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      Dos mujeres competirán por la presidencia en México

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      México votará por su primera presidenta el próximo año después de que el partido gobernante eligiera a Claudia Sheinbaum para enfrentarse a la candidata de la coalición opositora, Xóchitl Gálvez.El partido gobernante de México, Morena, eligió el martes a Claudia Sheinbaum, quien fue jefa de gobierno de Ciudad de México, como su candidata presidencial para las elecciones de 2024. Se trata de un momento crucial en el mayor país de habla hispana del mundo, pues se espera que los votantes elijan por primera vez entre dos mujeres como principales candidatas.Sheinbaum, de 61 años, es física, tiene un doctorado en ingeniería ambiental y cuenta con el respaldo del actual presidente de México, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Se enfrentará con la principal contendiente de la oposición, Xóchitl Gálvez, una ingeniera franca y de ascendencia indígena que creció en un ambiente de pobreza y luego se convirtió en empresaria tecnológica.“Ya podemos decir hoy: México, a finales del año que viene, va a estar gobernado por una mujer”, dijo Jesús Silva-Herzog Márquez, un politólogo en el Tec de Monterrey, y agregó que era un “cambio extraordinario” para el país.Sheinbaum ha hecho su carrera política en buena medida a la sombra de López Obrador y muy pronto surgió como la candidata preferida del partido para suceder al presidente. Se considera que ese vínculo con López Obrador le ha brindado una ventaja clave de cara a las elecciones del próximo año gracias a los altos índices de aprobación con los que cuenta el mandatario, que está limitado constitucionalmente a un solo periodo sexenal.López Obrador ha insistido en los últimos meses que no tendrá influencia cuando concluya su mandato. “Me voy a retirar por completo”, dijo en marzo. “No soy cacique, mucho menos me siento insustituible; no soy caudillo, no soy mesías”.El presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador solo puede gobernar durante un sexenio según la ConstituciónAlejandro Cegarra para The New York TimesPero algunos analistas consideran que su influencia se extenderá sin importar cuál sea el aspirante que gane la presidencia en 2024. Si Sheinbaum fuera electa, “podría haber cambios en ciertas políticas, aunque los esbozos generales de su agenda seguirán intactos”, según un reporte reciente del Centro de Estudios Estratégicos e Internacionales.Si fuera derrotada, López Obrador “no se retirará discretamente a segundo plano”, decía el informe. “Su base de seguidores es suficientemente grande y leal como para permitirle ejercer influencia significativa”. Gálvez podría enfrentar obstáculos con el legado de la actual gestión si buscara revertir sus políticas, como las medidas de austeridad o la participación del ejército en labores sociales, de seguridad e infraestructura.Aunque las dos candidatas identifican mutuamente las debilidades de sus campañas, comparten algunas similitudes. Ambas son progresistas en temas sociales, aunque ninguna de las dos se identifica explícitamente como feminista; ambas tienen grados universitarios en ingeniería y han dicho que van a mantener los programas de combate a la pobreza de esta gestión, que son ampliamente populares.Ambas mujeres apoyan la despenalización del aborto. En el caso de Gálvez, esa postura contrasta con la de su partido conservador. La Suprema Corte de Justicia de México despenalizó el aborto a nivel federal el miércoles, una decisión que se sustenta en un fallo anterior que le da autoridad a los funcionarios para permitir el procedimiento en todos los estados.De ganar la elección, Sheinbaum, hija de padres judíos en Ciudad de México, se convertiría en la primera persona judía en gobernar México. En las redes sociales ha enfrentado una campaña de desinformación que asegura que nació en Bulgaria, el país del que emigró su madre; los seguidores de Sheinbaum han calificado esos señalamientos como antisemitas.En caso de ganar la elección, Sheinbaum se convertiría en la primera persona judía en gobernar México.Meghan Dhaliwal para The New York TimesSheinbaum estudió física e ingeniería energética en México antes de hacer su investigación de doctorado en el Laboratorio Nacional Lawrence Berkeley en California. Luego de incursionar en la política se convirtió en la principal funcionaria de medioambiente de la gestión de López Obrador cuando él fue jefe de gobierno de Ciudad de México.Luego, cuando ella fue electa para ese mismo cargo en 2018, puso entre sus prioridades el transporte público y medioambiente, pero también fue blanco de críticas por los percances mortales sucedidos en los sistemas de transporte público de la ciudad, entre ellos el colapso de una línea del metro en el que 26 personas perdieron la vida.Al posicionarse como la favorita en los sondeos, los vínculos de Sheinbaum con López Obrador le exigieron disciplina para conservar el apoyo presidencial incluso cuando pudo haber estado en desacuerdo con sus decisiones. Por ejemplo, se quedó callada cuando López Obrador minimizó la pandemia de coronavirus y los funcionarios federales manipularon los datos para evitar un confinamiento en Ciudad de México.“Lo que ha resaltado es su lealtad, yo creo que una lealtad ciega al presidente”, dijo Silva-Herzog Márquez, el politólogo.Sin embargo, al apegarse a las políticas de López Obrador, Sheinbaum también ha dado muestras de posibles cambios, expresamente al mostrar apoyo por las fuentes de energía renovable.En cambio su rival, Gálvez, una senadora que suele andar por la capital mexicana en una bicicleta eléctrica, se ha enfocado en resaltar su origen como hija de una madre mestiza y un padre indígena otomí.Xóchitl Gálvez, principal candidata opositora, tiene ascendencia indígena y surgió de un entorno de pobreza para convertirse en empresaria de tecnología.Claudio Cruz/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesGálvez creció en un pueblo pequeño ubicado a unas dos horas de Ciudad de México sin agua corriente y hablando la lengua hñähñu de su padre. Estudió ingeniería con una beca de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México y fundó una empresa que diseña redes de comunicación y energía para edificios de oficinas.Después de que Vicente Fox ganó la presidencia en el año 2000 fue nombrada como encargada de la comisión presidencial de asuntos indígenas. En 2018 fue electa senadora por el conservador Partido Acción Nacional.López Obrador la ha convertido en la figura central de reiterados ataques verbales, lo que ha tenido el efecto de elevar su presencia en el país mientras que llama la atención hacia la influencia del presidente y su partido en todo México.López Obrador, un líder combativo que ha adoptado medidas de austeridad y ha incrementado la dependencia de México de los combustibles fósiles, influye en la campaña. Prometió erradicar una antigua tradición política, el dedazo, con la cual los presidentes mexicanos eligen a sus sucesores, y remplazar esa práctica con encuestas de electores a nivel federal.Históricamente los partidos políticos mexicanos elegían a sus candidatos en primarias opacas y con poca inclusión. La elección por dedazo era más común que una “competencia libre y justa por una candidatura”, dijo Flavia Freidenberg, politóloga de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.El nuevo proceso de selección ha cambiado esa tradición, pero siguen existiendo preocupaciones por la falta de claridad y otras irregularidades señaladas por algunos analistas y aspirantes presidenciales. Tanto el partido gobernante, Morena, como la amplia coalición de la oposición, llamada Frente Amplio, usaron sondeos que “no necesariamente han sido transparentados en toda su magnitud”, dijo Freidenberg, “y que no necesariamente son procedimientos considerados como democráticos”.El nuevo proceso también ignoró las regulaciones federales a las campañas, y los responsables de los procesos, tanto en el partido gobernante como en la oposición, han adelantado la selección unos meses mencionando de manera críptica a Sheinbaum y Gálvez como “coordinadoras” de cada coalición en lugar de “candidatas”.“Estas actividades irregulares, en cualquier caso, se han dado bajo la mirada de la opinión pública, de la clase política y de las autoridades electorales”, dijo Freidenberg. “Esto no es una cuestión menor”.Las elecciones presidenciales del próximo año, en las que los votantes no solo elegirán al presidente, sino también a los miembros del Congreso, también podrían determinar si México se prepara para volver a un sistema de partido dominante similar al que el país experimentó con el Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), una agrupación que alguna vez fue hegemónica y gobernó durante 71 años ininterrumpidos hasta el año 2000.Hay indicios de que esto ya está sucediendo, aunque con algunos retrocesos. En junio, la candidata de Morena ganó la contienda por la gubernatura del Estado de México, el estado más poblado del país, donde derrotó a la candidata del PRI.Esa victoria puso en manos de Morena a 23 de un total de 32 entidades federativas de la república, un aumento de las siete que controlaba el partido gobernante al inicio del sexenio en 2018.La duda es “si Morena se reconfigura en un partido hegemónico como fue el viejo PRI”, dijo Ana Laura Magaloni, una profesora de derecho que asesoró la campaña de Sheinbaum a la jefatura de gobierno. “Y eso depende, para mí, de cuánta batalla pueda dar la oposición”.Simon Romero es corresponsal en Ciudad de México, desde donde cubre México, Centroamérica y el Caribe. Se ha desempeñado como jefe del buró del Times en Brasil, jefe del buró andino y corresponsal internacional de energía. Más sobre Simon RomeroEmiliano Rodríguez Mega es reportero-investigador del Times radicado en Ciudad de México. Cubre México, Centroamérica y el Caribe. Más sobre Emiliano Rodríguez Mega More

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      Nigerian Court Rejects Challenges to Contested Presidential Election

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      The tribunal confirmed the election of President Bola Tinubu, who has faced growing discontent amid unpopular economic policies and lingering allegations of irregularities in the election.A judicial tribunal in Nigeria confirmed on Wednesday the results of a contested February presidential election that kept Africa’s most populous country on edge amid allegations of voting irregularities and tainted the first months in power for the declared winner, President Bola Tinubu.In their petitions, opponents of Mr. Tinubu argued that he should have been disqualified from running in the first place because of irregularities with his candidacy, and that Nigeria’s electoral commission had failed to release the results on time, opening the way for potential fraud.But judges in Abuja, the capital, rejected all three petitions for lack of credible evidence, they said.Nigerian television channels broadcast the court decision live on television amid high tensions in the capital, Abuja, and hints by the opposition that a validation of the results could prompt Nigerians to take to the streets. There were no immediate reports of unrest.The plaintiffs have 60 days to file an appeal to Nigeria’s Supreme Court.Since he was sworn in last May, Mr. Tinubu has rocked Nigeria’s economy with what analysts and foreign investors say was the long overdue scrapping of an oil subsidy. But the soaring transportation, food and electricity prices that ensued have hurt tens of millions of Nigerians and taken a toll on Mr. Tinubu’s popularity.Mr. Tinubu has also faced stiff challenges abroad. In neighboring Niger, mutinous soldiers seized power in a coup just two weeks after Mr. Tinubu took the helm of an economic bloc of West African countries and vowed to put an end to an epidemic of military takeovers in the region — by force, if necessary.Supporters of Atiku Abubakar protesting the election results in Abuja, Nigeria, in March.Gbemiga Olamikan/Associated PressThe generals in Niger haven’t budged. They have refused to release the president they ousted and ignored Mr. Tinubu’s threat of a military intervention. After weeks of stalemate, and a backlash at home about a potential war with a neighboring country, Mr. Tinubu appears to have taken a back seat in the negotiations with Niger’s junta, at least publicly.In March, Nigeria’s electoral commission declared Mr. Tinubu the winner of a single-round presidential election with 37 percent of the vote, ahead of the main opposition candidate, Atiku Abubakar, who won 29 percent, and Peter Obi, who finished a surprising third with 25 percent of the vote.Both Mr. Obi’s and Mr. Abubakar’s parties disputed the results in court. They argued that Mr. Tinubu wasn’t qualified to be president, citing what they said were forged academic records and an indictment for drug trafficking in the United States. He was not indicted, but the U.S. government did file a complaint of forfeiture under which Mr. Tinubu paid $460,000 in settlements in 1993.For months, Nigerians questioned the credibility of the country’s judiciary ahead of Wednesday’s ruling, with the hashtag All Eyes On The Judiciary a trending topic on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.Mr. Tinubu, who was attending the G20 summit in India on Wednesday, had denied all allegations of wrongdoing. Since Nigeria returned to democracy in 1999 after decades of military rule, all but one of its elections have been contested in court, but none have been overruled.Pius Adeleye contributed reporting from Ilorin, Nigeria. More

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      Slovakia Election Could Shift Sentiment in a Fierce Ukraine Ally

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      The vote in Slovakia this month will be a test of European unity on Ukraine, and of Russia’s efforts to undermine it. The front-runner wants to halt arms shipments to Kyiv.When Ukraine discovered civilian mass graves in an area recaptured from Russian troops, Russia’s ambassador in neighboring Slovakia countered with his own discovery.The mayor of a remote Slovak village, as the ambassador announced last September, had bulldozed Russian graves from World War I. Ambassador Igor Bratchikov demanded that the Slovak government, a robust supporter of Ukraine, take action to punish the “blasphemous act.”The Slovak police responded swiftly, dismissing the ambassador’s claims as a “hoax,” but his fabrication took flight, amplified by vociferous pro-Russian groups in Slovakia and news outlets notorious for recycling Russian propaganda.A month later, the mayor of the village, Vladislav Cuper, lost an election to a rival candidate from a populist party opposed to helping Ukraine.Today, the same forces that helped unseat Mr. Cuper have mobilized for a general election in Slovakia on Sept. 30 with much bigger stakes.The vote will not only decide who governs a small Central European nation with fewer than six million people, but will also indicate whether opposition to helping Ukraine, a position now mostly confined to the political fringes across Europe, could take hold in the mainstream.Vladislav Cuper, the former mayor of Ladomirova, Slovakia, at his home in the village. Mr. Cuper says he was smeared by pro-Russian forces in Slovakia.Akos Stiller for The New York TimesThe front-runner, according to opinion polls, is a party headed by Robert Fico, a pugnacious former prime minister who has vowed to halt Slovak arms deliveries to Ukraine, denounced sanctions against Russia and railed against NATO, despite his country’s membership in the alliance.A strong showing in the election by Mr. Fico and far-right parties hostile to the government in Kyiv would likely turn one of Ukraine’s most stalwart backers — Slovakia was the first country to send it air-defense missiles and fighter jets — into a neutral bystander more sympathetic to Moscow. It would also end the isolation of Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary as the only leader in the European Union and NATO speaking out strongly against helping Ukraine.“Russia is rejoicing,” Rastislav Kacer, a former foreign minister and outspoken supporter of Ukraine, said in Bratislava, the Slovak capital. “Slovakia is a great success story for its propaganda. It has worked hard and very successfully to exploit my country as a wedge to divide Europe.”Thanks to widespread public discontent with the infighting between pro-Western Slovak politicians who came to power in 2020, and deep pools of genuine pro-Russian sentiment dating back to the 19th century, Russia has been pushing on an open door.A survey of public opinion across Eastern and Central Europe in March by Globsec, a Bratislava-based research group, found that only 40 percent of Slovaks blame Russia for the war in Ukraine, while 51 percent believe that either Ukraine or the West is “primarily responsible.” In Poland, 85 percent blame Russia. In the Czech Republic, 71 percent think Russia is responsible.The World War I cemetery in Ladomirova that the Russian ambassador to Slovakia falsely said had been destroyed.Akos Stiller for The New York TimesDaniel Milo, director of an Interior Ministry department aimed at countering disinformation and other nonmilitary threats, acknowledged that “there is fertile ground here for pro-Russian sentiment.” But he added that genuine sympathy rooted in history had been exploited by Russia and its local helpers to sow division and sour public opinion on Ukraine.Those helpers include Hlavne Spravy, a popular anti-American news site, and a bikers group called Brat za Brata, or Brother for Brother, which is affiliated with the Kremlin-sponsored Night Wolves motorcycle gang in Russia.A freelance writer for Hlavne Spravy, Bohus Garbar, was convicted of espionage this year after being caught on camera taking money from Russia’s military attaché, who has since been expelled.Brat za Brata, which has a large following on social media and close ties to the Russian embassy, has meanwhile worked to intimidate Russia’s critics.Peter Kalmus, a 70-year-old Slovak artist, said he was beaten up by members of the biker group last month after he defaced a Soviet war memorial in the eastern city of Kosice to protest Russian atrocities in Ukraine. In March, the bikers reduced to pandemonium a government-sponsored public debate about the war in a town near the Ukrainian border attended by Mr. Kacer, who was then still a minister. Fiercely pro-Russian protesters bused in by the bikers, recalled Mr. Kacer, “jumped on the stage screaming and spitting at us.”Many Slovaks, said Grigorij Meseznikov, the Russian-born president of the Institute for Public Affairs, a Bratislava research group, “have an invented romantic vision of Russia in their heads that does not really exist” and are easily swayed by “lies and propaganda” about the West.The Church of St. Michael the Archangel in Ladomirova. The former mayor said that in his view, Russia did not care who won the election in the village, but had spotted a good opportunity to “present itself as a victim.”Akos Stiller for The New York TimesThat, he added, has made the country vulnerable to efforts by Moscow to rally pro-Russian sentiment in the hope of undermining European unity over Ukraine. Slovakia is a small country, Mr. Meseznikov said, but “if you take even a small brick out of a wall it can crumble.”That is certainly the hope of Lubos Blaha, a former member of a heavy metal band and the author of books on Lenin and Che Guevara who is now the deputy leader of Mr. Fico’s surging political party, SMER. He is also one of Slovakia’s loudest and most influential Kremlin-friendly voices on social media and regularly denounces his country’s liberal woman president, Zuzana Caputova, as a “fascist” and pro-Ukrainian ministers as “American puppets.”“The mood in Europe is changing,” Mr. Blaha said in an interview, describing the conflict in Ukraine as “a war of the American empire against the Russian empire” that cannot be won because Russia is a nuclear power.Insisting he was “not pro-Russia, just pro my country’s national interests,” Mr. Blaha predicted that countries hostile to arming Ukraine would soon “be in the majority while supporters of Ukraine will be in a small minority,” especially if Donald J. Trump wins the next presidential election in the United States.In the run-up to Slovakia’s own election, the usually placid country has been swamped by heated accusations on all sides of foreign interference. Mr. Fico has accused NATO of meddling in the campaign, while his foes have pointed a finger at Russia.Describing Mr. Fico’s SMER party as a “Trojan horse” for Russia, Jaroslav Nad, a former defense minister who led a push to send arms to Ukraine, claimed this summer that, according to intelligence reports, a Slovak citizen he didn’t identify had visited Russia “to receive financial resources to benefit SMER.” But, citing confidentiality, he produced no evidence, and his claim has been widely dismissed as a pre-election smear.Still, the Russian ambassador’s fabricated story of desecrated war graves highlighted Russia’s skill at fishing in Slovakia’s troubled waters. It also provided what Mr. Milo, the interior ministry official, called “a very rare smoking gun” directly implicating Moscow in scripting a fake scandal. “They usually act more cleverly and try not to get caught red-handed,” he said.Children climbing on Soviet and German tanks at a World War II monument outside Ladomirova. In the run-up to a general election, Slovakia has been swamped by heated accusations of foreign interference.Akos Stiller for The New York TimesDuring a visit last week to the still-intact graveyard in Ladomirova, Mr. Cuper said that in his view Russia did not care who won the mayoral vote there, but had spotted a good opportunity “to distract attention from mass graves in Ukraine” and “present itself as a victim.”When the ambassador visited Ladomirova, he met with Mr. Cuper’s bitter rival, a former mayor whom Mr. Cuper had accused of embezzling village funds and who was convicted of fraud in 2019. The former mayor’s wife, Olga Bojcikova, who declined to be interviewed, was at the time running against Mr. Cuper, who was backed by pro-Ukrainian parties, in the local election last October. She won.The ambassador’s story of “razed” Russian graves, though debunked by the police, was, Mr. Cuper recalled, “blown out of all proportion” by Kremlin-friendly Slovaks, particularly the Brat za Brata bikers.The bikers posted incendiary statements on Facebook denouncing the mayor’s “blasphemous act” and rallied its members to respond. This set off calls for Mr. Cuper to be “executed,” “buried alive” and “flogged like a dog.”Slovakia’s prosecutor general, Maros Zilinka, who has a long history of sympathy for Russia and hostility to the United States, added fuel to the fire by announcing that the mayor could be liable for criminal prosecution for a “morally reprehensible act” that needed to be investigated.Mr. Cuper said he never touched the graves but had removed stone border markers because they were falling apart. Nor did he touch a notice board put up as part of renovation work financed by Russia in 2014: It falsely described the cemetery as the resting place of 270 Russian war dead. The cemetery contains the unidentified bodies of soldiers from various countries, including Russia, killed in a World War I battle.The ambassador’s story, he said, was “entirely untrue” but still “created a national uproar.” More

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      Los guatemaltecos defienden su democracia. No los dejemos solos

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      Cuando visité Guatemala en mayo de 2022, el sentimiento de desesperanza era palpable. El gobierno del presidente Alejandro Giammattei había desatado una feroz persecución contra los funcionarios de la justicia anticorrupción. En febrero de ese año, Virginia Laparra, fiscala de la Fiscalía Especial contra la Impunidad, fue detenida junto con otros cuatro abogados anticorrupción; todos fueron recluidos en la misma celda de la cárcel militar Mariscal Zavala de Guatemala.En 2017, Laparra presentó una denuncia administrativa contra Lesther Castellanos, juez del que sospechaba que había filtrado detalles confidenciales de un caso a un colega. Ahora Castellanos la había denunciado por abuso de autoridad.Cuando llegué, todos menos Laparra habían sido puestos en libertad, a la espera del juicio. Durante nuestra conversación en la cárcel, recitó varios argumentos jurídicos: “los funcionarios que tengan conocimiento de alguna irregularidad están obligados a presentar una denuncia”. Fue una desgarradora muestra de erudición. No la estaban reteniendo porque alguien creyera en serio que había cometido un delito. Estaba encarcelada en represalia por sus intentos de combatir la corrupción; en diciembre, fue sentenciada a cuatro años de prisión.Lilian Virginia Laparra Rivas, exfiscala de la Fiscalía Especial contra la Impunidad, en custodia el año pasadoJosue Decavele/Reuters, via ReduxEl mes pasado, los votantes guatemaltecos abrieron de manera inesperada una brecha en la permanencia en el poder de la élite corrupta del país al votar por alguien ajeno a ese grupo. Hasta ahora, el enfoque del gobierno del presidente de Estados Unidos, Joe Biden, ha sido en su mayor parte el de mantenerse al margen respecto a la corrupción en Guatemala, y no ha llegado a imponer sanciones económicas ni, por lo demás, condenar enérgicamente al gobierno de Giammattei. Biden debería aprovechar esta oportunidad para contribuir al éxito de la verdadera democracia y apoyar al nuevo presidente electo, Bernardo Arévalo.En 1944, una revolución encabezada por los estudiantes, de la que formaron parte mi madre y mi tío, ayudó a abrirle el paso a la década de democracia en Guatemala tras un siglo de dictaduras. Poco después de aquello, emigró a Estados Unidos.Nací en Boston en 1954, el año en que un golpe de Estado dirigido por la CIA derrocó al gobierno electo de Guatemala. La guerra civil de tres décadas que siguió estuvo marcada por masacres genocidas contra los colectivos mayas en las áreas rurales y acabó con los acuerdos de paz en 1996. Las esperanzas de un futuro pacífico y democrático parecieron quedar frustradas en 1998, cuando el obispo Juan Gerardi, defensor de los derechos humanos, fue asesinado por agentes de la inteligencia militar. Sin embargo, en 2001, tres militares fueron condenados por participar en su ejecución extrajudicial, auspiciada por el Estado, un veredicto histórico que parecía anunciar una nueva era de justicia.Construir una democracia funcional mediante la defensa del Estado de derecho y el combate de la corrupción ha sido la lucha central de la política guatemalteca en el siglo XXI. Entre 2007 y 2019, la Comisión Internacional Contra la Impunidad en Guatemala (CICIG), que, con el respaldo de las Naciones Unidas, actuaba en conjunto con el Ministerio Público guatemalteco, dirigió una de las luchas anticorrupción más eficaces de América Latina. La comisión desmanteló 70 estructuras de crimen organizado y corrupción e imputó a unas 680 personas, entre ellas dos expresidentes. Esa lucha duró hasta 2019, cuando el entonces presidente, Jimmy Morales, quien estaba siendo investigado por corrupción, expulsó a la CICIG con el apoyo de los republicanos en Estados Unidos, dejando así el país a la deriva.Bajo el mandato de Morales y su sucesor, Giammattei, una alianza de políticos, militares, élites económicas y miembros del crimen organizado, que los guatemaltecos llaman el “pacto de corruptos”, se hizo rápidamente con el control del poder judicial y otras instituciones. La fiscala general, Consuelo Porras, junto con otros fiscales y jueces, fue incluida en la lista oficial del Departamento de Estado estadounidense de actores antidemócratas y corruptos.Se castigó a muchos de los fiscales y jueces que habían combatido la corrupción. José Rubén Zamora, periodista de investigación y fundador de elPeriódico, detenido en julio de 2022 por acusaciones falsas que la comunidad internacional denunció y calificó de intento de silenciarlo, ocupa ahora la antigua celda de Laparra en Mariscal Zavala.En junio fue acusado de lavado de dinero y sentenciado a seis años de cárcel; su periódico cerró en mayo. En febrero del año pasado, otras dos mujeres retenidas al principio con Laparra —Siomara Sosa, fiscala, y Leyli Santizo, abogada de la CICIG— cruzaron el río Suchiate en balsas neumáticas hasta México.Se encuentran entre los al menos 39 fiscales y jueces guatemaltecos que se han exiliado; la mayoría se marchó en los últimos tres años. En conjunto representan a una generación que alcanzó la mayoría de edad en las décadas posteriores a los acuerdos de paz, que cree en el Estado de derecho como base de la gobernanza democrática.Sosa me dijo una vez que su trabajo en la oficina anticorrupción le hacía sentir que el país tenía una forma de asegurar que los impuestos se destinasen al sistema sanitario y las escuelas, en vez de que se desvíe por medio de chanchullos. “Me gustaba desenmascarar a los que robaban descaradamente millones, porque, mientras ellos se hacían ricos, los niños morían de hambre”, dijo.Una manifestación exigiendo la dimisión de la fiscala general, Consuelo Porras, y del fiscal Rafael Curruchiche, acusados de generar una crisis electoral antes de la segunda vuelta electoral en agosto.Johan Ordonez/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMi guía en aquella visita a la cárcel en 2022 fue Jennifer Torres, voluntaria de una organización de defensa de los derechos humanos y brillante estudiante maya de derecho en la Universidad de San Carlos. Faltaba un año para las elecciones presidenciales, y todos mis interlocutores se mostraban pesimistas.Torres me dijo que ella y sus amigos iban a votar por Arévalo, profesor de 64 años y candidato del partido Movimiento Semilla. Aunque es hijo de Juan José Arévalo —el querido primer presidente elegido democráticamente de Guatemala, que gobernó entre 1945 y 1951—, pocos sabían de él o de su partido. Cuando les mencionaba su nombre a los expertos en política guatemalteca, se reían. “Le falta carisma”, me dijo uno de ellos.En el periodo previo a las elecciones, los jueces guatemaltecos expulsaron del proceso electoral a cuatro candidatos considerados poco proclives a apoyar al pacto de corruptos. A Arévalo, quien prometió resucitar la batalla contra la corrupción, se le permitió mantenerse en la contienda porque nadie pensaba que podía ganar. Las encuestas le daban solo el 3 por ciento, pero los sondeos no tuvieron en cuenta a los votantes jóvenes e indígenas como Torres.En un resultado sorprendente, Arévalo pudo pasar a la segunda vuelta del 20 de agosto, en la que arrasó. Muchos guatemaltecos no se habían sentido tan optimistas desde 1944. Mi madre, que por entonces era adolescente, repartía panfletos de la campaña del padre de Arévalo en la acera de delante de nuestra juguetería familiar. La victoria de Arévalo hijo une los recuerdos históricos de los mayores con las esperanzas de los jóvenes de hoy.La semana pasada, el Tribunal Supremo Electoral confirmó la victoria de Arévalo. Pero, también, a instancias de Porras, suspendió temporalmente su partido para, poco después, desandar esa decisión. Lo que parece cierto es que Semilla seguirá siendo asechado y se enfrentará a unos poderes legislativo y judicial repletos de miembros del establishment corrupto: los complots de magnicidio contra el presidente electo son una amenaza constante. El viernes, Arévalo denunció a Porras por orquestar un golpe para impedir que su gobierno tome posesión. En todo el país, los manifestantes están exigiendo la dimisión de Porras.La comunidad internacional, incluido el gobierno de Biden, debe estar alerta y dispuesta a prestar todo el apoyo que pueda a este nuevo gobierno. Pero los guatemaltecos han creado, por sí mismos, esta extraordinaria oportunidad democrática y, hasta ahora, parecen decididos a protegerla.Francisco Goldman es novelista y periodista, cuyo libro más reciente es Monkey Boy, obra finalista del Premio Pulitzer. More

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      Democracy in Bangladesh Is Quietly Being Crushed

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      Bangladesh’s multiparty democracy is being methodically strangled in crowded courtrooms across this country of 170 million people.Nearly every day, thousands of leaders, members and supporters of opposition parties stand before a judge. Charges are usually vague, and evidence is shoddy, at best. But just months before a pivotal election pitting them against the ruling Awami League, the immobilizing effect is clear.About half of the five million members of the main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, are embroiled in politically motivated court cases, the group estimates. The most active leaders and organizers face dozens, even hundreds, of cases. Lives that would be defined by raucous rallies or late-night strategizing are instead dominated by lawyers’ chambers, courtroom cages and, in Dhaka, the torturously snail-paced traffic between the two.One recent morning, a party leader, Saiful Alam Nirob, was ushered into Dhaka’s 10-story magistrate court in handcuffs. Mr. Nirob faces between 317 and 394 cases — he and his lawyers are unsure exactly how many. Outside the court, a dozen supporters — facing an additional 400 cases among them — waited in an alley whose bustle was cleared only by intermittent monsoon downpours and the frequent blowing of a police whistle to open the way for another political prisoner.The police ushering Saiful Alam Nirob, an opposition leader, to court in Dhaka in June. He faces hundreds of court cases.A rally by supporters of the ruling Awami League in July.“I can’t do a job anymore,” said one of the supporters, Abdul Satar, who is dealing with 60 cases and spends three or four days a week in court. “It’s court case to court case.”In recent years, Bangladesh has been known mostly as an economic success story, with a strong focus on a garment export industry that brought in a steady flow of dollars, increased women’s participation in the economy and lifted millions out of poverty. A country once described by American officials as a basket case of famine and disease appeared to be overcoming decades of coups, countercoups and assassinations.But under the surface, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has waged a campaign of political consolidation whose goal, opposition leaders, analysts and activists say, is to turn the South Asian republic into a one-party state.Over her 14 years in office, she has captured Bangladesh’s institutions, including the police, the military and, increasingly, the courts, by filling them with loyalists and making clear the consequences for not falling in line.She has wielded these institutions both to smother dissent — her targets have also included artists, journalists, activists and even the Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus — and to carry out a deeply personal campaign of vengeance against her political enemies.With an election expected in December or January, the country again feels on the verge of eruption. The opposition sees the vote as a last fight before what could be its full vanquishing. Ms. Hasina’s lieutenants, for their part, say in no uncertain terms that they cannot let the B.N.P. win — “they will kill us” if they come to power, as one aide put it.When asked during an interview in her Dhaka office about using the judiciary to harass the opposition, Ms. Hasina sent an aide out of the room to retrieve a photo album. It was a catalog of horrors: graphic pictures of maimed bodies after arsons, bombings and other attacks.Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at her office in Dhaka in June.Bangladesh’s economic success story in recent years has overshadowed its slide toward a one-party state. “It is not political, it is not political,” the prime minister said of the court cases, pointing to the visuals as examples of the “brutality” of the B.N.P. “It is because of their crime.”B.N.P. leaders say that about 800 of their members have been killed and more than 400 have disappeared since Ms. Hasina came to power in 2009. In the interview, Ms. Hasina said the B.N.P., when it was in power, had done much the same to her party, jailing and killing her supporters by the thousands.“They started this,” Ms. Hasina said.The SurvivorsThe story of Bangladesh over the past three decades has largely been one of bitter rivalry between two powerful women — Ms. Hasina, 75, and Khaleda Zia, 77, the leader of the B.N.P. and the country’s first female prime minister.Ms. Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was Bangladesh’s most prominent independence leader when the country broke away from Pakistan in 1971. He was killed four years later in a military coup, and much of his family was massacred.Ms. Zia was married to Ziaur Rahman, the army chief who came to power in the bloody chaos that followed Sheikh Mujib’s murder. Mr. Rahman himself was assassinated by soldiers in 1981.For much of the time since, the two surviving women have been locked in a fight over who defines Bangladesh’s democracy — and who is entitled to rule over it.“Actually it was my struggle to establish democracy,” Ms. Hasina said. Pointing to Ms. Zia’s husband, she added: “This opposition, you know, was created by a military dictator.”The B.N.P. says it was the one that restored multiparty democracy after Ms. Hasina’s father declared the country a one-party state — an unfinished project that the B.N.P. says Ms. Hasina is determined to complete.The story of Bangladesh in recent decades has largely been one of bitter rivalry between two powerful women: Ms. Hasina and Khaleda Zia, seen on a large poster inside the office of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in Dhaka. Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, the B.N.P.’s secretary general and de facto leader.“They don’t believe in democracy,” said Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, the B.N.P.’s secretary general.In 2018, Ms. Zia was jailed on graft charges. Today, she lives under house arrest, where, in deteriorating health, she is reduced to watching television and reading the newspaper, her aides say.Her son Tarique Rahman, who was implicated in a 2004 attack in which a dozen grenades were hurled at Ms. Hasina during a rally — a charge the B.N.P. denies — lives in exile in London. Mr. Alamgir, the party’s de facto leader in their absence, spends much of his time dealing with the 93 court cases he faces.Ms. Hasina has intensified her assault on the opposition as she has found herself in her most politically vulnerable position in years.Just as Bangladesh was working to get its garment industry back on track after the pandemic disrupted global demand, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused a spike in the cost of imported energy and food, pushing the country’s supply of dollars perilously low.“It has put tremendous pressure on our economy,” Ms. Hasina said.Bangladesh was working to get its garment industry back on track after the pandemic when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused a spike in the cost of imported energy and food.Anger has risen in Bangladesh over the rising food prices and power cuts.The battered opposition saw an opportunity in anger over rising food prices and power cuts, and, fearing an unfair election, was eager to take the showdown to the streets after Ms. Hasina refused to appoint a neutral caretaker administration to oversee the vote.During a rare large rally in June, B.N.P. speakers demanded free elections and the release of political prisoners. But as supporters marched across Dhaka, their chants offered an indication of the bubbling tensions: “Set fire to Hasina’s throne” and “A flood of blood will wash away the injustice.”As the police held back and allowed the rally and march to proceed, ruling-party leaders staged a rival rally where speakers acknowledged that the European Union and the United States were watching Bangladesh’s democracy. The U.S. government has imposed sanctions on Ms. Hasina’s senior security officers and threatened visa restrictions, and American and European officials have made several visits to Bangladesh in recent months.A few weeks after the B.N.P. rally, though, an unsettled Ms. Hasina responded with force. When the party’s supporters tried to hold another large rally, the police met them with clubs and tear gas — and 500 fresh court cases. The crackdown showed that, even as the West issues warnings, it ultimately has limited sway over a leader who has deftly balanced ties with Asia’s two giants, China and India.Opposition supporters during their rally against the governing party in June.Ms. Hasina has governed Bangladesh since 2009 and is seeking re-election in the coming months.Increasingly, the government’s powers are wielded en masse, said Ashraf Zaman, a Bangladeshi lawyer and activist in exile who works with the Asian Human Rights Commission. The police round up scores of people in one case — accusing them of “anti-state activities” or of blocking police work — and leave room for more to be added by listing dozens or even hundreds of “unnamed persons” in the same case. Each individual case can involve multiple charges.By the time the evidence, often flimsy, is put in front of a judge, the accused have spent months in jail, often at risk of harassment or torture in custody, human rights activists say. Bail, lawyers and legal experts said, has become harder to get in political cases. If the accused does get released, the government presents it as a magnanimous gift, not as acknowledgment that the person should not have been detained in the first place.Defense lawyers argue in court that their client “has a family, he has already spent this long time, if you kindly give him bail it would be appreciated, and the prosecution ‘allows’ it,” Mr. Zaman said.The CourtOne of the busiest places for political cases is Dhaka’s magistrate court, where Mr. Nirob, the B.N.P. leader facing more than 300 cases, was taken one morning in June. Syed Nazrul, Mr. Nirob’s lawyer, said his client had at least one case filed against him in every police station in the city.Before proceedings begin each morning, about a dozen lawyers cram into Room 205 at the bar association building, where Mr. Nazrul checks papers one last time. On June 12, the office’s large ledger showed that the team was defending clients in 33 cases that day, 32 of them involving the B.N.P.Lawyers crammed into a room at the bar association building in Dhaka in June. Many represent political prisoners. Syed Nazrul, a lawyer, inspecting documents for cases filed against a B.N.P. leader.Then the lawyers make their way through the narrow alley — buzzing with vendors selling anything from chicken to marigold to replacement teeth — that connects the bar association with the crowded courthouse.“The hearing takes, maximum, 20 minutes. All day is spent back and forth in this harassment,” Mr. Nazrul said.Even those fighting for causes beyond the bitter rivalry between the two political parties increasingly pay a heavy price.Didarul Bhuiyan, a computer engineer, returned to Dhaka after completing his studies in Australia. He set up a small software company, got married and raised three sons. But a question nagged at him: Had he made the right decision in returning?Mr. Bhuiyan became active in a civil society movement aimed at strengthening checks in the system, so his children would not be forced to pursue a life abroad. “Whenever someone gets to power, they go above the law,” he said.After Mr. Bhuiyan’s group criticized the management of relief funds during the pandemic, security forces in civilian clothes took him away in a van with tinted windows.Didarul Bhuiyan with his family in Dhaka in July. He spent five months in jail after criticizing the government’s management of Covid relief money. A woman and her relatives waving at people on a bus leaving court in Dhaka.“The incidents of disappearances were common; we worried about what could happen to him,” said his wife, Dilshad Ara Bhuiyan.As Ms. Bhuiyan went from court to court hoping to apply for bail for her husband, they refused to hear his case, even though the government had filed no charges against him. “The judge would see the name, the case, and say, ‘Sorry, I can’t,’” Mr. Bhuiyan said.After five months in jail, he got bail. The police did not file charges until about a year after his arrest, leveling vague accusations of treason and conspiracy against the state. As a central piece of evidence, the police submitted a Facebook post by Mr. Bhuiyan — which he had written months after his release. A time stamp marked a screenshot as having been taken three hours before.A fellow activist, Mushtaq Ahmed, who was detained around the same time as Mr. Bhuiyan, died in jail. A large portrait of Mr. Ahmed sits on a drawer in Mr. Bhuiyan’s home office.Mr. Bhuiyan called Mr. Ahmed’s death political murder.“Putting someone in jail for 10 months without any trial whatsoever is good enough to kill someone,” he said. More