultimate week of the campaign stuck in a hotel room with Covid. Their Labour Party has been in power since 2017.Ms. Ardern’s legacy hangs heavy over New Zealand, where many now ignore her world-leading pandemic response, Mr. Hickey said.“She was a prime minister, who, however you look at it, managed a crisis fairly well,” he said. “And now she’s one of the most reviled politicians in the country, and she can’t walk down the street without protection.”Ms. Ardern, who is pursuing a fellowship at Harvard University, has mostly stayed out of the race. But the “transformational change” that she campaigned on in 2017 has failed to materialize, and many New Zealanders blame her and her party for the difficulties they face, such as inflation or higher mortgage payments.Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, the incumbent leader, took over from Jacinda Ardern in January. He represents the center-left Labour Party.Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesThe main challenger is the National Party’s Christopher Luxon, a former chief executive of Air New Zealand, the country’s national airline, who was elected to Parliament for the first time in 2020.Though Mr. Luxon leads Mr. Hipkins as potential voters’ preferred prime minister, he has mostly failed to energize voters, who see him as bland or corporate.“People are saying that they feel there’s not much difference between the two Chrises,” said Grant Duncan, an independent political scientist and commentator.What are pollsters predicting?With voters scurrying to smaller parties, the National Party was expected to garner 34 percent of the vote, according to a Guardian Essential poll released this week, to Labour’s 30 percent.Mr. Luxon is likely to lead the next government with support from Act, a right-wing libertarian party, and from New Zealand First, which helped catapult Ms. Ardern into the prime minister’s office in 2017.There is a very slim chance of a Labour-led coalition government with Te Pati Maori, the country’s Indigenous rights party, and the Green Party. (Mr. Hipkins has said he will not work with New Zealand First.)What are New Zealanders voting on?Cost-of-living issues, as in many other comparable economies, dominate at the polls.“It may or may not be the government’s fault,” said Ben Thomas, a former press secretary for the National Party, “but it’s the government’s problem.”To battle inflation, New Zealand’s independent central bank has raised rates to a 15-year high of 5.5 percent. That has inflicted considerable pain on homeowners, most of whom are subject to floating mortgage rates. New home loans command rates of at least 7 percent, more than three times what they were in 2020, and many expect rates to go even higher.Inflation remains high, even as it slowed to 6 percent in July compared with 6.7 percent in the same month a year earlier, according to the most recent government data. Food prices jumped 12.3 percent over the same period.New home loans in New Zealand have risen sharply in the past few years, now commanding rates of at least 7 percent.Ruth McDowall for The New York TimesThe proposed solutions from both major parties — like the tax and benefit cuts from the National Party, or the targeted subsidies and financial support from Labour — are unlikely to provide widespread relief, analysts say.“The electoral numbers will fall on what is basically two estranged parents doing a bidding war over pocket money,” Mr. Thomas said.A spate of unusual violent crime and “ram raids” — when a vehicle is driven into the windows of a store so it can be robbed — has haunted voters. The National Party has sought to seize the issue, promising to reintroduce the youth boot camps that the country has previously tried and abandoned.Race has also emerged as an issue. New Zealand has longstanding arrangements with Maori, its Indigenous people, many of which are governed by an 1840 treaty. But some New Zealanders say these go too far. Act, the libertarian party run by David Seymour, has promised a referendum on “co-governance,” the practice of including Maori in policy decisions — a vow that has prompted widespread allegations from the left of racism. Act rejects those claims, saying it just wants equal rights for all citizens.What comes next?New Zealand’s other economic problems — which include an aging population, a crumbling health service, inadequate infrastructure and an economy reliant on dairy and other food exports that is set to be tested by extreme weather events — have defied the efforts of successive governments, said Craig Renney, an economist for the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions.“We still have an economy which, structurally, is a commodity-exporting, low-wage economy,” Mr. Renney said, “supported by a giant housing market where we sell houses to each other.”There is a particular antipathy toward public spending to solve those problems, even as the liabilities of not acting continue to climb, he added. “We have a national debt that is the envy of every developed country in the world,” he said, “yet we have this insistence that there is a debt crisis just around the corner.”Despite these challenges, New Zealand’s trajectory was largely positive, said Shamubeel Eaqub, a New Zealand-based economist. “I’m optimistic about New Zealand,” he said. “I’m not optimistic about our politics.”And while New Zealanders may approach Saturday’s vote with a sense of irritability, after an election campaign that has been characterized by mudslinging and small-target campaigning, there have been few allegations of the misinformation or antidemocratic behaviors that have bedeviled elections elsewhere in the world.“In New Zealand, we don’t stop and think, ‘If you look at all of the indicators and league tables around the world, we’re actually one of the best-governed countries on earth,’ ” said Dr. Duncan, the political scientist. “But if you actually tried to say it to most New Zealanders, they’ll ask you, ‘What are you on?’” More