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      A.I.’s Use in Elections Sets Off a Scramble for Guardrails

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      Gaps in campaign rules allow politicians to spread images and messaging generated by increasingly powerful artificial intelligence technology.In Toronto, a candidate in this week’s mayoral election who vows to clear homeless encampments released a set of campaign promises illustrated by artificial intelligence, including fake dystopian images of people camped out on a downtown street and a fabricated image of tents set up in a park.In New Zealand, a political party posted a realistic-looking rendering on Instagram of fake robbers rampaging through a jewelry shop.In Chicago, the runner-up in the mayoral vote in April complained that a Twitter account masquerading as a news outlet had used A.I. to clone his voice in a way that suggested he condoned police brutality.What began a few months ago as a slow drip of fund-raising emails and promotional images composed by A.I. for political campaigns has turned into a steady stream of campaign materials created by the technology, rewriting the political playbook for democratic elections around the world.Increasingly, political consultants, election researchers and lawmakers say setting up new guardrails, such as legislation reining in synthetically generated ads, should be an urgent priority. Existing defenses, such as social media rules and services that claim to detect A.I. content, have failed to do much to slow the tide.As the 2024 U.S. presidential race starts to heat up, some of the campaigns are already testing the technology. The Republican National Committee released a video with artificially generated images of doomsday scenarios after President Biden announced his re-election bid, while Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida posted fake images of former President Donald J. Trump with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former health official. The Democratic Party experimented with fund-raising messages drafted by artificial intelligence in the spring — and found that they were often more effective at encouraging engagement and donations than copy written entirely by humans.Some politicians see artificial intelligence as a way to help reduce campaign costs, by using it to create instant responses to debate questions or attack ads, or to analyze data that might otherwise require expensive experts.At the same time, the technology has the potential to spread disinformation to a wide audience. An unflattering fake video, an email blast full of false narratives churned out by computer or a fabricated image of urban decay can reinforce prejudices and widen the partisan divide by showing voters what they expect to see, experts say.The technology is already far more powerful than manual manipulation — not perfect, but fast improving and easy to learn. In May, the chief executive of OpenAI, Sam Altman, whose company helped kick off an artificial intelligence boom last year with its popular ChatGPT chatbot, told a Senate subcommittee that he was nervous about election season.He said the technology’s ability “to manipulate, to persuade, to provide sort of one-on-one interactive disinformation” was “a significant area of concern.”Representative Yvette D. Clarke, a Democrat from New York, said in a statement last month that the 2024 election cycle “is poised to be the first election where A.I.-generated content is prevalent.” She and other congressional Democrats, including Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, have introduced legislation that would require political ads that used artificially generated material to carry a disclaimer. A similar bill in Washington State was recently signed into law.The American Association of Political Consultants recently condemned the use of deepfake content in political campaigns as a violation of its ethics code.“People are going to be tempted to push the envelope and see where they can take things,” said Larry Huynh, the group’s incoming president. “As with any tool, there can be bad uses and bad actions using them to lie to voters, to mislead voters, to create a belief in something that doesn’t exist.”The technology’s recent intrusion into politics came as a surprise in Toronto, a city that supports a thriving ecosystem of artificial intelligence research and start-ups. The mayoral election takes place on Monday.A conservative candidate in the race, Anthony Furey, a former news columnist, recently laid out his platform in a document that was dozens of pages long and filled with synthetically generated content to help him make his tough-on-crime position.A closer look clearly showed that many of the images were not real: One laboratory scene featured scientists who looked like alien blobs. A woman in another rendering wore a pin on her cardigan with illegible lettering; similar markings appeared in an image of caution tape at a construction site. Mr. Furey’s campaign also used a synthetic portrait of a seated woman with two arms crossed and a third arm touching her chin.Anthony Furey, a candidate in Toronto’s mayoral election on Monday, used an A.I. image of a woman with three arms.The other candidates mined that image for laughs in a debate this month: “We’re actually using real pictures,” said Josh Matlow, who showed a photo of his family and added that “no one in our pictures have three arms.”Still, the sloppy renderings were used to amplify Mr. Furey’s argument. He gained enough momentum to become one of the most recognizable names in an election with more than 100 candidates. In the same debate, he acknowledged using the technology in his campaign, adding that “we’re going to have a couple of laughs here as we proceed with learning more about A.I.”Political experts worry that artificial intelligence, when misused, could have a corrosive effect on the democratic process. Misinformation is a constant risk; one of Mr. Furey’s rivals said in a debate that while members of her staff used ChatGPT, they always fact-checked its output.“If someone can create noise, build uncertainty or develop false narratives, that could be an effective way to sway voters and win the race,” Darrell M. West, a senior fellow for the Brookings Institution, wrote in a report last month. “Since the 2024 presidential election may come down to tens of thousands of voters in a few states, anything that can nudge people in one direction or another could end up being decisive.”Increasingly sophisticated A.I. content is appearing more frequently on social networks that have been largely unwilling or unable to police it, said Ben Colman, the chief executive of Reality Defender, a company that offers services to detect A.I. The feeble oversight allows unlabeled synthetic content to do “irreversible damage” before it is addressed, he said.“Explaining to millions of users that the content they already saw and shared was fake, well after the fact, is too little, too late,” Mr. Colman said.For several days this month, a Twitch livestream has run a nonstop, not-safe-for-work debate between synthetic versions of Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump. Both were clearly identified as simulated “A.I. entities,” but if an organized political campaign created such content and it spread widely without any disclosure, it could easily degrade the value of real material, disinformation experts said.Politicians could shrug off accountability and claim that authentic footage of compromising actions was not real, a phenomenon known as the liar’s dividend. Ordinary citizens could make their own fakes, while others could entrench themselves more deeply in polarized information bubbles, believing only what sources they chose to believe.“If people can’t trust their eyes and ears, they may just say, ‘Who knows?’” Josh A. Goldstein, a research fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, wrote in an email. “This could foster a move from healthy skepticism that encourages good habits (like lateral reading and searching for reliable sources) to an unhealthy skepticism that it is impossible to know what is true.” More

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      How Do Kwon, a Crypto Fugitive, Upended the Politics of Montenegro

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      Only days before an election in Montenegro, a letter from Do Kwon, the fugitive founder of the Luna digital coin, claimed that crypto “friends” had provided campaign funding to a leading candidate.Already notorious as an agent of market mayhem, the crypto industry has now unleashed political havoc, too, upending a critical general election in Montenegro, a troubled Balkan nation struggling to shake off the grip of organized crime and the influence of Russia.Only days before a vote on June 11, the political landscape in Montenegro was thrown into disarray by the intervention of Do Kwon, the fugitive head of a failed crypto business whose collapse last year contributed to a $2 trillion crash across the industry.In a handwritten letter sent to the authorities from the Montenegrin jail where he has been held since March, Mr. Kwon claimed that he had “a very successful investment relationship” with the leader of the Europe Now Movement, the election front-runner, and that “friends in the crypto industry” had provided campaign funding in return for pledges of “crypto-friendly policies.”Europe Now had been expected to win a decisive popular mandate in elections for a new Parliament. Its campaign mixed populist promises to raise salaries and pensions with pledges to put the country on a clear path to joining the European Union by cleansing the crime and corruption that flourished under Montenegro’s former longtime leader Milo Djukanovic.The party still won the most votes, but fell far short of expectations, finishing just ahead of a rival group that supports Russia and that can now disrupt efforts to form a stable pro-Western coalition government. Only 56 percent of the electorate voted, a record low turnout.Mr. Kwon’s intervention “destroyed us,” said the Europe Now leader, Milojko Spajic, a target of the disgraced crypto entrepreneur’s letter, which was reviewed by The New York Times and whose existence leaked in the local news media before the vote.Milojko Spajic, the leader of the Europe Now Movement, believes Mr. Kwon’s letter hurt his party’s chances in national elections.Stevo Vasiljevic/ReutersIn an interview, Mr. Spajic denounced Mr. Kwon’s accusations as “super fake” and part of a “dirty political game” to hurt his party’s chances. Mr. Kwon’s lawyers have not disputed the letter’s authenticity.As a founder of Terraform Labs, the Stanford-educated Mr. Kwon was once hailed as a crypto trailblazer, responsible for the design of a popular digital coin, Luna, he said would change the world and whose fans he proudly referred to as “Lunatics.”The spectacular collapse in May 2022 of Luna and a second cryptocurrency that Mr. Kwon designed, TerraUSD, transformed him from a hero of innovation into a fugitive wanted by both the United States and South Korea on fraud charges.After that, he vanished, his whereabouts a mystery until the authorities in Montenegro announced in March that he had been arrested while trying to board a private plane to Dubai in Podgorica, the capital, using a forged Costa Rican passport.He had insisted it was genuine, but a Podgorica court on Monday found Mr. Kwon and a South Korean crypto business partner guilty of using forged travel documents and sentenced them to four months in jail.What Mr. Kwon was doing in Montenegro before his arrest and when he arrived is still unclear. His activities since his arrest are murkier.Though stripped of his electronic devices, the jailed Mr. Kwon appears to have somehow moved $29 million from a crypto wallet linked to him, South Korean prosecutors said, confirming a report by Bloomberg News.Dritan Abazovic, the acting prime minister of Montenegro and a political rival to Mr. Spajic, said there was no record of Mr. Kwon entering the country or registering at hotels, so the authorities want to establish whether he had local collaborators.“I’m not accusing Spajic of anything,” Mr. Abazovic said in an interview, “but we need to see what was happening in the crypto community here and whether it was involved in money laundering and campaign financing.”Campaign posters in Podgorica, Montenegro. Only 56 percent of the electorate voted in the election on June 11, the lowest turnout in decades.Stevo Vasiljevic/ReutersLong a center for cigarette smuggling and cocaine trafficking during Mr. Djukanovic’s more than three-decade rule, Montenegro has in recent years promoted itself as a center for the crypto industry.In 2022, Mr. Spajic, who was the finance minister at the time, predicted that the industry could account for nearly a third of Montenegro’s economic output within three years.For Mr. Spajic and fellow blockchain believers, crypto was the next Big Thing, according to Zeljko Ivanovic, the head of the independent media group Vijesti.“It was seen as an easy way out — a new secret recipe to replace the smuggling that had been Djukanovic’s recipe for decades,” Mr. Ivanovic said. “But the miracle cure turned out to be a disaster.”Eager to attract talent, Montenegro last year awarded citizenship to Vitalik Buterin, a Russian-Canadian and the founder of Ethereum, the most popular cryptocurrency platform.Mr. Buterin said he “never knowingly met or talked to Do Kwon, including through third parties,” and “never gave money to Europe Now.”In May, he hosted a blockchain conference in Montenegro that was attended by, in addition to high-tech enthusiasts, Mr. Spajic and the acting prime minister, Mr. Abazovic.The Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin was awarded Montenegrin citizenship as part of an effort to develop a crypto industry in the country.Michael Ciaglo/Getty ImagesMr. Spajic posted a photograph on Twitter of himself with Mr. Buterin, who is holding up his new Montenegrin passport, and the message: “We will bring the best people in the world to Montenegro.”Montenegro’s welcoming ways, however, also attracted George Cottrell, a British financier convicted of wire fraud in the United States, who later moved to Montenegro under a new name, George Co.Mr. Cottrell, according to officials, left Montenegro for London on June 9, soon after the police raided Salon Privé, a bar in the coastal resort town of Tivat that law enforcement officials believe is connected to him. It features gambling machines and a “cryptomat,” used for buying and trading digital currencies.Ratko Pantovic, Mr. Cottrell’s lawyer, who also represents the bar, said his British client had no connection to the gambling salon or the crypto industry.Montenegro’s acting interior minister, Filip Adzic, who oversaw the police raid in Tivat, said Mr. Cottrell had not been charged with any crime but was being investigated for involvement in possibly illegal crypto activities.Montenegro, Mr. Adzic said, needed to be careful with a business that, because it facilitates anonymous transactions, “is good for organized crime, good for financing terrorists and good for money laundering.”The police raided a bar in Tivat, Montenegro, that featured gambling machines and a “cryptomat,” used for buying and trading digital currencies.Savo Prelevic/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAmerican and South Korean prosecutors want to examine three laptops and five cellphones seized by the authorities from Mr. Kwon at the time of his arrest for clues to what happened to billions of dollars invested in his now mostly worthless digital coins.Of more interest to Montenegrin authorities, however, is what they may contain relating to campaign financing and Mr. Kwon’s relationship with Mr. Spajic.In a court hearing on June 16, Mr. Kwon’s lawyers said their client denied having funded Mr. Spajic’s electoral campaign. Mr. Kwon’s letter, however, said that “other friends in the crypto industry” contributed.“I have evidence of these communications and contributions,” Mr. Kwon said in his letter.Mr. Spajic initially denied any connection to Mr. Kwon, but later acknowledged he had known him since 2018 and invested money with him on behalf of an investment fund he says he was working for in Singapore — “he cheated us,” Mr. Spajic said — and met him again late last year in Belgrade.That followed an announcement by South Korean prosecutors in September that Interpol, the global police organization, had issued a “red notice” for Mr. Kwon’s arrest. Mr. Spajic said he had met Mr. Kwon only because “we wanted our money back.”Mr. Kwon gave a different account, claiming in his letter that Mr. Spajic wanted to discuss campaign financing. He said Mr. Spajic, who was then planning to run for the presidency, explained that he was “raising few million USD for the upcoming campaign” and “asked me to make a contribution.” Mr. Kwon said he declined.Mr. Spajic said it was “absolutely false” that they discussed campaign financing.Milan Knezevic, leader of the pro-Russian bloc that finished second in the June 11 election, casts his ballot.Boris Pejovic/EPA, via ShutterstockMilan Knezevic, the leader of the pro-Russian bloc that finished second in the election, said he relished his group’s unexpectedly strong result, achieved in part because of the disruption caused by Mr. Kwon, but he still regretted that Montenegro had opened its arms to crypto mavens.It would have been better, Mr. Knezevic said, sitting in an office decorated with pictures of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, to have welcomed fighters from the Islamic State militant group.“At least with ISIS, you know what you are up against,” he said. “But we have no idea what these crypto people are really doing.”Alisa Dogramadzieva More

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      Sierra Leone’s Election: What to Know and Latest News

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      In Saturday’s vote, President Julius Maada Bio is seeking a second five-year term to pursue an ambitious if unfulfilled education initiative, while the country is facing a crippling economic crisis.Since he became president of the small West African nation of Sierra Leone in 2018, Julius Maada Bio has dedicated 22 percent of the country’s budget to education, a policy that has sent an additional one million children to school and received attention from international backers.As Sierra Leoneans voted on Saturday for their next president — some lining up at polling stations hours before they were scheduled to open — Mr. Bio made that education initiative a key argument for voters to give him a second five-year term.But many voters have more urgent concerns than an education policy that has often fallen short: soaring inflation, youth unemployment, daily power cuts and relentless heat waves worsened by climate change.Across the country on Saturday, many polling stations remained closed because electoral materials or officials were missing.“Some of us have been here since 3 a.m. and still voting hasn’t started,” Ishmael Beah, a Sierra Leonean writer, wrote on Instagram shortly before midday. “We don’t really understand what is going on.”New shade covers the Congo Market in Freetown, where relentless heat waves are making life increasingly difficult.Yagazie Emezi for The New York TimesWhat is at stake in the election?Sierra Leone, home to 8.4 million people and one of the world’s poorest countries, has gained attention for its new education policy, which if it succeeds, could inspire other countries in Africa and beyond.But economic matters top most voters’ concerns: The war in Ukraine has driven up fuel and food prices, including for rice, fish and gas.Year-on-year inflation is above 43 percent, the highest level in two decades. The national currency, the Leone, has had the worst depreciation in sub-Saharan Africa.“When Sierra Leoneans think they’ve reached the bottom, it gets worse,” said Cyril Jengo, an economist based in Freetown, the capital.The leading candidates say they plan to address the cost-of-living crisis, but Sierra Leone’s entire economy would need a revamp, analysts say, as it mostly relies on imports and is frequently hit by crises: the Ebola epidemic a decade ago, the coronavirus pandemic and now the ripple effects of the war in Ukraine.Who are the candidates?Out of 13 candidates, two have a credible chance of winning: Mr. Bio, the current president, and Samura Kamara, a former government minister.The election is a rematch: Mr. Bio was elected in 2018 after beating Mr. Kamara by a tight margin.Mr. Bio, 59, a former military officer who participated in two coups during Sierra Leone’s civil war in the 1990s, briefly ruled the country in 1996 as the head of a military junta. He handed power to a democratically elected president a few months later and went to study in the United States. He returned to Sierra Leone, and ran for president in 2018.President Julius Maada Bio is seeking a second five-year term.John Wessels/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Bio has vowed to provide free health care to all children going to school, and to promote food self-sufficiency.Mr. Kamara, 72, is an economist who served as minister of finance and then foreign affairs when his party was in power in the 2010s.He has made broad promises about economic development, opportunities for youth and the fight against climate change.In 2021, Mr. Kamara was charged with embezzlement in a case tied to the renovation of Sierra Leone’s consulate in New York while he was foreign minister. Mr. Kamara’s supporters say the case, which is being heard by the Supreme Court, is politically motivated to discredit him. The case was adjourned so that he could run, but a ruling is expected in July.Samura Kamara is challenging Mr. Bio again after narrowly losing in 2018.John Wessels/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWhat is the president’s record?Through its education reform, Mr. Bio’s government has sought to ban school fees and recruited thousands of new teachers. More than 3.1 million children are now officially in school, up from under two million in 2018.But many parents still have to pay school fees, and teachers complain that they have not received the salary increase they were promised.Girls on their way to school in Freetown. Mr. Bio has dedicated 22 percent of Sierra Leone’s budget to education.John Wessels/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Bio’s government has also adopted a land-rights policy aimed at protecting local communities against foreign companies seeking to exploit their land. And a new gender-equality policy requires employers to hire women to at least 30 percent of their positions — a minimum that the current government has not reached.But Mr. Bio has also been criticized for muzzling civil society groups and responding with violence to demonstrations last summer, resulting in more than 25 deaths. And his promises to address the economic crisis and develop agriculture sound hollow to many.“The poverty is endemic and deepening,” said Jimmy Kandeh, a Sierra Leonean professor emeritus of political science at the University of Richmond in Virginia. “Whether the politics will deliver a change, I don’t think there’s much hope in that.”When, where and how do people vote?Some 3.4 million people are registered to vote on Saturday in Sierra Leone’s five administrative areas. They will also elect their members of Parliament, mayor or local chiefs, and local councilors.Observers from the African Union, the West African economic bloc known as ECOWAS, the European Union and the Carter Center are monitoring the vote. There is no electronic voting.What do polls predict, and when are results expected?Polls have Mr. Bio as the favorite. Many of the country’s 3.4 million voters vote along regional and ethnic allegiances.Presidential candidates must get 55 percent of the vote to win in the first round, and a runoff is likely, according to Mr. Kandeh. Results are expected to be announced by the electoral commission the following week. A runoff would be organized two weeks later.For the first time, polling officials will send results to a database run by the electoral commission via a dedicated app. Nigeria tested a similar method for the presidential election in February, but the process was plagued with problems, and the results were delayed.Joseph Johnson contributed research. More

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      Greek Youths, Shaped by Debt Crisis, Plan to Vote for Stability

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      Many children of Greece’s traumatic years of economic collapse have opted for pragmatism over radicalism and say they will back a conservative on Sunday.Days before this Sunday’s election in Greece, three young women with piercings and ironic T-shirts who sat outside a hipster coffee shop in an Athens neighborhood best known as a hub of anarchist fervor said they wanted stability.“Money is important — you can’t live without money,” said Mara Katsitou, 22, a student who grew up during the country’s disastrous financial crisis and one day hoped to open a pharmacy. “There’s nothing that matters to someone more than the economy.”As a result, she said, she would cast her vote for Kyriakos Mitsotakis, 55, the square, conservative prime minister who graduated from Harvard, who is fond of riding his bike and who, polls suggest, will win convincingly on Sunday in a second national election. With Mr. Mitsotakis — who is also the son of a former prime minister — Ms. Katsitou said, she had “definitely a better chance.” About a third of young voters like her feel the same, polls indicate.After spending impressionable years amid so much panic, desperation and humiliation during the decade-long financial crisis that erupted in 2010 — and which collapsed the Greek economy — many of Greece’s depression-era children have grown up to say they have no interest in ever turning back.In many quarters, youthful radicalism has given way to unexpected pragmatism, a yearning for prosperity and a steady hand, and an inclination to overlook or at least mute outrage over any number of scandals that have dogged Mr. Mitsotakis.Young Greeks have expressed no interest in going back to the realities of the 2010s. At the peak of the crisis, nearly one in three Greeks were jobless, and many struggled to buy food and pay bills.Byron Smith for The New York TimesIn recent days, a shipwreck that killed possibly more than 600 migrants has raised new questions about the Mitsotakis government’s hard-line measures to curb arrivals of migrants. The wiretapping of an opposition leader by the state’s intelligence service and Mr. Mitsotakis’s consolidation of Greek media has prompted concerns about the erosion of democratic norms. A train crash that killed 57 people in February revealed the shabby state of key Greek infrastructure, for which he apologized.But for Greeks, including an increasing number of younger Greeks, polls show that all of those issues pale in comparison to the country’s economic stability and fortunes.Mr. Mitsotakis’s government has spurred growth at twice the eurozone average by cutting taxes and debt, and by increasing digitization, minimum wages and pensions. Big multinational corporations are investing in the country. Tourism is skyrocketing. The country is paying back creditors ahead of schedule, increasing the chances of rating agencies lifting Greece’s bonds out of junk status.“It’s all about jobs, about, you know, raising disposable income and bringing in a lot of investment and about growing the economy much faster,” Mr. Mitsotakis said in a recent interview. “This was always my bet, and I think that we delivered, if you look at the numbers.”A bus stop with a campaign poster for Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis this month in Athens.Byron Smith for The New York TimesGreece’s 2010 debt crisis was a searing national catastrophe. Humiliating bailouts connected to seemingly endless austerity measures slashed household incomes by a third and sent unemployment skyrocketing as hundreds of thousands of businesses collapsed.At the peak of the crisis, in 2013, nearly one in three Greeks were jobless, and many were disheartened after years of violent protests, in which demonstrators clashed with the police in the streets of Athens and other cities in clouds of tear gas. Scenes of the most desperate people trawling through bins for food — once unheard-of — shocked the majority of Greeks who struggled to make ends meet.“We still have a deep sort of legacy of 10 years of a crisis,” Mr. Mitsotakis acknowledged in the interview. “Not many people appreciated how painful the crisis was — we lost 25 percent of our” gross domestic product.Mr. Mitsotakis, the standard-bearer for the New Democracy party, has won over a sizable share of the generation that grew up in that time, increasing his support among voters aged 17 to 24 by three points, to 33 percent.Just as telling, support among young voters for his leftist opponent, former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, the leader of the Syriza party, has collapsed, falling to 24 percent from 38 percent since the 2019 elections, when Mr. Mitsotakis defeated him.In an initial election in May, Mr. Mitsotakis’s party thrashed Syriza by 20 points, but it was not enough of a majority to lead a one-party government. Instead of cobbling together a coalition, Mr. Mitsotakis opted for another election. With a new, more favorable election law that gives a bonus of seats to the leading vote-getter, he now hopes to win a landslide victory that will allow him to govern alone.Overall, Mr. Tsipras is trailing Mr. Mitsotakis by more than 20 points.Support for Alexis Tsipras, the leader of the left-wing Syriza party, among young voters has fallen since he was defeated by Mr. Mitsotakis in the 2019 elections.Byron Smith for The New York TimesThat is despite his efforts to depict Mr. Mitsotakis as an undemocratic, arrogant and unaccountable strongman who he says has overseen a “massive redistribution of wealth from the many to the few” in his four years in power.Not all young voters, of course, are behind Mr. Mitsotakis. Many complain that the prosperity that is supposed to kick-start their lives is making things so costly that they cannot move out of their homes.Not all of the economic indicators are good, either. Greece still has the European Union’s highest national debt, and it is the second-poorest nation in the European Union, after Bulgaria. Tax evasion is still common.Mr. Tsipras has tried to convince young voters that, in fact, he, not Mr. Mitsotakis, is not only the true agent of change, but also of stability. He has promised financial relief, including better health benefits, though it remains unclear how those would be funded.“We’ll fight so that hope for justice and prosperity for all is not lost in this country, for a fair society and prosperity for everyone,” Mr. Tsipras said this week at a campaign event in the western city of Patra.Some voters, suffering under rising prices and exponentially increasing rents, support him.“The crisis isn’t over; it’s still here,” said Grigoris Varsamis, 46, who said his record shop’s electric bills were through the roof and that he would vote for Mr. Tsipras.An information booth for former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras this month in Athens.Byron Smith for The New York TimesBut there is little doubt that Mr. Tsipras, a former Communist firebrand who governed in the latter years of the financial crisis, has been tainted by a lasting association with the pain of that era.In 2015, under his leadership, Greeks voted to reject Europe’s draconian aid package, and Greece was nearly ejected from the eurozone. Social unrest returned and talk of “Grexit,” referring to Greece exiting the eurozone, mounted. Many young Greeks who grew up during that time feel scarred by the Syriza experience.Grigoris Kikis, 26, an award-winning chef at the restaurant Upon in Athens, remembers that the financial crisis coincided with his trying to break into the world of restaurants as a 13-year-old volunteering in kitchens after school.As restaurants closed and his father fretted about paying his workers, the chefs around him worried about the budgets for produce, meat, plates and glasses. When they wanted to try out a new dish, they could afford to test it only once.Today, Mr. Kikis runs a popular bistro in Athens with a 300-label wine list, in-house coffee-roasting machines and an eclectic menu with plates tried 25 times before they make the cut.“The restaurant is full every day,” he said, explaining that he would vote for Mr. Mitsotakis to keep it that way. “Many people my age care most about the economy. They say there is more opportunity and higher salaries, and maybe people will come from abroad and want to work in Greece because things changed for the better.”Grigoris Kikis, a chef in Athens, said people his age felt strongly about the future of their country’s economy.Byron Smith for The New York TimesThe same is true for Nikos Therapos, 29, a sustainability consultant. When he was 16, he said, the drastic cutting of the public budgets cost his mother, a kindergarten teacher, her job. His father’s company, in the hard-hit construction industry, shrank, too.“I remember very clearly about not being so optimistic about my professional career,” he said.In 2015, when he was studying business in Brussels, Greece was embroiled in intense political and social upheaval, and, Mr. Therapos recalled, his fellow students shunned him in working groups.“I was regarded as the lazy Greek, even though they didn’t know anything about me,” he said. “It was really unfair for me and my generation.”But in the past four years, Mr. Therapos said, there had been a change.“I cannot say we are back to normality for the simple reason that I have never known normality,” he said. But for the first time, he said, he felt “confident in our future.”Many of his more leftist friends had also shifted to Mr. Mitsotakis, Mr. Therapos said, because they want a “stable and sustainable economic system.”Unsurprisingly, Mr. Mitsotakis agreed.“At the end of the day,” he said, “Greece is no longer a problem for the eurozone. I think this offers a lot of people relief.” More

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      Modi’s Visits Abroad Help to Build His Image in India

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      For an audience in India, the prime minister is linking his diplomatic reception abroad, and himself, to the country’s growing importance on the world stage.His grip on the levers of national power secure, his hold on India’s domestic imagination cemented, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has increasingly turned to advancing himself on a new horizon: the global stage.With a packed diplomatic calendar that includes India’s hosting of the Group of 20 summit later this year, Mr. Modi is building an image going into his re-election campaign as a leader who can win respect and investment for his vast nation. The state visit accorded to Mr. Modi in Washington, which ends on Friday, is perhaps the biggest prize yet in that quest.“It’s not just about a fairer bargain abroad,” said Ashok Malik, a former government adviser who is the India chair at the Asia Group, a consulting firm. “It’s also that ‘my investments in key foreign policy relations are actually helping to build the Indian economy and therefore create opportunities for Indians at home and strengthen India overall.’”At home, Mr. Modi’s Hindu nationalist party has continued to sideline institutions that were once important checks on the government. It has persisted in its vilification of the country’s 200 million Muslims, even as Mr. Modi used an exceedingly rare news conference in Washington to claim that there was no discrimination against anyone in India.But abroad, world leaders eager to court an ascendant India have offered little pushback. And often, they have given Mr. Modi invaluable fodder for an information campaign that shapes perceptions of him among many Indian voters who are ecstatic to see their country’s importance affirmed.Eid-al Fitr prayers in Chennai, India, in April. Mr. Modi used a news conference in Washington to claim that there was no discrimination against anyone in India, including the country’s huge Muslim minority.Idrees Mohammed/EPA, via ShutterstockWhen Mr. Modi traveled to Australia last month, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese referred to him as “the boss” in front of an arena in Sydney packed with about 20,000 people. Mr. Modi then returned to New Delhi to a large crowd gathered for his welcome at 6 in the morning, telling supporters that the grand welcome for him abroad was about India, not him.On Friday, as Mr. Modi was wrapping up his meetings in the United States before arriving in Egypt for another grand greeting, his political party and the large sections of the broadcast media friendly to him reveled in the reception he had gotten from President Biden and other American leaders.The red carpet in Washington played perfectly into one of Mr. Modi’s talents: He can build a media campaign out of virtually anything, projecting himself as the only leader who can expand India’s economy and usher a nation coming into its own to new heights.While opposition leaders back home were holding their largest gathering yet, hoping to find a formula for uniting to challenge the prime minister in elections early next year, Mr. Modi was reaching for the world.Social media was flooded with montage videos, set to regal background music, of Mr. Modi making a grand entrance into the House of Representatives for his address to a joint session of Congress. The speech, after which several lawmakers sought Mr. Modi’s autograph, made him one of only a very small number of world leaders to have addressed that body twice.Another video online kept count of the number of times Mr. Modi received applause or standing ovations during his speech. A third cut to dramatic images of Mr. Modi contrasting him with the dynastic leaders who came before him, advancing a constant narrative that he represents a subversion of the old elite that long ruled India.“History tells us that powerful people come from powerful places. History was wrong,” a deep voice intones in the video. “Powerful people make places powerful.”Congress offers a standing ovation for Mr. Modi’s speech on Capitol Hill on Thursday.T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesMr. Modi’s next major opportunity to appear as a global statesman will come in September when India welcomes the Group of 20 leaders, a summit meeting he has framed to his support base as his bringing the world to India.His government has turned promotion for the meeting into a roadshow, hosting hundreds of G20 events, so many that foreign diplomats in New Delhi quietly complain about travel fatigue. Cities and towns across India are decked out with billboards bearing the G20 logo — which cleverly incorporates the lotus, a symbol both of India and his Bharatiya Janata Party — and pictures of Mr. Modi.In promoting the G20 presidency, Mr. Modi has taken to frequently describing India, the world’s most populous nation, as the “mother of democracy.” Abroad, however, he has pursued a transactional brand of diplomacy built not on practicing democratic values, but on what best serves Indian economic and security interests, and what elevates India in the world.The image of “a rising India, a new India being seen more seriously abroad” helps Mr. Modi politically, Mr. Malik said. But Mr. Modi is also investing heavily in U.S. relations with an eye toward how they could help an Indian economy that is struggling to create enough jobs for its huge young population and that must put up a fight against an aggressive China next door.“Addressing China is not just about soldiers and weapons at the border, it’s also about building economic alternatives to what China offers,” Mr. Malik said.Supporters of Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party cheer during a rally in Bengaluru, India, last month.Manjunath Kiran/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe list of agreements between the United States and India, announced at the end of a bilateral meeting at the White House, was long, covering defense, space and a wide range of technological cooperation.Defense cooperation, in particular — including deals on Indian manufacturing of General Electric jet engines and purchasing Predator military drones — received a major boost after what had been a history of reluctance and bureaucratic hurdles on both sides. Dr. Tara Kartha, a former senior official in India’s security council who dealt with U.S. on defense, said the agreement on aircraft engines was “an affirmation of trust” that would help the military partnership beyond the smaller steps of the past two decades.“Each country is trying to get past its bureaucratic constrains,” she said. “Until the bureaucracy can catch up, there will be frustrations.”Among ordinary Indians on the streets of New Delhi, opinions of Mr. Modi’s diplomatic efforts were divided.Vijay Yadav, a 26-year-old taxi driver, said Mr. Modi’s outreach abroad could not cover for how India’s economy was struggling to create enough jobs.“I saw on Instagram a news feed which was constantly touting Mr. Modi’s trip to America as if no other Indian leader had been there before,” he said. “Firstly, he must get down to solving the problems of his own countrymen before he goes abroad to project himself as a hero.”Nidhi Garg, 41, who has inherited a vegetable and fruit shop from her father, said her heart swelled each time she saw Mr. Modi representing India abroad.“Today, wherever you see, the name of our nation is being taken,” she said. “The first thing that comes to anyone’s mind when they mention the word India, they immediately connect it to Prime Minister Modi.”Suhasini Raj More

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      Elecciones en Guatemala: algunos candidatos perdieron antes de la votación

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      Los comicios del domingo estarán marcados tanto por los presentes como por los ausentes en las papeletas, pues las autoridades descalificaron a algunos de los principales contendientes.La primavera pasada, una magistrada guatemalteca entró en una reunión en la embajada estadounidense y sacó una gran cantidad de efectivo. Según dijo, el dinero era un soborno de uno de los aliados más cercanos del presidente.La magistrada, Blanca Alfaro, forma parte del Tribunal Supremo Electoral, la autoridad que supervisa las elecciones del país. Alfaro dijo que le entregaron el soborno para influir en las elecciones de Guatemala, según un funcionario estadounidense que fue informado sobre el encuentro y una persona que estuvo presente y solicitó mantener su anonimato por no estar autorizada para discutir los detalles de la reunión privada.Los diplomáticos estadounidenses se sorprendieron por la desfachatez del episodio, pero no por los señalamientos. En el volátil clima político que reina en Guatemala en las vísperas de las elecciones presidenciales del domingo ha habido una constante: un bombardeo de ataques continuo contra las instituciones democráticas por parte de quienes están en el poder.En un país que ha pasado de ser un escenario donde se erradicaba la corrupción a otro en el que decenas de altos funcionarios anticorrupción se han visto obligados a exiliarse, la primera vuelta de la votación estará marcada tanto por quienes aparecen en la papeleta como por los ausentes.El organismo electoral del país ha descalificado a todos los candidatos serios que podrían desafiar el statu quo, encarnado por el presidente Alejandro Giammattei, un conservador al que los críticos acusan de llevar el país hacia la autocracia y que no puede contender por un nuevo mandato.Los demás candidatos son personas vinculadas a algún segmento de la élite política o económica. Junto a sus nombres en la papeleta de votación habrá varias casillas en blanco, que representan a cuatro candidatos que fueron excluidos del proceso por la autoridad electoral.La magistrada Alfaro les dijo a los funcionarios estadounidenses que había recibido el soborno de Miguel Martínez, un confidente cercano de Giammattei y funcionario clave de su partido, según afirman tanto la persona que asistió a la reunión como el funcionario estadounidense.Alfaro también dijo que la suma de dinero ascendía a 50.000 quetzales guatemaltecos (el equivalente a más de 6000 dólares), según la persona que estuvo presente en el encuentro. El Times no ha corroborado la afirmación de la magistrada Alfaro sobre el soborno. En una entrevista, Alfaro negó que fuera a la embajada e hiciera esa acusación.“No me he reunido con Miguel Martínez”, le dijo a The New York Times. Y añadió: “Dudo que a la embajada se puedan ingresar 50.000 quetzales porque uno tiene que pasar por muchas medidas de seguridad”.Por su parte, Martínez negó haber sobornado a la magistrada Alfaro y afirmó que nunca se ha reunido con ella. Dijo que estaba al tanto de un esfuerzo por parte de personas que no pudieron participar en las elecciones para involucrarlo “en alguna situación legal” con la Embajada de Estados Unidos.“Ahora nos estamos dando cuenta que en la situación legal que me están tratando a mí de involucrar para afectar al tema del proceso electoral que se está llevando a cabo de una manera limpia y democrática, es esto”, dijo Martínez.Luego, en una declaración grabada en video que circuló ampliamente en las redes sociales, Martínez dijo a unos periodistas que el Times pronto publicaría un relato de la visita de Alfaro a la embajada. “Esto es algo malicioso que ellos quieren hacer para desestabilizar las elecciones”, dijo Martínez en el video.Cuando se le preguntó sobre las acusaciones de Alfaro y la respuesta de la embajada, una portavoz del Departamento de Estado, Christina Tilghman, dijo: “No confirmamos la existencia de supuestas reuniones ni discutimos el contenido de las discusiones diplomáticas”.Tilghman dijo que siempre que el gobierno estadounidense recibe denuncias de corrupción que “cumplen los requisitos probatorios establecidos por la normativa y la legislación de Estados Unidos”, sanciona o castiga de otro modo a los implicados.La actuación de la autoridad electoral ha hecho que grupos de defensa de los derechos civiles cuestionen si la contienda presidencial del domingo en realidad puede considerarse libre y justa.“Legalidad no es lo mismo que legitimidad”, dijo Juan Francisco Sandoval, exfiscal anticorrupción que ahora vive en Estados Unidos y forma parte de las decenas de fiscales y jueces que se han exiliado en los últimos años.Sandoval afirma que la votación se verá empañada tanto por los fallos arbitrarios sobre quién puede postularse, como por el aumento de la financiación ilícita de campañas con fondos públicos.Aunque representan tendencias ideológicas distintas, al menos tres de los candidatos excluidos inquietaron a las élites políticas de Guatemala.Uno de ellos, Carlos Pineda, se posicionó como un empresario independiente que utilizó TikTok para surgir como favorito en las encuestas.“Quince partidos accionaron en mi contra. Lo hicieron porque íbamos punteando en las encuestas y se determinaba que en primera vuelta íbamos a hacer historia y ganar las elecciones”, dijo Pineda refiriéndose al hecho de que si nadie obtiene más del 50por ciento de los votos, se celebrará una segunda vuelta entre los dos candidatos más votados. “Para mí estas elecciones son ilegítimas”.Carlos Pineda en una protesta contra su exclusión de la campaña presidencialDaniele Volpe para The New York TimesOtra candidata excluida, Thelma Cabrera, es una líder de izquierda proveniente de una familia maya mam que intenta organizar a los pueblos indígenas de Guatemala, que representan aproximadamente la mitad de la población, en una fuerza política unificada. El tercero, Roberto Arzú, es un dirigente de derecha de una familia de políticos que se ha posicionado como una fuerza opositora a las élites del país.Blanca Alfaro, al centro, e Irma Elizabeth Palencia Orellana, de amarillo, magistradas del Tribunal Supremo Electoral, la autoridad encargada de las elecciones del domingoDaniele Volpe para The New York TimesGiammattei, a quien la ley le prohíbe presentarse a la reelección, ha guardado silencio sobre la exclusión de varios de los principales aspirantes. En gran medida, la campaña se ha convertido en una contienda entre tres candidatos principales que se considera que pueden ofrecer cierta continuidad con el statu quo.Sandra Torres fue primera dama de 2008 a 2011, cuando estaba casada con el presidente Álvaro Colom. Se divorciaron cuando Torres intentó postularse por primera vez como candidata a la presidencia en 2011, en un intento de sortear una ley que prohíbe que los familiares del presidente puedan presentarse como candidatos.Torres fue detenida en 2019 en relación con violaciones de financiación de campaña, pero el caso fue cerrado por un juez en 2022 apenas unas semanas antes de que comenzara oficialmente la campaña, lo que le permitió postularse. Su plataforma destaca las promesas de ampliar los programas sociales, incluidas las transferencias de efectivo para los pobres.Sandra Torres en un evento electoral en Ciudad de GuatemalaDaniele Volpe para The New York TimesOtra de las principales candidatas, Zury Ríos, es hija de Efraín Ríos Montt, quien fue dictador de Guatemala a principios de la década de 1980 y ordenó tácticas extremas contra la insurgencia guerrillera y posteriormente fue condenado por genocidio en una sentencia pionera de 2013 por intentar exterminar a los ixiles, un pueblo maya indígena de Guatemala.Zury Ríos no se ha arrepentido de las acciones de su padre, y este año incluso llegó a negar que un genocidio sucedió. Cristiana evangélica, ha ganado popularidad entre los conservadores tras aliarse con figuras que pretenden frenar las iniciativas anticorrupción. Tras su paso por el Congreso, donde hizo hincapié en temas relacionados con las mujeres, ha centrado su campaña presidencial en la adopción de políticas de seguridad de línea dura para combatir la delincuencia.Edmond Mulet, otro de los principales aspirantes, fue diplomático y generalmente se inclina por puntos de vista conservadores. Mulet, cuyas propuestas incluyen la ampliación del acceso a internet y el suministro de medicamentos gratuitos, ha criticado la persecución de periodistas y fiscales, pero ha forjado vínculos con poderosas figuras políticas tradicionales, evitando el destino de los candidatos excluidos.Los sondeos de las últimas semanas apuntan a que ninguno de los tres podrá obtener una mayoría suficiente el domingo, lo que forzaría a una segunda vuelta el 30 de agosto.La descalificación de varios candidatos de la campaña presidencial ha puesto en duda la legitimidad de la votación del domingo.Daniele Volpe para The New York TimesLa contienda, según los expertos, revela lo efectiva que han sido los poderosos en erradicar cualquier fuente seria de disenso.“El uso del sistema judicial como un arma está haciendo que se marchen algunas de las mentes más brillantes del país e intimida a quienes se quedan”, dijo Regina Bateson, académica de la Universidad de Ottawa especializada en Guatemala. En su opinión, esa situación ha originado unas “elecciones que socavan la democracia”.Simon Romero es corresponsal nacional y cubre el suroeste de Estados Unidos. Ha sido jefe de las corresponsalías del Times en Brasil, los Andes y corresponsal internacional de energía. @viaSimonRomeroNatalie Kitroeff es la jefa de la corresponsalía del Times para México, Centroamérica y el Caribe. @Nataliekitro More

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      Mexico’s Supreme Court Rejects AMLO-Backed Election Changes

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      The ruling from the country’s top court came as President Andrés Manuel López Obrador ramps up his attacks on the judicial system.Mexico’s highest court on Thursday struck down a key piece of a sweeping electoral bill backed by the president that would have undermined the agency that oversees the country’s vote, and that helped shift the nation away from single-party rule.The ruling by the Supreme Court is a major blow to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has argued that the plan would make elections more efficient, save millions of dollars and allow Mexicans living abroad to vote online.The election measures were passed early this year by Congress, which is controlled by the president’s party, and would have applied to next year’s presidential race. Though Mr. López Obrador is barred from seeking re-election, his party’s chosen candidate will most likely be a heavy favorite.The bill would have slashed the National Electoral Institute’s work force, reduced its autonomy and curbed its power to punish politicians for violating election laws. Civil liberty groups said the measures would have hobbled a key pillar of Mexican democracy.“What it sought was to transform the entire electoral system,” said Ernesto Guerra, a political analyst based in Mexico City. “It was a 180-degree turn to the rules of the democratic game.”However relieved some Mexicans were by the ruling, some also worried that Mr. López Obrador might try to turn the legal setback to his advantage and rally his base around the idea that the judiciary is corrupt. During a morning address Thursday in which he anticipated the ruling, he lit into the court.“It is an invasion, an intrusion,” Mr. López Obrador said.He said he would present an initiative “in due time” to have members of the judiciary elected just like the president or senators. “It should be the people who elect them,” he said. “They should not represent an elite.”The court last month had invalidated another part of the bill that, among other things, involved changes to publicity rules in electoral campaigns.Mexicans casting ballots in Ciudad Juárez in 2018.Victor J. Blue for The New York TimesIn throwing out the remaining part of the bill by a vote of nine to two, justices pointed to violations by lawmakers of legislative procedure, saying that the changes had been rushed through in only four hours and that members of Congress had not been given reasonable time to know what they were voting on.“As a whole, they are so serious that they violate the constitutional principles of Mexican democracy,” Justice Luis María Aguilar said during the court’s discussion. “Not respecting the rules of legislative procedure is constitutional disloyalty.”José Ramón Cossío, a lawyer who is a former member of the court, said that Mr. López Obrador and his allies had pushed the changes known as “Plan B” forward “in such an arrogant, violent, rude way that they lost.”Experts described the court’s decision as a major setback for the administration of Mr. López Obrador, who has made overhauling the electoral system a major priority. The government had defended the changes as a needed step to “reduce the bureaucratic costs” of elections and to ensure that “no more frauds occur” in Mexico.“The rule of law has never been threatened with the approval of the reforms,” the president’s legal adviser wrote in a statement in March. “It is false that the fundamental rights of the citizens are at risk.”With Plan B struck down, next year’s elections will be governed by the same rules under which Mr. López Obrador and his party, Morena, came to power, Mr. Guerra said.“This gives me peace of mind,” he said. “We see the burial of this reform emanating from and for the political power.”The Supreme Court building in Mexico City. Marco Ugarte/Associated Press But fears remain that the ruling may be weaponized against the judicial system, which already has come under attack by the president for rejecting a number of his administration’s initiatives, including one that would have transferred the newly created National Guard from civilian to military control. The court ruled that this was unconstitutional.“This defeat was intentionally sought to properly assume the role of victim and erect the perfect enemy,” said Juan Jesús Garza Onofre, an expert in constitutional law and ethics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. “Narratively, this defeat becomes more of a victory.”The risk, analysts warn, is long-term damage to the judiciary. “Justice as we know it, with all its shortcomings, could experience a setback,” Mr. Garza Onofre said.The president, he added, would be prudent “to cool heated tempers.”“We know that is not going to happen,” he said. More

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      Guatemala Votes for President, but Candidates Are Excluded

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      Guatemala’s first round of elections on Sunday is as much about who’s not on the ballot as who is, after courts barred leading candidates from running.A Guatemalan judge walked into a meeting at the American Embassy last spring and pulled out a large quantity of cash: The money, she said, was a bribe from one of the president’s closest allies.The judge, Blanca Alfaro, helps lead the authority that oversees the country’s elections. She claimed the money had been given to her to gain influence over the electoral agency, according to a U.S. official briefed on the encounter and a person who was present and requested anonymity to discuss the details of a private meeting.American diplomats were shocked by the brazenness of the episode, but not by the allegations. In the volatile political climate consuming Guatemala in the run-up to presidential elections on Sunday, there has been one constant: a steady drumbeat of attacks on democratic institutions by those in power.In a country that has shifted from a staging ground for rooting out corruption to one where dozens of anticorruption officials have been forced into exile, the first round of voting will be as much about who is not on the ballot as who is.The nation’s electoral agency has disqualified every serious candidate in the race who could challenge the status quo, which is embodied by President Alejandro Giammattei, a conservative who critics accuse of pushing the country toward autocracy and who is barred from running for another term.The remaining front-runners are people with links to some segment of the political or economic elite. Alongside their names on the ballot will be several blank boxes, representing four candidates excluded from the process by the electoral authority.Judge Alfaro told American officials that she had received the bribe from Miguel Martínez, a close confidant of Mr. Giammattei’s and a key official in his party, said the person who attended the meeting and the U.S. official.She said the money she had with her amounted to 50,000 Guatemalan quetzales (the equivalent of more than $6,000), according to the person who was present.The Times has not substantiated Judge Alfaro’s claim that she was bribed. In an interview, Ms. Alfaro denied that she went to the embassy and made the allegation.“I have no relationship with Miguel Martínez,” she told The New York Times. “I doubt that 50,000 quetzales can be brought into the embassy because you go through so many security measures.”Mr. Martínez denied giving Judge Alfaro a bribe, saying he had never met with her. He said he was aware of an effort by people who were unable to participate in the elections “to get me involved in some legal situation” with the American Embassy.“Now we are realizing that this is the legal situation they are trying to involve me in,” Mr. Martínez said, “to affect the electoral process that is being carried out in a clean and democratic way.”Later, Mr. Martínez told reporters that The Times would soon publish an account of Ms. Alfaro’s trip to the embassy in a statement captured on video and circulated widely on social media. “This is something malicious they want to do to destabilize the elections,” Mr. Martínez said in the video. When asked about the Ms. Alfaro’s allegations and the embassy’s response, a State Department spokeswoman, Christina Tilghman, said, “We do not confirm the existence of alleged meetings nor discuss the contents of diplomatic discussions.”Ms. Tilghman said that whenever the American government receives allegations of corruption that “meet evidentiary requirements under U.S. regulations and law,” it imposes sanctions or otherwise punishes those involved.The actions of the electoral authority have led civil rights groups to question whether Sunday’s presidential contest can truly be considered free and fair.“Legality is not the same as legitimacy,” said Juan Francisco Sandoval, a former anticorruption prosecutor who now lives in the United States and is among the dozens of prosecutors and judges who have gone into exile in recent years.The vote, he said, will be marred both by “arbitrary rulings” on who was allowed to run, and a surge in illicit campaign financing using public funds.Though from different ideological backgrounds, at least three of the excluded candidates were viewed as unsettling to Guatemala’s political establishment.One of them, Carlos Pineda, positioned himself as an outsider businessman and used TikTok to become a front-runner in the polls.“They went after us because we were climbing so much in the polls that we could make history by winning in the first round,” said Mr. Pineda, referring to the fact that if no one wins more than 50 percent of the vote, a runoff will be held between the top two candidates. “This election is illegitimate.”Carlos Pineda at a demonstration protesting his exclusion from the race. Daniele Volpe for The New York TimesAnother barred candidate, Thelma Cabrera, is a leftist from a Maya Mam family trying to organize Guatemala’s Indigenous peoples, who account for roughly half the population, into a unified political force. A third, Roberto Arzú, is a right-wing scion of a political family who had positioned himself as an opponent of the country’s elites.Blanca Alfaro, center, and Irma Elizabeth Palencia Orellana, in yellow, magistrates of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, the authority overseeing Sunday’s election. Daniele Volpe for The New York TimesMr. Giammattei, prohibited by law from seeking re-election, has remained silent about the barring of several top contenders. The race has largely become a contest among three leading candidates who are viewed as providing some continuity with the status quo.Sandra Torres was the first lady from 2008 to 2011, when she was married to President Álvaro Colom. They divorced when Ms. Torres first sought to run for president in 2011 (Guatemalan law prohibits a president’s relatives from running for office).Ms. Torres was arrested in 2019 in connection with campaign finance violations, but the case was dismissed by a judge in 2022 just weeks before campaigning officially got underway, allowing her to run. Her platform highlights promises to expand social programs, including cash transfers for the poor.Sandra Torres at a rally in Guatemala City. Daniele Volpe for The New York TimesAnother leading candidate, Zury Ríos, is the daughter of Efraín Ríos Montt, a dictator of Guatemala in the early 1980s who ordered extreme tactics against a guerrilla insurgency and was convicted of genocide in 2013 for trying to exterminate the Ixil, a Mayan people indigenous to Guatemala. Ms. Ríos has been unrepentant about her father’s actions, going so far as to deny this year that the genocide happened. An evangelical Christian, she gained popularity among conservatives after allying with figures seeking to blunt anticorruption initiatives. When she served in Congress, she emphasized women’s issues, but on the presidential campaign trail she has stressed adopting hard-line security policies to combat crime.Another top contender, Edmond Mulet, is a former diplomat who generally hews to conservative views. Mr. Mulet, whose proposals include expanding internet access and providing free medicines, has criticized the persecution of journalists and prosecutors, but has also forged ties with powerful entrenched political figures, avoiding the fate of excluded candidates.Polls in recent weeks suggest that none of the three are expected to come close to winning a majority of the votes on Sunday, which would force a runoff on Aug. 30.The disqualification of several candidates from the presidential race has raised question about the legitimacy of Sunday’s vote.Daniele Volpe for The New York TimesThe contest, experts said, lays bare how effective Guatemala’s power brokers have been at extinguishing any real source of dissent.“The weaponization of the judicial system is driving some of the brightest minds in the country to leave and intimidating anyone that’s left,” said Regina Bateson, a scholar at the University of Ottawa who specializes in Guatemala. The result, she said, is an “election undermining democracy.” More