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      Fears of Wider Instability in Iraq After Attack on Prime Minister’s Home

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      Armed drones struck the Iraqi prime minister’s home in what was seen as a warning as Iranian-backed groups dispute the results of parliamentary elections.Iraq’s prime minister survived a drone strike on his home early Sunday, Iraqi officials said, raising fears of wider instability after disputed results in Iraq’s parliamentary elections.“I am fine, praise be to God, among my people, and I call for calm and restraint from everyone, for the sake of Iraq,” the prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi wrote on Twitter after the pre-dawn attack. In a video appealing for peace, he appeared with his wrist wrapped in what seemed to be a white gauze bandage.A senior official in the Iraqi Interior Ministry, Maj. Gen. Saad Maan, said on state television that the prime minister’s house in the fortified Green Zone had been targeted by three armed drones.Mr. al-Kadhimi, right, with President Barham Salih of Iraq after the attack on Sunday. Iraqi Prime Minister’s Office, via Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIraq’s president, Barham Salih, described the attack as a prelude to a coup, tweeting that “we cannot accept that Iraq will be dragged into chaos and a coup against its constitutional system.”On Friday, tensions over results of the Oct. 10 parliamentary elections came to a head after a clash outside the Green Zone — the site of the executed leader Saddam Hussein’s former palace grounds — where the U.S. Embassy and many other Western diplomatic missions are. Iraqi security forces used tear gas and live ammunition on militia members protesting the election results after the protesters tried to breach the heavily fortified zone’s barriers.A protest on Friday near an entrance to the Green Zone in Baghdad denouncing Mr. al-Kadhimi.Ahmad Al-Rubaye/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesLeaders of Iranian-backed militias — to which most of the protesters belong — have blamed Mr. al-Kadhimi, Iraq’s former intelligence chief, for the use of force that killed at least one person.Asaib Ahl al-Haq, one of the most powerful Iranian-backed militias, identified the person killed as Abdul Latif al-Khuwayldi, one of its brigade deputy commanders. The Iraqi Health Ministry said that more than 120 other people at the demonstration had been wounded, most of them security forces trying to hold back the protesters.Iraq’s election commission has yet to announce final results for the nationwide elections held almost a month ago as it wades through fraud accusations. The Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has emerged as the biggest winner, at the expense of Iranian-backed parties that lost seats. Mr. al-Sadr, whose fighters battled American forces during the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, is viewed as an Iraqi nationalist with an uneasy relationship with Iran.Political analysts believe those gains were mostly because of a more sophisticated strategy by the Sadrist organization, taking advantage of a new electoral system, which has an increased number of electoral districts. The United Nations, which had observers at the polls, praised the process. The political wings of the militia groups that lost seats claim they were defrauded.One of Mr. al-Kadhimi’s main goals has been to rein in Iranian-backed militias. After 2014, when many were created to fight ISIS, some of the biggest militias have been integrated into Iraq’s official security forces. Those militia forces, though, only nominally answer to the Iraqi government and some are blamed for continuing attacks on U.S. interests.No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack on Sunday on the prime minister’s residence.Iraqi security forces on Saturday outside an entrance to the the Green Zone.Ahmad Al-Rubaye/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMost analysts saw the attack as a warning to Mr. al-Kadhimi and his allies rather than as an assassination attempt. The prime minister has remained in power by balancing Iraqi relations between Iran and the United States, and he is seeking another term.“What we’ve seen in the past is the use of violence, not necessarily to assassinate, but to warn that, ‘We’re here,’” said Renad Mansour, head of the Iraq Initiative at the think tank Chatham House. “I think this would also be a warning perhaps gone wrong because you can gain a bit more popularity and sympathy as the prime minister who survived an assassination attempt.”The attack, though, significantly complicates efforts to form a government. Such efforts rely on forging alliances among parties, some of them with armed wings, to form the biggest bloc in Parliament.An American State Department spokesman, Ned Price, called the strike on Sunday an “apparent act of terrorism” that was “directed at the heart of the Iraqi state.”Although Mr. al-Kadhimi said that both he and those who work with him were fine, the Iraqi military command said that several guards were being treated for injuries.Photographs released on state media of damage to the house showed cracked concrete steps, doors apparently blown off their hinges and what looked like shrapnel holes in the back of a parked vehicle.A photograph made available by a media office of the Iraqi government showed damage inside the home of Mr. al-Kadhimi after the drone attack on Sunday.Iraqi Prime Minister’s Office, via EPAMr. al-Sadr, whose movement has won the highest number of seats of any political bloc in Parliament, described the attack as an attempt to return the country to the control of “nonstate forces to make Iraq live under riots, violence and terrorism.”Iranian-backed groups that have previously threatened Mr. al-Kadhimi condemned the drone strikes.Asaib Ahl al-Haq, the militia group, which was among those that lost seats in the parliamentary elections, called the strikes an attempt to divert attention from the deadly clash outside the Green Zone on Friday and blamed foreign intelligence agencies.A spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Saeed Khatibzadeh, expressed relief that the Iraqi prime minister had not been hurt in the attack. In a statement, Mr. Khatibzadeh blamed the strikes on an unspecified foreign plot.Abu Ali al-Askari, the nom de guerre of one of the leaders of Kitaib Hezbollah, a main Iranian-backed militia, accused Mr. al-Kadhimi of playing the role of a victim and said that no one in Iraq considered the Iraqi leader’s home worth losing a drone over.“If there is anyone who wants to harm this Facebook creature there are many ways that are less costly and more guaranteed to achieve this,” he said in a posting on his Telegram channel.While the attack has raised fears of growing instability amid Iraq’s political turmoil, the country’s citizens seemed to generally shrug it off. Later Sunday morning, the start of the Iraqi workweek, Baghdad streets were full of the normal rush-hour traffic jams.Near one of the entrances to the Green Zone, food vendors placed spatchcocked chickens to cook over charcoal grills on crowded sidewalks. Inside a butcher shop, a green parrot perched on a pole greeted customers by chirping out “meenoo” — “who is that” in the Iraqi dialect of Arabic.“We are used to these incidents,” said Ali al-Hussayni, 50, the shop owner, about the attack on Mr. al-Kadhimi. “I am not saying people are not scared at all, but we have seen far worse than this.”Reporting was contributed by More

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      Turkish Opposition Begins Joining Ranks Against Erdogan

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      With an eye on elections, six parties are working on a plan to end a powerful presidency and return to a parliamentary system.ISTANBUL — Turkish opposition parties are presenting an increasingly united and organized front aimed at replacing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and even forcing early elections in the coming year to challenge his 19-year rule.As they negotiate a broad alliance among themselves, the leaders of six opposition parties appear to have agreed on turning the next election into a kind of referendum on the presidential system that Mr. Erdogan introduced four years ago and considers one of his proudest achievements.His opponents say that presidential system has allowed Mr. Erdogan to concentrate nearly authoritarian power — fueling corruption and allowing him to rule by decree, dictate monetary policy, control the courts and jail tens of thousands of political opponents.By making the change back to a parliamentary system a centerpiece of its agenda, Mr. Erdogan’s opposition hopes to shift debate to the fundamental question of the deteriorating health of Turkey’s democracy.The forming of a broad opposition alliance is a strategy being employed in an increasing number of countries where leaders with authoritarian tendencies — whether President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia or Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary — have enhanced their powers by exploiting fissures among their opponents. Most recently, the approach worked in elections in the Czech Republic, where a broad coalition of center-right parties came together to defeat Prime Minister Andrej Babis.Now it may be Turkey’s turn.“Today, Turkey is facing a systemic problem. Not just one person can solve it,” said Ahmet Davutoglu, Mr. Erdogan’s former prime minister and one of the members of the opposition alliance. “The more important question is: ‘How do you solve this systemic earthquake, and how do you re-establish democratic principles based on human rights?’”Mr. Erdogan has long planned a year of celebrations for 2023, the 100-year anniversary of the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923 from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire and allied occupation after World War I.Political analysts suggest that not only is he determined to secure another presidential term in elections that are due before June 2023, but also to secure his legacy as modern Turkey’s longest-serving leader, longer even than the founder of the republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.A statue of modern Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, in Ankara, the capital.Adem Altan/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesYet Mr. Erdogan, who has always prided himself on winning at the ballot box, has been sliding steadily in the opinion polls, battered by an economic crisis, persistent allegations of corruption and entitlement and a youthful population chafing for change.For the first time in several years of asking, more respondents in a recent poll said Mr. Erdogan would lose than said he would win, Ozer Sencar, the head of Metropoll, one of the most reliable polling organizations, said in a Twitter post this week.“The opposition seems to have the momentum on their side,” said Asli Aydintasbas, a senior fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations. “One way or another, they convinced a large section of society that Erdogan is not a lifetime president and could be gone in 2023. That Turks are now discussing the possibility of a post-Erdogan Turkey is quite remarkable.”No one is counting Mr. Erdogan out yet. He remains a popular politician and sits at the helm of an effective state apparatus, Ms. Aydintasbas added. An improvement in the economy and a maneuver to split the opposition could be enough for him to hold on.Mr. Erdogan dismissed the polls as lies and carried on doing what he knows best: a flurry of high-level meetings and some saber-rattling that keeps him at the top of the news at home. One recent weekend, he pushed a shopping cart around a low-cost supermarket and promised more such stores to keep prices down for shoppers.This week, he set off on a four-country tour of West Africa after hosting the departing German chancellor, Angela Merkel, for her farewell visit to Turkey over the weekend. He is presenting Turkey as an indispensable mediator with Afghanistan, and his foreign minister received a delegation of the Taliban from Kabul last week. For good measure, Mr. Erdogan threatened another military operation against Kurdish fighters in Syria.Mr. Erdogan and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany after a news conference this month in Istanbul.Ozan Kose/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut at home, his opponents are getting organized.Among those lining up to do battle are Mr. Davutoglu and a former finance minister, Ali Babacan, both former members of Mr. Erdogan’s conservative Justice and Development Party, or A.K.P., who have set up new parties.Emerging from five years in the cold after falling out with Mr. Erdogan and resigning as prime minister and leader of the party, Mr. Davutoglu is hoping to chip away at the president’s loyal support base and help bring down his onetime friend and ally.Alongside them, the strongest players in the six-party alliance are the center-left Republican People’s Party and the nationalist Good Party, headed by Turkey’s leading female politician, Meral Aksener. The largest pro-Kurdish party, the Democratic People’s Party, or H.D.P. — whose charismatic former leader, Selahattin Demirtas, is in prison — is not part of the alliance, nor are smaller left-wing parties.But all of the parties share a mutual aim: to offer the electorate an alternative to Mr. Erdogan in 2023.Despite their gaping political and ideological differences, the opposition is hoping to replicate its success in local elections in 2019 when it wrested the biggest cities, including Istanbul, from the ruling A.K.P.“It is a good start for the opposition,” Mr. Demirtas said from prison in an interview with a Turkish reporter. “What is important is the development of a deliberative, pluralistic, courageous and pro-solidarity understanding of politics that will contribute to the development of a culture of democracy.”Selahattin Demirtas, the former leader of the People’s Democratic Party, in 2014 in his office in Ankara. He remains a powerful voice for the party from a prison cell.Monique Jaques for The New York TimesMr. Erdogan spent the past six months trying to drive a wedge into their loose alliance without success, said Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, the director of the Ankara office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.Opposition leaders steered through that and have come closer to settling on a candidate who could defeat Mr. Erdogan and whom they can all support. Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of largest opposition party, the Republican People’s Party, has emerged as the front-runner for now.“They have closed ranks, solved their problems and raised the stakes,” Mr. Unluhisarcikli said.Fore their part, Mr. Davutoglu and Mr. Babacan represent little challenge to Mr. Erdogan as vote-getters — Mr. Davutoglu’s Future Party polls at barely 1 or 2 percent — but they bring considerable weight of government experience to the opposition.Both still have ties to many officials in the bureaucracy, Mr. Unluhisarcikli said, and could help the opposition convince the electorate that it is capable of running the country and of lifting it out of its current dysfunction.Mr. Davutoglu was the first to publish his plan for returning to a parliamentary system. In the document, he blamed the presidential system for creating a personalized and arbitrary administration that became inaccessible to citizens even as their problems were mounting.He proposed that the president become a symbolic head of state, divested of powers to rule by decree, veto laws and approve the budget, and the judiciary be made independent.“Today, Turkey is facing a systemic problem. Not just one person can solve it,” said Ahmet Davutoglu, Mr. Erdogan’s former prime minister and one of the members of the opposition alliance.Burhan Ozbilici/Associated PressMr. Davutoglu has suggested that Mr. Erdogan, who instituted the presidential system with a narrowly won referendum in 2017, could choose to revert to a parliamentary system with a two-thirds majority in Parliament, or the opposition would seek to do so after an election.For the opposition, he said, reaching an agreement on reconstituting a democratic system is more important than finding a candidate. Just in the past year of touring the country meeting voters, he said he has seen a shift in attitudes even in A.K.P. strongholds.“A significant portion of Turkish voters have left the A.K.P. but don’t know where to go,” Ms. Aydintasbas said. “Davutoglu and Babacan may be small in numbers, but they speak to a very critical community — disgruntled conservatives and conservative Kurds who no longer trust Erdogan but are worried about a revanchist return of the secularists. Their role is indispensable.” More

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      In Iraq Election, Shiite Cleric Who Fought U.S. Strengthens Power

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      Results showed the party of Muqtada al-Sadr making the biggest gains in a vote that could help shape Iraq’s direction and its relationship with both the United States and Iran.BAGHDAD — Followers of a Shiite cleric whose fighters battled U.S. forces during the occupation made the biggest gains in Iraq’s parliamentary election, strengthening his hand in determining whether the country drifts further out of the American orbit.While independent candidates won some seats for the first time in a political landscape altered by anti-government protests, it became increasingly clear as ballots were tallied Monday that the big winner in the Sunday vote was Sairoun, the political movement loyal to the cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr.Sairoun won up to 20 additional seats in Parliament, consolidating its status as the single biggest bloc in the chamber and giving the mercurial cleric an even more decisive vote over the country’s next prime minister.The outcome could further complicate Iraq’s challenge in steering diplomatically between the United States and Iran, adversaries that both see Iraq as vital to their interests. Pro-Iranian militias have played an increased role in Iraq since the rise of the Islamic State in 2014 and have launched attacks on U.S. interests in the country.Mr. al-Sadr has navigated an uneasy relationship with Iran, where he has pursued his religious studies. Regarding the United States, he and his aides have refused to meet with American officials.He and the Iranian leadership shared similar goals when his fighters fought U.S. forces after 2003. But Mr. Sadr is viewed as an Iraqi nationalist, an identity that has sometimes put him in conflict with Iran — a country he cannot afford to antagonize.In a speech Monday night, Mr. al-Sadr said all embassies are welcome in Iraq as long as they do not interfere in Iraqi affairs or the formation of a government. The cleric also implicitly criticized the Iran-backed militias, some of which refer to themselves as “the resistance.”“Even if those who claim resistance or such, it is time for the people to live in peace, without occupation, terrorism, militias and kidnapping,” he said in an address broadcast on state TV. “Today is the victory day of the people against the occupation, normalization, militias, poverty, and slavery,” he said, in an apparent reference to normalizing ties with Israel.“He is using some sharp language against Iran and the resistance groups affiliated with Iran,” said Gheis Ghoreishi, a political analyst who has advised Iran’s foreign ministry on Iraq, speaking about Mr. Sadr’s victory speech in Clubhouse, an online discussion group. “There is a real lack of trust and grievances between Sadr and Iran.”In Baghdad Monday night, young men jammed into pickup trucks, waving flags, playing celebratory songs and carrying photos of Mr. Sadr as they cruised the streets of the capital.The election authorities announced preliminary results Monday evening with official results expected later this week. With 94 percent of the vote counted, election officials said the turnout was 41 percent — a record low that reflected a deep disdain by Iraqis toward politicians and government leaders who have made Iraq one of the most corrupt countries in the world.Election officials counting ballots at a polling station in Baghdad on Sunday.Thaier Al-Sudani/ReutersActivists who were part of anti-government protests that brought down the Iraqi government in 2019 won up to a dozen seats, running for the first time in this election, which was called a year early to answer demands for changes in Iraq’s political system.That system, in which senior government posts are divided by political leaders along sectarian and ethnic lines, remains unchanged. But a new electoral law loosened the stranglehold of large political blocs and made it easier for independent candidates and smaller parties to win seats.The preliminary results also showed that the political bloc headed by former Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki appeared to be the second biggest winner while parties tied to pro-Iranian militias lost ground.Mr. al-Maliki, a Shiite, gained wide support for having sent Iraqi government troops to break the militias’ hold on Iraq’s southern city of Basra in 2008. But he was later blamed for a descent into sectarianism that helped foster the rise of the Islamic State. But it was the Sadrists who were the clear winners on Sunday.“Of course I voted for the Sadrist bloc,” said Haider Tahseen Ali, 20, standing outside the small grocery where he works in Sadr City, a sprawling Baghdad neighborhood and a bastion of Mr. al-Sadr’s base. Mr. al-Sadr has assumed the religious legacy of his revered father, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, killed by Saddam Hussein’s regime in 1999.“Even if he ordered us to throw ourselves from the roofs of our houses, I would throw myself,” said Abbas Radhi, an election worker overseeing one of the Sadr City polling stations, referring to Mr. al-Sadr.The cleric declared twice in the run-up to the vote that he was withdrawing his movement from the election process before reversing and declaring that the next prime minister should come from the Sadrist ranks. But Mr. al-Sadr appears open to negotiation about who should lead Iraq.Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, an independent who has tried to balance Iraq’s relations between the United States and Iran, and has made clear he wants to be prime minister again, will need Sadrist support.Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi in Baghdad on Sunday after casting his ballot.Ahmed Saad/ReutersWhile Shiite parties dominate Iraqi politics, the biggest Kurdish faction, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, along with a Sunni faction headed by the Parliament speaker, Mohamed al-Halbousi, also emerged with enough seats to play a role in deciding the next prime minister.The low turnout was a reflection of the disdain for Iraqi politicians, particularly among young voters who are faced with a future that offers few opportunities. Sixty percent of Iraq’s population is under the age of 25.“Clearly, people are still disillusioned even more with the political parties and the political process,” said Farhad Alaaldin, head of the Iraq Advisory Council, a research group in Baghdad. “People don’t believe that this election would bring about change, and that’s why they didn’t bother to turn out to vote.”The disillusionment extends from a deeply corrupt and dysfunctional government to the parliamentarians themselves. President Barham Salih has said an estimated $150 billion obtained through corruption has been smuggled out of Iraq since 2003. The organization of the election, with new biometric voting cards and electronic transmission systems designed to deter widespread fraud seen in previous elections, was declared by international observers to have met international criteria.But some organizations that had deployed observers during the voting cautioned that the low turnout meant a limited public mandate for the new government.“In the aftermath of the elections, the low turnout may cause questions as to the legitimacy of the government,” said Sarah Hepp, the director of Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, a German-government funded political foundation. The protest movement two years ago spread from the south of Iraq to Baghdad when thousands of young people took to the streets to demand jobs, public services and an end to a corrupt political system.A demonstration in Baghdad earlier this month to commemorate slain activists.Andrea DiCenzo for The New York TimesIn a challenge to neighboring Iran, they also demanded an end to Iranian influence in Iraq. Iran’s proxy militias have become part of Iraq’s official security forces but in many cases do not answer to the Iraqi government and are blamed for assassinations and disappearances for which they are never held accountable.Security forces and militia members killed more than 600 unarmed protesters since the October 2019 demonstrations, according to human rights groups.One of the leading protest candidates, Alaa al-Rikabi, easily won a seat in the southern city of Nasiriya. Mr. al-Rikabi has said the movement’s main goal was to shift protests from the streets to Parliament, where he said he and some of the other new lawmakers would demand change.“My people have not enough hospitals, not enough health care services. Many of my people are below the poverty line,” he said in an interview in August. “Most of them say they cannot feed their children, they cannot educate their sons and daughters.”Jaafar al-Waely, Falih Hassan and Nermeen al-Mufti contributed reporting from Baghdad. Farnaz Fassihi contributed from New York. More

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      Iraqis’ Frustration Over Broken Promises Keeps Voter Turnout Low

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      Iraqis voted in parliamentary elections that were called a year early in response to anti-government protests. BAGHDAD — Iraqis voted Sunday in parliamentary elections meant to herald sweeping change to a dysfunctional political system that has dragged the country through almost two decades of deprivation.A new electoral system made it easier this time for independent candidates to compete, but the vote was nonetheless expected to merely chip away at the edges of Iraq’s troubles. Traditional political factions, many of them attached to militias, have seemingly insurmountable power, and much of the electorate has become too disdainful of politicians to feel compelled to vote at all.Turnout appeared to be low at many polling sites, where election workers put in place the new voting system, which uses biometric cards and other safeguards intended to limit the serious fraud that has marred past elections.It was Iraq’s fifth parliamentary vote since the United States invaded 18 years ago and was likely to return the same political parties to power as in previous elections. And despite the sweeping anti-government protests that led officials to push the vote up by a year, Iraq’s system of dividing up government ministries among political parties along ethnic and sectarian lines will remain unchanged.With more independent candidates vying for seats, voters on Sunday had more choices — which for many were personal rather than political.“The big parties have not done anything for Iraq, they looted Iraq,” said Mahdi Hassan el-Esa, 82, outside a polling station in the upper-middle-class Mansour neighborhood of Baghdad. He said he voted for an independent candidate because the man came to his door and helped him and his disabled sons register to vote.Voting in Baghdad on Sunday. Election workers put in place a new voting system with safeguards meant to curtail fraud.Hadi Mizban/Associated PressBy late afternoon, the manager of the polling station said only 138 of almost 2,500 registered voters had turned up.Across the country, Iraqis who did vote found schools converted into polling sites where peeling paint, battered desks and broken windows were visible signs of corruption so rampant it has resulted in a nation that provides few services to its people.Despair kept some away from the polls, but others were motivated by the hope that individual candidates could make a difference in their families’ lives.In the poor Sadr City neighborhood on Baghdad’s outskirts, Asia and Afaf Nuri, two sisters, said they voted for Haqouq, a new party that is affiliated with Kitaib Hezbollah, one of the biggest Iranian-backed militias. Asia Nuri said they chose that candidate because he works with her son.While a majority of Sadr City voters were expected to cast ballots for the political movement loyal to the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, voices of dissent existed even there.“I am a son of this area and this city,” said Mohammad, an army officer who said he, his family and his friends were all going to spoil their ballots in protest. He asked that only his first name be used to avoid retaliation for criticizing the Sadr movement.“I do not want to participate in the corruption that is happening to this country,” he said, adding that people still had faith in Mr. Sadr but not in the corrupt politicians running in his name.The mercurial Shiite cleric, who fought U.S. troops in 2004, has become a major political figure in Iraq, even when he disavows politics. This year after a devastating fire in a Covid hospital overseen by a Sadrist provincial health director, Mr. Sadr announced that his movement would not participate in elections. He later changed his mind, saying the next prime minister should be from the Sadr movement.A poster of the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr in Sadr City. The huge, largely Shiite neighborhood on the outskirts of Baghdad is a Sadr stronghold.Andrea DiCenzo for The New York TimesSadr supporters at a rally in Baghdad on Friday night declared victory even before the voting began. “We will win,” they chanted, dancing around Tahrir Square.Mr. Sadr entreated his supporters last week to each take 10 other voters to the polls. On Sunday, in contravention of election rules, cars draped with Sadr flags sat parked across from one of the voting centers in Sadr City while tuk-tuks raced around with Sadr banners streaming.Almost every major political faction has been implicated in corruption, a major factor in Iraq’s poor public services.Electricity in many provinces is provided only for two hours at a time. In the sweltering summers, there is no clean water. And millions of university graduates are without jobs.All of that reached a tipping point two years ago when protests that began in the south of Iraq spread to Baghdad. Thousands of Iraqis went to the streets day after day to demand the fall of the government and its elite and a new political system that would deliver jobs and public services. They also demanded an end to Iranian influence in Iraq, where proxy militias are often more powerful than Iraq’s traditional security forces.Security forces and militia gunmen have killed more than 600 unarmed protesters since demonstrations intensified in 2019. Militias are blamed for dozens of other targeted killings of activists.The protesters achieved one of their goals when the government was forced to step down. Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi was appointed as a compromise candidate, pledging early elections. While he has fulfilled that promise with the weekend’s vote, he has not been able to deliver on others, including bringing the killers of protesters and activists to justice and reining in militias operating outside the law.Many people who were involved in the protests were boycotting the elections, and on Sunday in Baghdad at many polling centers, few young voters were to be seen.A demonstration in Baghdad last week commemorating activists killed by security forces and militia gunmen.Andrea DiCenzo for The New York TimesGrand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most revered Shiite cleric, urged Iraqis to vote, saying in his message that although the election had some shortcomings, it remained the best way to avoid “falling into chaos and political obstruction.”Voting in most cities was free of election violence, but the campaign has been marked by intimidation and attacks on candidates.The body of a young activist in the southern province of Diwaniya was found floating in a river on Saturday, two days after he was abducted. The man, Hayder al-Zameli, had posted cartoons on social media critical of the followers of Iraqi parties.Iraqi security forces went early to the polls, voting separately on Friday as fighter jets roared overhead to reinforce the heightened security for the event. The government was also shutting down its land borders and commercial airports from the night before voting to the day after.Even among the security forces, normally the most loyal of supporters for the major parties, there were voices of dissent.“To be honest, we have had enough,” said Army Maj. Hisham Raheem, voting in a neighborhood in central Baghdad. He said he would not vote for the people he chose last time and was backing an independent candidate.At a popular falafel shop filled with security forces who had just voted, one soldier who asked to be called Abu Ali — the name his friends know him by — said he was voting for former Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.Mr. Maliki, while blamed for dragging Iraq back into sectarianism and fostering the rise of ISIS, is also given credit for sending government troops to break the hold of militias on Iraq’s coastal city of Basra and its lucrative ports.“He’s bad, but there are worse,” Abu Ali said, laughing.Falih Hassan, Nermeen al-Mufti and Sura Ali contributed reporting. More

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      Sebastian Kurz, Austria’s Chancellor, Faces Corruption Probe

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      The future of the chancellor’s coalition looked increasingly uncertain after prosecutors opened a criminal investigation on suspicion that he paid off pollsters and journalists.BERLIN — The government of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz of Austria teetered near collapse on Friday after federal prosecutors opened a criminal investigation against him this week on suspicion of using government funds to pay for favorable opinion polls and news articles.Mr. Kurz, who has been feted as the young face of European conservatism, vigorously denied the charges. But he is now facing calls to step aside as three opposition parties plan to introduce a vote of no-confidence against him at a special parliamentary session next week.President Alexander Van der Bellen addressed the nation on Friday evening, reassuring Austrians that while the latest crisis threatened the government, the country’s democratic institutions remained intact and functional. “We have a crisis of government, not a crisis of state,” Mr. Van der Bellen said. “Our democracy is prepared for all possible situations, including this one.”The future of Austria’s government will now depend on the left-leaning Greens, the junior coalition partners, who were always uncomfortable political bedfellows with Mr. Kurz and who had campaigned on a platform of “clean politics.” Prominent voices in the Greens party now see that position and their support for the government as untenable under a chancellor who is suspected of using funds from the finance ministry to pay for positive media coverage.They are now calling for another member of his People’s Party to take over the chancellorship. Short of that, they could pull out of the ruling coalition and try to form a new government with a combination of smaller opposition parties, though they lack the numbers in Parliament. If all fails, the country could face new elections. “Such a person is no longer capable of performing his duties, and of course the People’s Party has a responsibility here to nominate someone who is beyond reproach to lead this government,” Sigi Maurer, the Greens’ leader in Parliament, said of Mr. Kurz.Mr. Kurz, 35, says he is determined to hang on. He rose to prominence after seizing control of the conservative People’s Party and refashioned it by co-opting many of the messages of the far right at a time when anti-immigrant populism was surging in Europe.After an intense, social media-savvy campaign focused largely on patriotic themes and a hard line against migration, Mr. Kurz became Austria’s youngest chancellor after elections in 2017, when he forged a government that included the far-right Freedom Party. Less than two years later that government collapsed after the far right was itself engulfed in scandal when a video emerged showing the Freedom Party’s then leader promising government contracts in exchange for financial support from a woman claiming to be a wealthy Russian. In new elections in 2019 Mr. Kurz came out on top once again, but pivoted to form a government with the left-leaning Greens, demonstrating his skill as a political shape shifter.Now it is Mr. Kurz who is suspected of the ethical breach that may implode his latest government.Austria’s federal prosecutor said on Wednesday it had launched a criminal investigation against Mr. Kurz and nine others on suspicion of misusing government funds to pay for polls and articles in the news media that cast him in a favorable light in the months leading up to and just after his election to the chancellery.Mr. Kurz before a meeting with Austria’s president, Alexander van der Bellen, on Thursday in Vienna.Thomas Kronsteiner/Getty Images“Between the years 2016 and at least 2018, budgetary funds of the Federal Ministry of Finance were used to finance surveys conducted by a polling company in the interest of a political party and its top official that were exclusively motivated by party politics, and sometimes manipulated,” the prosecutor’s office said. The results of the polls were then published in media belonging to the Österreich Media Group, “without being declared as an advertisement,” the prosecutors said. In exchange for the favorable coverage, prosecutors said they suspected that “payments were made to the media conglomerate.”The chancellor denied it. “I know what I did and I know that the accusations are false,” Mr. Kurz told reporters in Vienna on Thursday, where he met with Mr. Van der Bellen. “Just as the independent judiciary is an important pillar of our democracy, so is the presumption of innocence essential to our rule of law,” Mr. Kurz said. “At least, that has been the case until now.”Mr. Kurz and the leaders of his conservative party have so far rejected calls for him to step aside, circling the wagons instead. “The leaders of the People’s Party today made very clear that they only want to stay in this government under the leadership of Sebastian Kurz,” Elisabeth Köstinger, a member of the party and minister for tourism in Mr. Kurz’s government, told reporters.Mr. Kurz after parliamentary elections in 2017, when he joined the far right in government. Sean Gallup/Getty ImagesSince taking over leadership of the People’s Party, Mr. Kurz has been its unchallenged leader, said Alexandra Siegl, a political analyst with Peter Hajek Public Opinion Strategies in Vienna.“You could say that the People’s Party in the past few years has been Sebastian Kurz,” she said. “There is no one else in the party who is as well known across the country and there is no obvious successor.”But there is also no easy path for his opponents to take power. The three opposition parties lack the majority needed for their no-confidence vote to succeed, unless several lawmakers from the Greens join them in support. On Thursday the leaders of the Greens met with their counterparts from the Socialists, the largest opposition party in Parliament, to try to find a solution. Even if the two were to join forces with the smaller, liberal Neos party, they would still lack a majority and could only survive by securing the support of the far-right Freedom Party, itself an awkward and potentially unstable proposition.“It is imperative that Mr. Kurz step down,” the Freedom Party’s current leader, Herbert Kickl, told reporters on Friday. He gave no indication whether his party would be willing to support a three-way minority government led by the Socialists. Failing that, Austria could face new elections — territory where Mr. Kurz has shown twice he knows how to perform. The Greens, on the other hand, have seen their support dwindle since 2019 and such a move could jeopardize two of their signature bills, which have been worked out with the government, but not yet passed into law.The Chancellery in Vienna on Wednesday.Thomas Kronsteiner/Getty ImagesBut the ongoing criminal investigation into Mr. Kurz , which will determine whether there is sufficient evidence to press charges, may make it impossible for the Greens not to bolt. On Friday, the prosecutors’ office made available more documents showing the text message exchanges between Mr. Kurz and his advisers, which included disparaging remarks about the previous conservative party leader and insults about members of the government in which he once served as foreign minister and calls to “stir up” a region against then Chancellor Christian Kern.“This hardens the suspicions against him,” Ms. Siegl said. Nevertheless, it may not be enough to shatter Mr. Kurz’s popularity among Austrians, especially a core group of supporters who continue to support his hard line on migration, she said. “They just push it to the side and say that every politician has something to hide, if you look hard enough,” she said. “No one likes to admit that they have been taken for a ride.” More

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      In Iraqi Elections, Guns and Money Still Dominate Politics

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      Iraqis vote Sunday in parliamentary elections called a year early, after huge anti-government protests. Most parties are appealing to voters on the basis of religious, ethnic or tribal loyalty.BAGHDAD — Outside the headquarters of Asaib Ahl al-Haq, one of the main Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, fighters have posted a giant banner showing the U.S. Capitol building swallowed up by red tents, symbols of a defining event in Shiite history.It’s election time in Iraq, and Asaib Ahl al-Haq — blamed for attacks on American forces and listed by the United States as a terrorist organization — is just one of the paramilitary factions whose political wings are likely to win Parliament seats in Sunday’s voting. The banner’s imagery of the 7th century Battle of Karbala and a contemporaneous quote pledging revenge sends a message to all who pass: militant defense of Shiite Islam.Seventeen years after the United States invaded Iraq and toppled a dictator, the run-up to the country’s fifth general election highlights a political system dominated by guns and money, and still largely divided along sectarian and ethnic lines.The contest is likely to return the same main players to power, including a movement loyal to the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a coalition connected to militias backed by Iran, and the dominant Kurdish party in the semiautonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Other leading figures include a Sunni businessman under U.S. sanctions for corruption.A poster for the Sadrist Movement on display at the entrance to Sadr City, a mostly Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad. Posters for a candidate from another party hang nearby. Andrea DiCenzo for The New York TimesIn between are glimmers of hope that a reformed election law and a protest movement that prompted these elections a year early could bring some candidates who are not tied to traditional political parties into Iraq’s dysfunctional Parliament.But persuading disillusioned voters that it is worth casting their ballots will be a challenge in a country where corruption is so rampant that many government ministries are more focused on bribes than providing public services. Militias and their political wings are often seen as serving Iran’s interests more than Iraq’s.Almost no parties have put forth any political platforms. Instead they are appealing to voters on the basis of religious, ethnic or tribal loyalty.“I voted in the first elections and it did not meet our goals and then I voted in the second election and the same faces remained,” said Wissam Ali, walking along a downtown street carrying the bumper of a car he had just bought at a market. “The third time I decided not to vote.”Mr. Ali, from Babil province south of Baghdad, said he taught for the last 14 years in public schools as a temporary lecturer and has been unable to get a government teaching position because he does not belong to a political party.Anti-government protestors at a demonstration in Bagdad’s Tahrir Square this month commemorating activists killed by security forces and militia gunmen.Andrea DiCenzo for The New York TimesStarting in October 2019, protests intensified, sweeping through Baghdad and the southern provinces demanding jobs and basic public services such as electricity and clean water. The mostly young and mostly Shiite protesters demanded change in a political system where government ministries are awarded as prizes to the biggest political blocs.The protesters called for an end to Iranian influence in Iraq through proxy militias that now are officially part of Iraq’s security forces, but only nominally under government control.In response, security forces killed almost 600 unarmed protesters, according to the Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights. Other estimates place the toll at 800. Militia fighters are blamed for many of the deaths and are accused of killing dozens more activists in targeted assassinations.The current prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, came to power last year after the previous government was forced by the protests to step down.While early elections were a key campaign promise, Mr. Kadhimi has been unable to fulfill most of the rest of his pledges — bringing to justice those behind the killings of activists, making a serious dent in corruption and reining in Iranian-backed militias.While the parties already in power are expected to dominate the new Parliament, changes in Iraq’s electoral law will make it easier for small parties and independent candidates to be elected. That could make this vote the most representative in the country’s postwar history. Despite faults in the election process including, in previous years, widespread fraud, Iraq is still far ahead of most Arab countries in holding national and provincial polls.A poster for an independent candidate hung on the fence of a soccer field in Sadr City. Changes in election rules have made it easier for independent candidates to win seats. Andrea DiCenzo for The New York Times“It’s not a perfect system but it’s much better than the old one,” said Mohanad Adnan, an Iraqi political analyst.He said he believed the protests — and the bloody suppression of them — had resulted in some established parties losing part of their support. Some candidates are hoping to capitalize on a backlash against traditional political blocs.Fatin Muhi, a history professor at al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, said she was encouraged by her students to run for office. Ms. Muhi, who is running with a party affiliated with the anti-government protests, said many people in her middle-class constituency had planned to boycott the elections but changed their minds.“When they found out we were candidates for the protest movement they said ‘we will give you our votes,’” Ms. Muhi said. “We will be an opposition bloc to any decision issued by corrupt political parties.”In addition to anger and apathy, serious fraud in the last parliamentary election has fueled the boycott campaign.To counter voter distrust that led to a record low turnout in the 2018 polls, election workers have been going to people’s doors in some neighborhoods with voter registration cards. Election authorities “wanted to make it as easy as possible for voters who don’t have trust in the system,” said Mr. Adnan, the political analyst. “They are not motivated to register or pick up their cards.”Customers at a cafe in Sadr City with the lights switched off. State electricity provides the cafe with only two hours of power at a time before it must rely on a generator.  Andrea DiCenzo for The New York TimesThe country’s 21 million registered voters include an estimated one million old enough to vote for the first time. Despite TikTok campaign spots and other tactics aimed at reaching young voters, many of them are boycotting the election.“Our country is for us and not for them,” said Helen Alaa, 19, referring to the political parties and the militias. Ms. Alaa, a first-year college student who said she would not vote, was at a demonstration commemorating slain protesters. “We tried so hard to explain to them but they always try to kill us. Now they try to calm down the situation so they can win in the election and bring back the same faces.”Ahmed Adnan, 19, said, “Every election there is a candidate who comes to a mosque near our house and promises to build schools and pave streets.” The candidate keeps being elected, he said, but none of those things have been done.To help support his family, Mr. Adnan, who is unrelated to Mohanad Adnan, works at a shop selling ice, making about $8 a day. He is trying to finish high school by studying at home and going in only to take exams.His friend, Sajad Fahil, 18, said a candidate came to his door and offered to buy his vote for $300.“Every election there is a candidate who comes to a mosque near our house and promises to build schools and pave streets,” said Ahmed Adnan, center. He wants to finish high school but needs to work to help support his family.Andrea DiCenzo for The New York Times“He refused to say which party he was running for,” said Mr. Fadhil, who studies at a technical institute and is also boycotting the vote.In some areas where there is more money and races are more hotly contested, the going price for buying a vote is up to $1,000, according to several tribal officials.Sheikh Hameed al-Shoka, head of the Anbar Tribal Leaders Council, said groups commissioned by some political blocs were buying up people’s biometric voting cards by the thousands. Under that scheme, voters agree to relinquish their cards and later retrieve them outside polling sites — ensuring that they actually do turn out — where they then vote as directed.In a race between the powerful Sunni speaker of Parliament, Mohammad al-Halbousi, and Iraqi businessman Khamis al-Khanjar, Sheikh Hammeed said he had told his followers to support Mr. Khanjar. The tribal leader said both political figures were suspected of corruption, including Mr. Khanjar whom he acknowledged having “corrupt friends.”“But his friends have worked in the government and offered something for people,” said the tribal leader. “The others did not offer anything. They only provided for themselves.”Fishing on the banks of the Tigris river in Baghdad.Andrea DiCenzo for The New York TimesFalah Hassan and Sura Ali contributed reporting from Baghdad. Nermeen al-Mufti contributed reporting from Kirkuk, Iraq. More

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      Skateboards, Climate Change and Freedom: Germany’s Next-Generation Parliament

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      A new generation of lawmakers is entering Germany’s Parliament. They felt ignored by the previous government, so they set out to change that by winning elections.BERLIN — Emilia Fester is 23 and has yet to finish college. Max Lucks is 24 and calls himself a militant cyclist. Ria Schröder is 29 and has the rainbow flag on her Twitter profile. Muhanad Al-Halak is 31 and came to Germany from Iraq when he was 11.And all of them are now in the German Parliament.The German election result was in many ways a muddle. The winners, the Social Democrats led by Olaf Scholz, barely won. No party got more than 25.7 percent. Voters spread their ballots evenly across candidates associated with the left and the right.But one thing is clear: Germans elected their youngest ever Parliament, and the two parties at the center of this generational shift, the Greens and the Free Democrats, will not just shape the next government but are also poised to help shape the future of the country.For now, the Greens, focused on climate change and social justice, and the Free Democrats, who campaigned on civil liberties and digital modernization, are kingmakers: Whoever becomes the next chancellor almost certainly needs both parties to form a government.“We will no longer leave politics to the older generation,” said Ms. Schröder, a newly minted lawmaker for the Free Democrats from Hamburg. “The world has changed around us. We want to take our country into the future — because it’s our future.”Ria Schröder, center, the chairwoman of the youth organization of the Free Democrats, listening to a speech at the party’s European Congress in 2019.Gregor Fischer/Picture Alliance, via Getty ImagesFor decades, Germany has been governed by two rival establishment parties, each run by older men, and, more recently, by a somewhat older woman. Indeed, when Chancellor Angela Merkel took office in 2005 at age 51, she was the youngest ever chancellor. Germany’s electorate still skews older, with one in four voters over 60, yet it was a younger vote, some of it angry, that lifted the two upstart parties.Fully 44 percent of voters under 25 cast their ballot for the Greens and the Free Democrats, compared with only 25 percent in that age range who voted for Ms. Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, the traditional center-left party.The most immediate effect will be felt in Parliament. Roughly one in seven lawmakers in the departing Parliament were under 40. Now the ratio is closer to one in three. (In the U.S. Congress, one in five members are 40 or younger. The average age in Congress is 58, compared with 47.5 for Germany’s new Parliament.)“We have a generational rift, a very stark polarization that didn’t exist before: It’s the under-30s vs. the over-50s,” said Klaus Hurrelmann, a sociologist who studies young people at the Hertie School in Berlin. “Young people want change and these two parties got the change vote.”The Greens finished in third place, while the Free Democrats came in fourth, both seeing their vote share rise. The split-screen quality of the race was unmistakable: Candidates for the two traditional parties campaigned for the status quo while the Free Democrats and Greens unabashedly campaigned for change.A polling station in Berlin during the election last Sunday.Lena Mucha for The New York Times“It mustn’t stay as it is,” read one Free Democrats campaign poster.The two parties are already signaling that they intend to change the old ways of doing business in German politics. Their leaders reached out to one another — an unprecedented step — before meeting with representatives of the bigger parties in advance of coalition negotiations, a process that began over the weekend.Rather than publicize their meeting with a leak to a newspaper or a public broadcaster, they posted a selfie of their four leaders on Instagram, causing a sensation in a country where political discussion has focused more on curbing social media than using it to reach new audiences.Many of the young lawmakers now moving to Berlin, like Mr. Lucks, say they will bike or — in the case of Ms. Fester — skateboard to work. Some are looking to rent communal housing. Others plan cross-party “beer pong” gatherings to meet one another. And all of them are in regular communication with their voters via social media.“What are your hopes and fears for a traffic light?” Mr. Lucks asked his followers on Instagram this week, referring to the green, yellow and red party colors of the most likely governing coalition of Greens and Free Democrats with the Social Democrats at the helm.Max Lucks, right, with Annalena Baerbock, the Greens’ candidate for chancellor, in Bochum, Germany, in August.Kay Nietfeld/Picture Alliance, via Getty ImagesWithin a couple of hours, Mr. Lucks, who was elected for the Greens, had received 200 comments. “Maintaining that direct line to my voters is really important to me,” he said. “Young people yearn to be heard. They’ve felt betrayed by politics — their issues were just not taken seriously by those in power.”The two issues that appeared to animate young voters most in the election were climate change and freedom, polls suggest.“There is no more important issue than climate change — it’s existential,” said Roberta Müller, a 20-year-old first-time voter in the Steglitz district of Berlin. “It doesn’t feel very democratic to me that older people get to decide on — and effectively destroy — our future.”The handling of the pandemic also played a big role. Schools were closed and college classes moved online, while billions of euros in aid flowed into the economy to keep businesses afloat and prevent widespread layoffs.“Hair salons were more important than education during the pandemic,” said Ms. Fester, of the Greens, who at 23 is the youngest of the 735 members of the new Parliament. “There were long discussions about how the hair salons could stay open, but universities and kindergartens remained closed.”The pandemic also put the spotlight on key workers who are often badly paid — and younger — while bringing to light how far behind Europe’s biggest economy is on developing the digital infrastructure needed to be competitive in the modern, globalized world.A younger cohort of lawmakers has also helped increase other kinds of diversity in what previously had been a mostly homogeneous chamber. There will be more women and lawmakers from ethnic minorities than ever before — and Germany’s first two transgender members of Parliament.At 31, Mr. Al-Halak, of the Free Democrats, could be considered one of the “older” new members of Parliament.Muhanad Al-Halak, who was born in Iraq before emigrating with his family to Germany, will represent a Lower Bavaria district in Parliament.Free DemocratsBorn in Iraq, he was 11 when he emigrated with his family to Germany, settling in a southern part of Lower Bavaria, which he will now represent in Parliament. He wants to serve as a voice for a new generation of Germans who were born elsewhere but have successfully learned the language and a trade — he worked at a wastewater facility — to become active members of society.“I wanted to be an example for other young people that you can get ahead as a working man, regardless of where you come from, what you look like or what religion you practice,” Mr. Al-Halak said.Despite having a woman as chancellor for 16 years, the percentage of women represented in Parliament only rose slightly from 31 percent in the previous legislature.“I know there are some people who are happy that we now have 34 percent women represented in Parliament, but I don’t think it is anything to celebrate,” said Ms. Fester, who included feminism as one of her campaign issues. “The predominance of old, white men is still very visible, not only in politics but in other areas where decisions are made and money flows.”Germany’s smaller parties have traditionally defined themselves by issues, rather than staking out broadly defined ideological stances. They also agree on several things; both parties want to legalize cannabis and lower the voting age to 16.“There are now other coordinates in the system, progressive and conservative, collectivist and individualist, that describe the differences much better than left and right,” Ms. Schröder said.Still, the two junior parties disagree on much. The Greens want to raise taxes on the rich, while the Free Democrats oppose a tax hike. The Greens believe the state is essential to address climate change and social issues, while the Free Democrats are counting on industry.A climate demonstration in Berlin last month.Markus Schreiber/Associated Press“The big question is: Will they paralyze each other or will they manage to build the novelty and innovation they represent into the next government?” said Mr. Hurrelmann, the sociologist. “The balancing act will be: You get climate, we get freedom.”This week, incoming freshman lawmakers went to the Parliament building, the Reichstag, to learn rules and procedures, as well as how to find their way around.“The first days were very exciting,” Ms. Fester said. “It was a bit like orientation week at university. You get your travel card and have to find your way around — only it is in the Reichstag.”Mr. Lucks said he still has to remind himself that it is all real.“It’s a great feeling,” he said, “but then it’s also kind of humbling: We have a big responsibility. Our generation campaigned for us and voted for us and they expect us to deliver. We can’t let them down.”Christopher F. Schuetze More

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      Who Is Fumio Kishida, Japan's Likely Next Prime Minister?

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      Though Fumio Kishida, a ruling-party stalwart, has sought to distinguish himself from the unpopular departing prime minister, he’s struggled to connect with the public.Fumio Kishida, a former foreign minister, addressed supporters after being elected as the Liberal Democratic Party’s choice for Japan’s next prime minister. Japan’s Parliament will hold a special session next week to officially select the new prime minster.Kyodo News, via Associated PressThe man all but assured of becoming Japan’s next prime minister, Fumio Kishida, is an establishment pick who has sought to portray himself as more than just another colorless bureaucrat.Mr. Kishida, 64, has called for economic policies that would distribute more wealth to the middle class, and written that spending part of his childhood in the United States instilled in him the ideals of justice and diversity.His message has not resonated with much of the Japanese public, but it was enough to win him leadership of the Liberal Democratic Party on Wednesday, virtually guaranteeing that he will become Japan’s next prime minister, a role for which he has been preparing for decades.Mr. Kishida’s father and grandfather both served as members of Japan’s House of Representatives. In 1993, he successfully ran for the parliamentary seat from Hiroshima that his father had held.Fumio Kishida at the headquarters of the Liberal Democratic Party. Next month, when Japan’s Parliament holds a special session to select the next prime minister, his appointment is essentially guaranteed.Pool photo by Du XiaoyiMr. Kishida would go on to become a stalwart of Japan’s ruling party and the longest-serving foreign minister in the country’s post-World War II history.He has been widely described as an uncontroversial moderate who holds the trust of party grandees. Still, in a political system that rewards conformity, Mr. Kishida has sought to distinguish himself from the unpopular departing prime minister, Yoshihide Suga.On the campaign trail, Mr. Kishida carried around a series of notebooks in which he said he wrote down notes and observations from people he met while traveling the country, calling the notebooks “my biggest treasures.”He has said that he feels a strong sense of justice, developed in part during a childhood stay in the United States.In 1963, his father, then a government trade official, was appointed to a post in New York. The family relocated, and Mr. Kishida, at age 6, enrolled at public schools, including P.S. 13 in the Elmhurst section of Queens, where he attended second and third grade. In a 1965 class photo, he is seen wearing a bow tie, standing in front of a giant American flag.Fumio Kishida, second from the right in the back row, in a class photo at the elementary school he attended in Elmhurst, Queens.The Office of Fumio Kishida.His classmates included children of many backgrounds — white, Korean, Indian and Native American — but he sometimes felt the sting of racial discrimination. In his book “Kishida Vision,” published last year, Mr. Kishida described a time in 1965 when a white classmate refused to hold his hand as instructed by a teacher on a field trip.Still, he came to admire the United States, finding it remarkable that students of varied backgrounds “respected the national flag and sang the anthem together in the morning.”“The U.S. was an enemy of Japan during the war and the nation that dropped the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima,” he wrote. “But I was young, and to me, the U.S. was nothing but a country that was generous-hearted and filled with diversity.”A baseball fan — he supports the Hiroshima Carp, his hometown team — he was an infielder on his high school team and an average student, failing a law school entrance exam three times. When he said he was interested in politics, his father tried to push him down another path, warning that “there’s nothing sweet about the political world.” But after a stint in banking, Mr. Kishida got his first political job, as his father’s secretary.Once in office, Mr. Kishida rose steadily, eventually being appointed foreign minister by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2012. His term was defined by two notable achievements: helping to arrange then-President Obama’s visit to Hiroshima in 2016, and finalizing an agreement with South Korea in which Japan compensated “comfort women,” the term for those taken as sex slaves by Japanese soldiers during World War II.He also courted his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, forging a bond over their shared fondness for whisky and sake as he sought to improve a relationship that has foundered on a territorial dispute over islands seized by the Soviet Union after World War II.Unlike the teetotal Mr. Abe, Mr. Kishida is known inside the party as an enthusiastic drinker. One year, Mr. Kishida wrote, he planned a birthday party for Mr. Lavrov and presented the Russian diplomat with a bottle of 21-year-old Hibiki whisky. In return, Mr. Lavrov gave Mr. Kishida an ornately bound book. Mr. Kishida opened it to find a bottle of vodka inside.“If we’re drinking, we’re friends,” Mr. Kishida wrote. “The relationship in which both sides can talk straightforwardly is the first step to international peace.”But Mr. Kishida has struggled to connect with voters. Last year, during the race to succeed Mr. Abe, Mr. Kishida suffered embarrassment when he tweeted a photo of his wife bringing him dinner at home. The image, which showed him seated in a suit and tie and his wife standing, wearing an apron, was widely mocked as out of touch and misogynistic.In this year’s race, Mr. Kishida appeared to acknowledge public dissatisfaction as he promised to introduce a “new capitalism” and encourage companies to distribute more of their profits to middle-class workers. Neither the public nor rank-and-file party members had shown much support for Mr. Kishida. But the conservative wing of the party, which dominates Parliament, opted for a safe pair of hands.Makiko Inoue and Motoko Rich contributed reporting.Taro Kono, the cabinet minister in charge of vaccinations, left, with Mr. Kishida before a debate in Tokyo this month.Pool photo by Eugene Hoshiko More