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      British Conservatives’ Commitment to Green Policy Is Tested

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      British conservatives kept a seat in a recent election by opposing an ultralow emissions zone, and some are now questioning ambitious emissions-reduction targets.Britain, blanketed by cool, damp weather, has seemed like one of the few places in the Northern Hemisphere not sweltering this summer. Yet a fierce political debate over how to curb climate change has suddenly erupted, fueled by economic hardship and a recent election surprise.The surprise came last week in a London suburb, Uxbridge and South Ruislip, where the Conservative Party held on to a vulnerable seat in Parliament in a by-election after a voter backlash against the expansion of a low-emission zone, which will penalize people who drive older, more polluting cars.The Conservatives successfully used the emission zone plan as a wedge issue to prevail in a district they were forecast to lose. It didn’t go unnoticed in the halls of Parliament, where even though lawmakers are in recess, they have managed to agitate over environmental policy for four days running.Britain’s Conservative government is now calling into question its commitment to an array of ambitious emissions-reduction targets. Tory critics say these goals would impose an unfair burden on Britons who are suffering because of a cost-of-living crisis. Uxbridge, they argued, shows there is a political price for forging ahead.With a general election looming next year, the Tories also see an opportunity to wield climate policy as a club against the opposition Labour Party, which once planned to pour 28 billion pounds, or about $36 billion, a year into green jobs and industries but scaled back its own ambitions amid the economic squeeze.On Monday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he would approach environmental policies in a “proportionate and pragmatic a way that doesn’t unnecessarily give people more hassle and more costs in their lives.”It was a strikingly circumspect statement given Britain’s self-proclaimed leadership in climate policy, which goes back to Margaret Thatcher and includes hosting the annual United Nations climate conference in 2021. And it clearly reflected the new political thinking in the aftermath of the Uxbridge vote.Government officials insist Mr. Sunak is not giving up on a ban on the sale of fossil-fuel-powered cars by 2030. Britain remains committed to a benchmark goal of being a net-zero — or carbon neutral — economy by 2050, which is enshrined in law. But on Tuesday, a senior minister, Michael Gove, said he wanted to review a project to end the installation of new gas boilers in homes.Traffic at the edge of the London Ultra-Low Emission Zone this month.Neil Hall/EPA, via ShutterstockEven before Mr. Sunak’s comments, critics contended that Britain’s historically strong record on climate policy had been waning.The Climate Change Committee, an independent body that advises the government, recently said Britain “has lost its clear global leadership position on climate action.” The group cited the government’s failure to use the spike in fuel prices to reduce energy demand and bolster renewables. It also noted Britain’s consent for a new coal mine, and its support for new oil and gas production in the North Sea.Last month, Zac Goldsmith quit as a minister with a climate-related portfolio, blaming “apathy” over the environment for his departure, though he was also a close ally of the former prime minister, Boris Johnson. In a letter to Mr. Sunak, Mr. Goldsmith wrote, “The problem is not that the government is hostile to the environment, it is that you, our prime minister, are simply uninterested.”Climate experts said Britain’s economic troubles fractured what had been a broad political consensus on the need for aggressive action. The schism isn’t just between the two main parties: Even within the Conservative and Labour parties, there are fissures between those who continue to call for far-reaching goals and those who want to scale back those ambitions.“This used to be an issue of across-party consensus; now it is not,” said Tom Burke, the chairman of E3G, an environmental research group. “The Tories have gone out of their way to turn it into a wedge issue, and I think that’s a mistake.”In Uxbridge, however, the strategy worked. The district, with its leafy streets and suburban homes, has one of the capital’s highest ratios of car dependency. That made plans by London’s Labour mayor, Sadiq Khan, to expand an ultra-low-emissions zone to encompass the district a potent issue for Conservatives, who opposed widening the zone.While the plan aims to improve London’s poor air quality, rather than reach net-zero targets, it was vulnerable to accusations that was piling on costs to consumers — in this case drivers of older, more polluting, vehicles.“It’s a really big impact at a time when people are concerned more generally about the cost of living,” said David Simmonds, a Conservative lawmaker in neighboring district of Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner. “In the short term, a lot of people who don’t have the money to buy an electric vehicle or a compliant vehicle are caught by this.”Zac Goldsmith quit as a minister with a climate-related portfolio.Matt Dunham/Associated PressThe surprise Conservative victory also sent alarm bells ringing within Labour. It caused tension between Mr. Khan, who insists the expansion will go ahead, and the party’s leader, Keir Starmer, who seemed to want a delay.“We are doing something very wrong if policies put forward by the Labour Party end up on each and every Tory leaflet,” Mr. Starmer said after the defeat. “We’ve got to face up to that and learn the lessons.”Even before the by-election, Labour had backtracked on its plan to invest billions a year on green industries. It blamed rising borrowing costs, which spiked during the ill-fated premiership last year of Liz Truss. Now, instead of rolling out spending in the first year of a Labour government, the party said it would phase it in.Labour’s fear was that voters would conclude the incoming government would have to raise taxes, which would give the Tories another opening. “Economic stability, financial stability, always has to come first, and it will do with Labour,” Rachel Reeves, who leads economic policy for the Labour Party, told the BBC.Such language is worlds away from a year ago, when Ed Miliband, who speaks for Labour on climate issues, told Climate Forward, a New York Times conference in London, that “the imprudent, reckless thing to do is not to make the investment.”He did, however, also argue that consumers should not carry all the burden of the transition. “The government has to collectivize some of those costs to make this transition fair,” said Mr. Miliband, a former party leader.Climate activists said Labour had made a mistake by highlighting the costs of its plan at a time of tight public finances. But given the broad public support for climate action, particularly among the young, some argue that a debate over which climate policies are the best need not end in failure for Labour.“Voters want something done,” Mr. Burke said. “They don’t want to pay the price for it but equally, they don’t want the government to say they are not doing anything about climate change.”Protesters rally against the Ultra-Low Emission Zone, or ULEZ, this month in London.Andy Rain/EPA, via ShutterstockFor all the new skepticism, climate policy is also deeply embedded in the Conservative Party. Mrs. Thatcher was one of the first world leaders to talk about the threat to the planet from greenhouse gases in 1989. A former prime minister, Theresa May, passed the net-zero pledge in 2019, and Mr. Johnson, as mayor of London, conceived the low-emission zone that boomeranged against Labour in Uxbridge, which Mr. Johnson had represented in Parliament, last week.Alice Bell, the head of climate policy at the Wellcome Trust, noted that some Tory lawmakers were rebelling against Mr. Sunak because they were worried about losing their seats by appearing to be against firm action on climate change.Extreme weather, she said, would continue to drive public opinion on climate change. While Britain’s summer has been cool, thousands of Britons have been vacationing in the scorching heat of Italy and Spain, to say nothing of those evacuated from the Greek island of Rhodes in the face of deadly wildfires.“I’m wondering if we’re going to have some people coming back from holiday as climate activists,” Ms. Bell said. More

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      Elecciones en España: el resultado empuja al país a la incertidumbre

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      La votación mostró que ningún partido obtuvo el apoyo necesario para gobernar, dejando al país frente a semanas de incertidumbre.España se vio sumida en la incertidumbre política el domingo después de que las elecciones nacionales no otorgaron a ningún partido el apoyo suficiente para formar un gobierno, lo que probablemente resulte en semanas de regateo o posiblemente en una nueva votación a finales de este año.Los resultados mostraron que la mayoría de los votos se dividieron entre la centroderecha y la centroizquierda. Pero ni el Partido Socialista del presidente Pedro Sánchez ni sus oponentes conservadores obtuvieron suficientes votos para gobernar solos en el Congreso de 350 escaños.Si bien los conservadores lideraron, los aliados con los que podrían haberse asociado para formar un gobierno del partido de extrema derecha Vox vieron cómo su apoyo se desmoronaba, ya que los españoles rechazaron a los partidos extremistas.El resultado fue una votación poco concluyente y un embrollo político que se ha vuelto familiar para los españoles desde que su sistema bipartidista se fracturó hace casi una década. Esto parece dejar a España en un limbo político en un momento importante cuando ostenta la presidencia rotatoria del Consejo Europeo mientras enfrenta una agresión rusa en Ucrania.Con el 99 por ciento de los resultados, el conservador Partido Popular obtenía 136 escaños en el Congreso, frente a 122 de los Socialistas. Pero habían anticipado obtener una mayoría absoluta y gobernar sin Vox, partido que que muchos de los propios responsables del partido consideran anacrónico, peligroso y execrable para los valores moderados de España.El líder del partido, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, dijo poco después de la medianoche que se sentía muy orgulloso frente a una multitud que ondeaba banderas españolas y alegó que dado que su partido había ganado la elección, tenía derecho a formar gobierno.Pero el tono de su discurso era claramente defensivo y dijo que los candidatos que habían obtenido la mayor cantidad de votos siempre había gobernado y que sería una “anomalía” si no fuera así en esta ocasión, manchando la reputación de España en el exterior. Dijo que su meta era evitar al país un periodo de “incertidumbre”.Alberto Núñez Feijóo, líder del Partido Popular, tras la votación del domingo en Madrid.Manu Fernandez/Associated PressAfuera, mientras sonaba la letra de “Tonight’s going to be a good night” (“Esta noche será una buena noche”), la atmósfera era de celebración, si bien los seguidores comprendían que no era una buena noche para el partido.Isabel Ruiz, de 24 años, comentó que había pensado que ganarían a lo grande. Llevaba una bandera española en los hombros y dijo que estaba preparada para seguir votando hasta desbancar a Sánchez.El caos político no es nuevo en España. En 2016, el país pasó 10 meses en un limbo mientras avanzaba de elección en elección. Luego, Sánchez derrocó al presidente conservador y ganó el poder con una maniobra parlamentaria en 2018. Siguieron más elecciones hasta que Sánchez finalmente armó un gobierno minoritario con la extrema izquierda y el apoyo en el Congreso de pequeños partidos independentistas.Esta vez, Sánchez, un sobreviviente político de primer orden, volvió a desafiar las expectativas, aumentando los escaños de su partido en el Congreso y ganando suficiente apoyo con sus aliados de izquierda para bloquear la formación de un gobierno conservador por ahora.El domingo, a las afueras de la sede de su partido, dijo que el pueblo español había sido claro y aseguró que la mayoría de los españoles deseaba seguir en un camino progresista.El presidente podría gobernar otro periodo si lo respaldan todos los partidos opuestos al PP y a Vox, una tarea extremadamente difícil.En las semanas previas a las elecciones, Sánchez y sus aliados de izquierda expresaron temores sobre la disposición de sus oponentes conservadores a asociarse con Vox, lo que podría convertirlo en el primer partido de extrema derecha en aliarse con el gobierno desde la dictadura del general Francisco Franco hace casi 50 años.La perspectiva de que Vox comparta el poder en el gobierno inquietaba a muchos españoles y provocó una cadena de reacciones en la Unión Europea y sus bastiones liberales restantes, sorprendiendo a muchos que habían considerado a España inoculada contra los extremos políticos desde que terminó el régimen de Franco en la década de 1970.La ascensión de Vox, argumentaban los liberales, equivaldría a un punto de inflexión preocupante para España y otra señal más del avance de la derecha en Europa. En cambio, Vox se hundió y puede haber reducido las posibilidades de que el Partido Popular gobierne con él.Un mitin de Vox en Madrid la semana pasadaManu Fernandez/Associated PressSánchez, que ha gobernado España durante cinco años, permanecerá como líder de un gobierno interino mientras se determina la composición de un nuevo gobierno o la fecha de las nuevas elecciones.Los analistas han indicado que los votantes españoles se cansaron de los extremos de derecha e izquierda y buscaron volver al centro. Una nueva elección, dijeron, continuaría esa tendencia y muy probablemente marginaría aún más la influencia de Vox. El Partido Popular espera recuperar sus votos y crecer lo suficiente como para gobernar por sí solo.Sánchez, uno de los líderes progresistas favoritos de la Unión Europea, presidió un repunte económico, pero alienó a muchos votantes al dar marcha atrás en sus promesas y forjar alianzas con partidos políticos asociados con los independentistas catalanes, así como con exterroristas vascos que alguna vez también buscaron separarse de España.Arnold Merino, de 43 años, quien votó por el conservador Partido Popular, dijo que había tenido dificultad para tomar una decisión de último momento. “La gente no confiaba en él”.El presidente del Gobierno Pedro Sánchez, en campaña en Getafe, España, la semana pasadaVioleta Santos Moura/ReutersSánchez convocó a elecciones anticipadas —se habían programado para fines de año— luego de unos duros resultados en las elecciones locales y regionales de mayo.En los últimos días de la contienda, los socialistas y la plataforma de extrema izquierda, Sumar, proyectaron optimismo ante la posibilidad de cambiar las cosas, ya que las encuestas los mostraban a la zaga. Las vallas publicitarias de toda España mostraban a Sánchez con un aspecto juvenil y afable bajo un letrero que decía “Adelante” junto a fotografías en blanco y negro de los líderes conservadores que decían “Atrás”.El Partido Popular se oponía menos a las propuestas políticas que a Sánchez. Tanto los conservadores como sus aliados de extrema derecha realizaron una campaña muy crítica de Sánchez, o de un estilo de gobierno que llamaron “sanchismo”, diciendo que no se podía confiar en él porque incumplió su palabra a los votantes, hizo alianzas con la extrema izquierda y llegó a acuerdos electoralmente ventajosos que antepusieron su propia supervivencia política al interés nacional.Aun así, España parecía ser en los últimos años un punto brillante para los liberales. Sánchez mantuvo baja la inflación, redujo las tensiones con los independentistas en Cataluña y aumentó la tasa de crecimiento económico, las pensiones y el salario mínimo.Pero la alianza entre Sánchez e independentistas profundamente polarizadores y fuerzas de extrema izquierda alimentó el resentimiento entre muchos votantes. Toda la campaña, que incluyó a Sánchez y su aliado de extrema izquierda advirtiendo contra el extremismo de Vox, se volvió contra las malas compañías de los aliados de los principales partidos.Yolanda Díaz, líder del partido de izquierda Sumar, en Madrid el domingoVincent West/ReutersY, sin embargo, a pesar de todo lo que se habló sobre el extremismo, los resultados mostraron que los votantes españoles, muchos de los cuales fueron perseguidos por la dictadura y las décadas de terrorismo generadas por disputas territoriales relacionadas, se volcaron hacia el centro.El partido Vox, ampliamente visto como un claro descendiente de la dictadura de Franco, perdió 19 escaños. Su discurso se concentró en la oposición al aborto, a los derechos de la comunidad LGBTQ, la intromisión de la Unión Europea en los asuntos españoles y es férreamente antiinmigrante.Merino dijo que pensaba que la gente deseaba volver al bipartidismo “porque brinda estabilidad”. Y añadió que con el Partido Popular la gente sabe lo que habrá.El líder de Vox, Santiago Abascal, se separó del Partido Popular en medio de un escándalo de fondos para sobornos en 2013. Vox comenzó con trucos como cubrir Gibraltar, el extremo sur del país controlado por Gran Bretaña desde 1713, con una bandera española.También publicó videos con realidades alternas en las que los musulmanes imponían la sharía en el sur de España y convertían la catedral de Córdoba en una mezquita. En otro video, musicalizado con la banda sonora de El señor de los anillos, una piedra angular de la cultura para la nueva extrema derecha de Europa, Abascal dirige un grupo de hombres a caballo para reconquistar Europa.Para Aurora Rodil, concejala por Vox en la localidad sureña de Elche que ya gobernó con el alcalde del Partido Popular, todo esto era muy alegórico y bonito. “Hay tanto por reconquistar en España”, dijo.Pero la votación del domingo sugirió que habían sido derrotados.Ramón Campoy, de 35 años, dijo que España estaba de veras equilibrada, mientras se tomaba un descanso del trabajo el viernes en Barcelona, ​​parado bajo la bandera LGBTQ en una plaza adornada con una estatua ecuestre de Ramón Berenguer III, el gobernante coronado de Cataluña en el siglo XI.Campoy agregó que el país, a su parecer, estaba de veras en el centro.Jason Horowitz es el jefe del buró en Roma; cubre Italia, Grecia y otras partes del sur de Europa. Cubrió la campaña presidencial de 2016 en Estados Unidos, el gobierno de Obama y al Congreso estadounidense con un énfasis en reportajes especiales y perfiles políticos. @jasondhorowitz More

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      Spain Elections: Results Show No Party With Enough Votes to Govern

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      The returns showed no party winning the support needed to govern, leaving the country facing weeks of uncertainty.Spain was thrust into political uncertainty on Sunday after national elections left no party with enough support to form a government, most likely resulting in weeks of horse trading or potentially a new vote later this year.Returns showed most votes were divided between the center right and center left. But neither the governing Socialist Party of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez nor his conservative opponents won enough ballots to govern alone in the 350-seat Parliament.While the conservatives came out ahead, the allies they might have partnered with to form a government in the hard-right Vox party saw their support crater, as Spaniards rejected extremist parties.The outcome was an inconclusive election and a political muddle that has become familiar to Spaniards since their two-party system fractured nearly a decade ago. It seemed likely to leave Spain in political limbo at an important moment when it holds the rotating presidency of the European Council as it faces down Russian aggression in Ukraine.With 99 percent of the returns in, the conservative Popular Party won 136 seats in Parliament, compared with 122 for the Socialists. But they had hoped to win an absolute majority and govern without Vox, which many of the party’s own officials consider anachronistic, anathema to Spain’s moderate values and dangerous.“I feel very proud,” the party’s leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, said shortly after midnight, arguing before a crowd waving Spanish flags that since his party won the election, he had the right to form a government.But his speech had a clearly defensive tone, and he said that the candidates who have won the most votes have always governed, arguing that it would be an “anomaly” if it didn’t happen this time, and would tarnish Spain’s reputation abroad. He said his goal was to spare Spain a period of “uncertainty.”Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the Popular Party leader, after voting in Madrid on Sunday.Manu Fernandez/Associated PressOutside, the lyrics “Tonight’s going to be a good night” echoed amid a celebratory atmosphere, but supporters understood that it was not really a good night for their party.“I thought they were going to win big,” said Isabel Ruiz, 24, who wore a Spanish flag over her shoulders. She said she was prepared to keep voting to get rid of Mr. Sánchez.A political mess is not new to Spain. In 2016, the country spent 10 months in political limbo as it careened from election to election. Then Mr. Sánchez ousted the conservative prime minister and gained power in a parliamentary maneuver in 2018. More elections followed until Mr. Sánchez ultimately cobbled together a minority government with the far left and support in Parliament from small independence parties.This time, Mr. Sánchez, a political survivalist of the first order, once again defied expectations, increasing his party’s seats in Parliament and gaining enough support with his left-wing allies for now to block the formation of a conservative government.“The Spanish people have been clear,” he said Sunday evening outside his party’s headquarters, arguing that a larger number of Spaniards wanted to stay on the progressive track.The prime minister could potentially win another term if all the available parties opposed to the Popular Party and Vox backed him — an extremely difficult task.“The reactionary bloc has failed,” Mr. Sánchez said.In the weeks leading up to the election, Mr. Sánchez and his left-wing allies raised fears about his conservative opponents’ willingness to ally with Vox, potentially making it the first hard-right party to join the government since the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco nearly 50 years ago.The prospect of Vox sharing power in government unnerved many Spaniards and sent ripples through the European Union and its remaining liberal strongholds, surprising many who had considered Spain inoculated against political extremes since the Franco regime ended in the 1970s.Vox’s ascension, liberals argued, would amount to a troubling watershed for Spain and yet another sign of the rise of the right in Europe. Instead, Vox sank, and may have brought down the chances for the Popular Party to govern with it.A Vox rally in Madrid last week.Manu Fernandez/Associated PressMr. Sánchez, who has governed Spain for five years, will remain as leader of a caretaker government as the composition of a new government, or timing of new elections, is worked out.Analysts have noted that Spain’s voters had grown tired of the extremes of the right and left and had sought to return to the center. A new election, they said, would continue that trend, and most likely further marginalize Vox’s influence. The Popular Party hopes that it would take back their votes and grow large enough to govern on its own.A progressive darling of the European Union, Mr. Sánchez presided over an economic rebound, but he alienated many voters by backtracking on promises and building alliances with political parties associated with the Catalan secessionists as well as former Basque terrorists who also once sought to split from Spain.“I had a hard time deciding up to the last minute,” said Arnold Merino, 43, who voted for the Popular Party. “People didn’t trust him.”Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, campaigning in Getafe, Spain, last week.Violeta Santos Moura/ReutersMr. Sánchez called the elections early — they had been scheduled at the end of the year — after a bruising in local and regional elections in May.In the closing days of the race, the Socialists and the far-left umbrella group, Sumar, projected optimism about the possibility of turning things around as polls showed them trailing. Billboards around Spain showed Mr. Sánchez looking youthful and suave under a sign for “Forward” next to black-and-white pictures of the conservative leaders reading, “Backward.”The Popular Party ran less on policy proposals than against Mr. Sánchez. Both the conservatives and their hard-right allies ran a campaign sharply critical of Mr. Sánchez, or a style of governing they called “Sanchismo,” saying he could not be trusted as he broke his word to voters, made alliances with the far left and cut electorally advantageous deals that put his own political survival ahead of the national interest.Even so, Spain seemed in recent years to be a bright spot for liberals. Mr. Sánchez kept inflation low, reduced tensions with separatists in Catalonia and increased the economic growth rate, pensions and the minimum wage.But the alliance between Mr. Sánchez and deeply polarizing separatists and far-left forces fueled resentment among many voters. The entire campaign, which included Mr. Sánchez and his far-left ally warning against the extremism of Vox, turned on the bad company of the main parties’ allies.Yolanda Diaz, leader of the left-wing Sumar party, in Madrid on Sunday.Vincent West/ReutersAnd yet, for all the talk about extremism, results showed that Spanish voters, many of whom were haunted by the dictatorship and the decades of terrorism spawned by related territorial disputes, turned to the center.The Vox party, widely seen as a clear descendant of Franco’s dictatorship, lost 19 seats. It ran on opposition to abortion and L.G.B.T.Q. rights and European Union meddling in Spanish affairs, and is staunchly anti-immigrant.“I think people want to go back to bipartisanship, because it provides stability,” said Mr. Merino. “With the Popular Party, you know what you are getting.”The leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, split from the Popular Party amid a slush-fund scandal in 2013. Vox started with stunts like draping Gibraltar, the southern tip of the country controlled by Britain since 1713, with a Spanish flag.It filmed alternate realities in which Muslims imposed Shariah law in southern Spain and turned the Cathedral of Cordoba back into a mosque. In another video, scored to the soundtrack of Lord of the Rings, a cultural touchstone for Europe’s new hard right, Mr. Abascal leads a posse of men on horseback to reconquer Europe.“It’s very allegoric, but it’s also beautiful,” said Aurora Rodil, a Vox deputy mayor of the southern town of Elche who already governed with the Popular Party mayor. “There’s so much to be reconquered in Spain.”Sunday’s vote, however, suggested that they had been beaten back.“Spain is really balanced,” said Ramon Campoy, 35, as he took a break from work on Friday in Barcelona, standing under the L.G.B.T.Q. flag in a square graced by an equestrian statue of Ramon Berenguer III, the crowned 11th-century ruler of Catalonia.Mr. Campoy added, “I think the country is really in the center.” More

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      Elecciones generales de España: las alianzas al centro del debate

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      Los grandes temas del país han estado en buena medida ausentes del debate político. Las posibles coaliciones y los aliados de los principales partidos han sido el foco de la campaña.La guerra en Ucrania avanza. Las temperaturas abrasadoras impulsan una reflexión sobre el cambio climático. La inseguridad económica abunda. Pero las elecciones españolas podrían resolverse en torno al asunto de las malas compañías.Mientras los españoles se preparan para votar en las elecciones generales del domingo, los expertos opinan que a los votantes se les pide decidir quién —el gobierno de centroizquierda o la oposición de centroderecha— tiene los amigos más desagradables y los menos aceptables y peligrosamente extremistas.Las encuestas sugieren que el presidente del gobierno, Pedro Sánchez, el líder socialista, será reemplazado por los conservadores, que han aprovechado su dependencia a algunos aliados que han intentado separarse de España. Entre ellos, el movimiento independentista catalán del norte de España y los descendientes políticos del grupo vasco separatista ETA, que enfureció a los votantes antes de las elecciones autonómicas y municipales de mayo cuando presentaron a 44 terroristas convictos como candidatos, entre ellos siete que fueron hallados culpables de asesinato.Los socialistas de Sánchez, por su parte, han expresado inquietud por los aliados extremistas de sus oponentes conservadores, el partido Vox. Vox podría ser el primer partido de extrema derecha en llegar al gobierno desde la dictadura de Franco si es que, como se espera, el principal partido conservador gana y necesita formar una coalición.Pedro Sánchez en un mitin en Madrid.Juan Medina/ReutersEsta atención minuciosa a las alianzas políticas ha ensombrecido un debate sobre temas clave en España, como la vivienda, la economía y el empleo, así como el historial actual del presidente del gobierno, que incluye haber obtenido de la Unión Europea un tope al precio del gas destinado a la producción de electricidad.Estas elecciones, explicó Pablo Simón, politólogo de la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, se centran en los socios. “Los socios de la derecha y los socios de la izquierda”.Ni el conservador Partido Popular (PP) ni el Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) de Sánchez han aumentado o descendido de manera radical en sus respectivos apoyos desde las últimas elecciones, en 2019, y ninguno de los dos partidos se espera que obtenga una mayoría absoluta en el Congreso de 350 escaños de España.Más bien, el PP y sus posibles socios nacionalistas de Vox han usado a los aliados del presidente para crear una imagen de lo que llaman el “sanchismo”, que definen como el impulso egoísta, arrogante y sin escrúpulos del presidente para romper cualquier promesa y establecer cualquier tipo de alianza para quedarse en el poder.El principal reclamo es por su alianza con los catalanes independentistas. Durante las últimas elecciones generales de España, Sánchez prometió detener a los principales separatistas catalanes. Pero poco después, cuando la supervivencia de su gobierno dependía de ese apoyo, empezó a negociar para indultarlos.“Se sentó en la mesa con nosotros por la presión política y la necesidad de gobernar el país”, dijo Gabriel Rufián, integrante del Congreso por Esquerra Republicana, un partido a favor de la independencia de Cataluña.Los conservadores también recuerdan a menudo que Sánchez alguna vez dijo que no podría conciliar el sueño si el partido de extrema izquierda Podemos entrara a su gobierno. Pero, como Sánchez necesitaba al partido, lo integró.Desde entonces, Podemos ha colapsado y, a decir de los expertos, sus errores y extralimitaciones han sumado votantes moderados e indecisos a las filas conservadoras. Sánchez espera que un nuevo grupo de izquierda, Sumar, logre compensar esas pérdidas y lo lleve hasta un umbral en donde, otra vez, pueda recurrir a sus aliados separatistas para que lo apoyen en el Congreso.Un mitin de Sumar en Barcelona. Sánchez espera que el nuevo grupo que reúne a distintos partidos de izquierda pueda mejorar sus posibilidades.Maria Contreras Coll para The New York TimesEn una entrevista con la Radio Nacional de España el domingo, Sánchez dijo que, de ser necesario, buscaría apoyo de ambos partidos independentistas una vez más.“Por supuesto”, dijo Sánchez, “para sacar adelante una reforma laboral busco votos hasta debajo de las piedras. Lo que nunca voy a hacer es lo que han hecho el PP y Vox, que es recortar derechos y libertades, negando la violencia machista. Para avanzar, yo pacto con quien haga falta”.Los seguidores de Sánchez afirman que las negociaciones y los indultos han reducido en gran medida las tensiones con el separatismo catalán, pero los votantes conservadores dicen que la cuasiseparación igual deja un mal sabor de boca.Lo que es más, aseguran que les disgusta la dependencia de Sánchez a los votos de EH Bildu, descendientes del ala política de ETA, que dejó un saldo de más de 850 personas muertas cuando, también, buscaba formar un país independiente de España.El grupo terrorista vasco se desintegró hace más de una década y la justicia española ha determinado que Bildu es un grupo político legítimo y democrático. Pero para muchos españoles sigue en la sombra del legado sangriento del pasado y su presencia resulta inquietante para la unidad futura del país.Incluso los aliados clave de Sánchez admitieron que la derecha se benefició al dictar los términos de las elecciones como un referéndum sobre Bildu.La campaña entera se basa en esto, comentó Ernest Urtasun, miembro del Parlamento Europeo y portavoz de la plataforma de izquierda Sumar. “Moviliza a gran parte del electorado de la derecha y desmoviliza al electorado de la izquierda”.Pero, indicó, la contienda aún era fluida en los últimos días y aseguró que los sondeos internos mostraban que iban avanzando. Entre más lograra la izquierda apegarse a los temas sociales y económicos, y no a sus aliados, dijo, tendrían mejores posibilidades.Si Sánchez llegara a requerir sus votos en el Congreso para gobernar, los líderes de los movimientos independentistas han dejado en claro que no darán su apoyo a cambio de nada.Habrá un “precio” adicional, que incluirá negociaciones para eventualmente llevar a cabo un referéndum por la independencia de Cataluña, dijo Rufián. Alegó que la derecha, y en especial Vox, siempre han tenido algún tema de discordia para distraer a los votantes de los problemas reales y que en esta ocasión ese tema eran los catalanes y los vascos.“A nosotros no nos podrán responsabilizar” por los puntos de la agenda de la derecha, dijo Rufián.Rufián dijo que Sánchez le había advertido que España no estaba preparada aún para perdonar a los secesionistas, y que su coalición sufriría daños políticos si se otorgaban los indultos. Pero, presionado, el presidente dio marcha atrás.“Es bueno para la democracia que no vaya gente a la cárcel por votar”, dijo de los indultos concedidos por Sánchez. Si eso se castiga políticamente, añadió, “yo acepto”.Pero los indultos y las alianzas han facilitado a los candidatos conservadores persuadir a los votantes españoles a juzgar a Sánchez por las alianzas que forja.Alberto Núñez Feijóo, líder del PP, ha calificado a Sánchez como la “gran esperanza electoral” para quienes andaban con pasamontañas, en una clara referencia a los terroristas de ETA. Los líderes de izquierda han observado que Feijóo parece haber tenido sus propias amistades cuestionables, al llamar otra vez la atención hacia fotografías en las que se le ve en un yate con un traficante convicto de cocaína.Alberto Núñez Feijóo, líder del PP, en Madrid. Es posible que Feijóo busque gobernar solo, pero quizás no sea capaz de lograrlo.Pierre-Philippe Marcou/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFeijóo evitó el último debate televisado de campaña, diciendo que quería que también los separatistas estuvieran en el escenario. Los socialistas creen que simplemente es una estrategia de dispensación de favores políticos para evitar cuestionamientos por su cercanía con el narcotraficante y para distanciarse de su aliado nominal, Santiago Abascal, líder de Vox.Al final, Feijóo dijo que tenía problemas de espalda.Feijóo ha dejado en claro que preferiría gobernar solo, sin Abascal. Pero Abascal quiere participar y ha indicado que si Vox entrara al gobierno se opondría con fuerza a cualquier movimiento separatista.En un evento de campaña este mes, Abascal acusó a Sánchez de mentir y de pactar con “los enemigos de la democracia” y añadió, “para Pedro Sánchez proteger la democracia es que le voten violadores, golpistas, ladrones”.Ese tipo de discurso es parte del manual de Vox.Según Aurora Rodil Martínez, concejala por Vox de Elche, en donde Vox gobierna junto con el PP —un escenario que podría ser el que se viva a nivel nacional—, Sánchez tiene un ansia patológica de poder. Consideró que su personalidad está “enfocada en sí mismo” y opinó que por ello no tiene empacho en aliarse con la extrema izquierda, “los herederos de ETA”.Rodil Martínez dijo que los aliados de Sánchez en el movimiento independentista catalán desean separarse de España. Añadió que Sánchez se ha “arrodillado” antes sus aliados de Podemos y requerido del apoyo de Bildu, a quienes calificó de “terroristas” y culpables de “crímenes sangrientos”.Todo lo anterior, dijeron los expertos, constituía una distracción de los verdaderos desafíos del país.“Estamos discutiendo sobre los socios”, dijo Simón, el politólogo y añadió que eso era algo terrible porque no se discutían las políticas.Un afiche con el retrato de Santiago Abascal, líder de VoxMaria Contreras Coll para The New York TimesJason Horowitz es el jefe del buró en Roma; cubre Italia, Grecia y otros sitios del sur de Europa. Cubrió la campaña presidencial de 2016 en Estados Unidos, el gobierno de Obama y al Congreso estadounidense con un énfasis en especiales y perfiles políticos. @jasondhorowitz More

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      Spain’s Election Puts Focus on Leading Parties’ Allies

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      Before voting Sunday, a focus on the leading parties’ allies has dominated the campaign — and obscured debate about more fundamental issues.The war in Ukraine is raging. Scorching temperatures are prompting a reckoning with climate change. Economic insecurity abounds. But the Spanish election may pivot on the question of bad company.As Spaniards prepare to vote in national elections on Sunday, experts say that voters are being asked to decide who — the center-left government or the favored center-right opposition — has the more unsavory, less acceptable and dangerously extremist friends.Polls suggest that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, the Socialist leader, will be ousted by conservatives who have made hay of his reliance on allies who have tried to secede from Spain. They include northern Spain’s Catalonian independence movement and political descendants of the Basque secessionist group ETA, who infuriated voters before local elections in May when they fielded 44 convicted terrorists as candidates, including seven found guilty of murder.Mr. Sánchez’s Socialists have, for their part, raised alarm about their conservative opponents’ extremist allies in the Vox party. Vox could become the first far-right party to enter government since the Franco dictatorship if, as expected, the leading conservative party wins and needs its support.Mr. Sánchez at a rally in Madrid. “This election is about the partners,” one expert said.Juan Medina/ReutersThe hyper-focus on political bedfellows has obscured a debate about critical issues in Spain such as housing, the economy and employment, as well as the prime minister’s actual record, which includes winning from the European Union a price cap on gas for electricity.“This election is about the partners,” said Pablo Simón, a political scientist at Madrid’s Carlos III University. “The partners of the right and the partners of the left.” Neither the conservative Popular Party nor Mr. Sánchez’s Socialists have gone up or down radically in support since the last elections, in 2019, and neither are expected to win an absolute majority of Spain’s 350-seat Congress.Instead, the Populist Party and its potential nationalist partners in Vox have used the prime minister’s allies to create a picture of what they call “Sánchismo.” They define it as the prime minister’s self-interested, arrogant and unprincipled impulse to break any promise and make any alliance to stay in power.The main beef is his alliance with pro-independence Catalans. During Spain’s last national election, Mr. Sánchez promised to arrest the leading Catalonian secessionists. But soon after, with his government’s survival depending on their support, he began negotiating their pardons instead.“He succumbed to political pressure and the need to govern the country,” said Gabriel Rufián, a member of Parliament with Esquerra Republicana, a pro-Catalan independence party.Conservatives also frequently recall that Mr. Sánchez once claimed he would not be able to sleep through the night if the far-left Podemos party entered his government. But Mr. Sánchez needed the party, so it did.Since then, Podemos has collapsed and, experts say, its mistakes and overreaches have turned moderate and swing voters to the conservatives. Mr. Sánchez is hoping that a new left-wing umbrella group, Sumar, can make up for the losses, and get him to a threshold where he can again turn to his secessionist allies for support in Parliament.A rally for Sumar in Barcelona. Mr. Sánchez is hoping the new left-wing umbrella group can lift his chances.Maria Contreras Coll for The New York TimesIn an interview on National Spanish Radio on Sunday, Mr. Sánchez said he would, if necessary, seek support from both independence parties again.“Of course,” Mr. Sánchez said. “To carry out a labor reform, I would look for votes, even under the stones. What I will never do is what the PP and Vox have done, which is to cut rights and freedoms, denying sexist violence. I will make deals with whomever I have to, in order to move forward.”Supporters of Mr. Sánchez point out that the negotiations and pardons have greatly reduced tensions with Catalan’s separatist movement, but conservative voters say that the near-secession still leaves a bad taste in their mouth.Even more so, they say they are disgusted by Mr. Sánchez’s dependence on the votes of EH Bildu, the descendants of the political wing of ETA, which killed more than 850 people as it, too, sought to carve out an independent country from Spain.That Basque terrorist group disbanded more than a decade ago, and Spain’s judiciary has deemed Bildu a legitimate and democratic political group. But for many Spaniards it remains tainted by the bloody legacy of the past and concern for the country’s cohesion in the future.Even Mr. Sánchez’s key allies recognized that the right benefited by dictating the terms of the election as a referendum on Bildu.“Their whole campaign is constructed on this,” said Ernest Urtasun, a member of European Parliament and the spokesman for the left-wing Sumar party. “It mobilizes a lot of the electorate on the right and it demobilizes the electorate of the left.”But he said the race was still fluid in its last days and claimed that internal polling showed them inching up. The more the left could stick to social and economic issues, and not its allies, he said, the better its chances.If Mr. Sánchez does require their votes in Parliament to govern, the leaders of the independence movements have made it clear their support will not come for free.There will be an additional “price,” including continued negotiations toward an eventual referendum for Catalonian independence, Mr. Rufián said. He argued that the right wing, and especially Vox, always had a wedge issue to distract voters from real problems and this time it was the Catalans and the Basques.“We can’t be held responsible” for the talking points of the right, Mr. Rufián said.Mr. Rufián said Mr. Sánchez had warned him that Spain was not yet ready to pardon the secessionists and that his coalition would suffer politically if they were granted, but under pressure the prime minister reversed course anyway.“I think it’s good for democracy that political prisoners are not in jail,” he said of the pardons Mr. Sánchez granted. “If there is a penalty for that, I accept that.”But the pardons and the alliances have made it easier for conservative candidates to convince Spain’s voters to judge Mr. Sánchez by the company he keeps.Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of the Popular Party, has called Mr. Sánchez the “great electoral hope” for “those who used to go around wearing ski masks,” a clear reference to the ETA terrorists. Left-wing leaders have noted that Mr. Feijóo appears to have had dubious personal friends of his own, drawing renewed attention to pictures taken of him hanging out on a yacht with a convicted cocaine trafficker.Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of the Popular Party, in Madrid. Mr. Feijóo may want to govern alone, but may not be able to.Pierre-Philippe Marcou/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Feijóo has ducked out of the campaign’s final televised debate, saying he wanted the separatists to be onstage, too. The Socialists believe he was simply pursuing a Rose Garden strategy to avoid questions about his association with the drug kingpin and to distance himself from his nominal ally, the Vox leader, Santiago Abascal.Mr. Feijóo ended up saying he had a bad back.Mr. Feijóo has made it clear that he would prefer to govern alone, without Mr. Abascal. But Mr. Abascal wants in, and has indicated that if Vox entered the government it would crack down hard on any secessionist movements.At a campaign event this month, Mr. Abascal accused Mr. Sánchez of being a liar who made “deals with the enemies of democracy” and added, “As far as Pedro Sánchez is concerned, protecting democracy is about getting the votes of rapists, coup-mongers.”That sort of language is part of the Vox playbook.“Sánchez has a really pathological anxiety for power,” said Aurora Rodil Martínez, the Vox deputy mayor of Elche, who, in a potential preview of things to come, serves with a mayor from the Popular Party. “I think his personality is focused on himself and therefore he has no shame handing himself over to the extreme left, to the heirs of ETA.”She said his allies in the Catalonian independence movement “want to separate themselves from Spain and deny our nation.” Mr. Sánchez, she added, “has got down on his knees” for his far-left allies in Podemos and needed the support of Bildu, “terrorists guilty of bloody crimes.”All of that, experts say, amounted to a distraction from the country’s real challenges.“We are discussing about the partners,” said Mr. Simón, the political scientist, adding, “it’s a terrible thing because we are not discussing about policies.”A poster of the Vox leader, Santiago Abascal.Maria Contreras Coll for The New York Times More

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      British By-elections: What to Know

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      Three seats in Parliament recently occupied by Conservatives are up for grabs in an election that may show which way the political winds are blowing.One of the last things Britain’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, needs right now, while he’s trailing in the opinion polls as the economy stalls, is a test of his electoral popularity.But on Thursday, he faces three contests, as voters in different parts of England select replacements for a trio of lawmakers from his Conservative Party who have quit Parliament, including former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.The votes, known as by-elections, happen when a seat in the House of Commons becomes vacant between general elections. In the British system, every elected lawmaker represents a district, so when they quit, those voters decide who will succeed them.Hanging over the contests is the poisoned legacy of Mr. Johnson, who angrily quit Parliament after lawmakers ruled that he had lied to them about Covid-lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street.Because the government will not change whatever the outcome, voters often use such by-elections to register unhappiness with their political leaders. And with inflation and interest rates high, labor unrest boiling and the health service struggling, Mr. Sunak’s Conservatives are braced for the possibility of losing all three contests.That would make Mr. Sunak the first prime minister to suffer a triple by-election defeat in one day since 1968. It would also stoke fears among Conservatives that, under his leadership, they are heading for defeat in a general election expected next year.But by-elections are unpredictable, so nothing is certain on this so-called super Thursday. And so low are expectations for the Conservatives that even winning one would be a welcome relief for Mr. Sunak.Here’s where voters are casting ballots:Uxbridge and South RuislipThis is the seat vacated by Mr. Johnson, and it lies on the fringes of London, the capital. Although the inner areas of the capital tilt to Labour, the main opposition party, outer London, with its suburbs and larger homes, is much better territory for the Conservatives. Mr. Johnson’s majority in the last general election was relatively modest at 7,210 votes, and the scandal-hit former prime minister is a divisive figure, so Labour hopes to win here.But the Conservatives see an opening in a plan to expand an ultralow-emissions program to areas including Uxbridge and South Ruislip. The expansion, pressed by London’s Labour mayor, Sadiq Khan, would cost those driving older, more polluting cars. Conservatives are campaigning against the expansion. The Labour candidate for the area has also said he is against the expansion, though Labour’s leader has not taken a stand.Parliamentary candidates onstage ahead of the by-election for the seat previously held by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson in Uxbridge this month.Susannah Ireland/ReutersSelby and AinstyThe contest in Selby and Ainsty, in Yorkshire in the north of England, is another aftershock of recent political turbulence because the lawmaker who quit, Nigel Adams, was a close ally of Mr. Johnson’s. He resigned after not being awarded a seat in the House of Lords, as he had expected. This is a scenic part of northern England but also one with a mining history, and Labour will be hoping it can snatch the seat.That would send a powerful signal that the party is returning to popularity in the north and middle of England — areas it once dominated but where it lost out in the 2019 general election. Yet, it’s a tall order. If Labour can succeed in Selby and Ainsty, where the Conservative majority in 2019 was 20,137, that would set a record for the size of a majority overturned by Labour in a by-election. So victory for Labour here would suggest it is well on course for a general election victory.Somerton and FromeInstead of Labour, the smaller, centrist Liberal Democrats are seen as the main challengers to the Conservatives in Somerton and Frome, in the southwest of England.The vote follows the resignation of David Warburton, who quit after admitting that he had consumed cocaine. The Lib-Dems have a strong tradition of success in this attractive, mainly rural part of the country, and they held this electoral district until 2015.In the last election, the Conservatives won a big majority, 19,213. But since then, the they have suffered losses in some of their heartland areas in the south of England, the so-called blue wall, named after the party’s campaign colors.At the same time, the fortunes of the Liberal Democrats have been revived considerably. This year, they performed well in elections in local municipalities, and last year, they stormed to victory in a by-election in Tiverton and Honiton, also in the southwest. More

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      Thai PM Vote: Lawmakers Block Move Forward Party’s Candidate

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      Demonstrations unfolded as lawmakers prevented a progressive candidate from contesting a second parliamentary vote. Here’s what to know.Protests erupted in Bangkok on Wednesday, hours after Thailand’s conservative establishment suspended a progressive leader and lawmakers denied him the chance to stand for a second parliamentary vote for prime minister.The candidate, Pita Limjaroenrat, leads a party that won the most votes in a May election after campaigning on an ambitious reform platform that challenged the country’s powerful conservative establishment. He lost an initial parliamentary vote for prime minister last week.Late Wednesday, lawmakers voted to deny Mr. Pita, 42, the chance to stand for a second vote on the grounds that Parliament’s rules do not permit a “repeat motion.” Mr. Pita’s supporters see that as a not-so-subtle move to keep him out of power.The mood in Bangkok, Thailand’s muggy capital, was anxious as protesters hit the streets on Wednesday afternoon. Mr. Pita’s supporters have been expressing outrage online toward an establishment that often pushes back against Thailand’s democratic process.“In my heart, I knew this would happen, so it didn’t come as a shock,” said Wichuda Rotphai, 41, one of hundreds of people who gathered outside Parliament on Wednesday to support Mr. Pita’s doomed bid for premier. “But I’m still disappointed, and I can’t accept it.”Here’s what to know.What does Pita Limjaroenrat stand for?Mr. Pita’s party, Move Forward, has proposed ambitious policies for challenging Thailand’s powerful institutions like the military and the monarchy. The party won 151 seats in Parliament, the most of any party, and 10 more than Pheu Thai, the party founded by the exiled populist Thaksin Shinawatra, whose influence still towers over Thai politics.Pita Limjaroenrat, the leader of the Move Forward Party, in Parliament, on Wednesday.Sakchai Lalit/Associated PressMr. Pita’s party has formed an eight-party coalition, which nominated him for prime minister last week. He came up short in the first vote because the Senate is controlled by military-appointed lawmakers who oppose his candidacy and the Move Forward platform.I’m confused. Why are senators so tied to the military?Becoming prime minister requires a simple majority of the 500-seat House of Representatives and the 250-seat Senate.But the rules governing Senate appointments were drafted by the military junta that seized power from a democratically elected government in a 2014 coup. They effectively give senators veto power over prime ministerial candidates.Parliament members voting for prime minister for the second time, on Wednesday. Chalinee Thirasupa/ReutersLast week, Mr. Pita won only 13 votes from the 249 senators who voted for prime minister. Mr. Pita acknowledged in an Instagram post on Wednesday afternoon that he was unlikely to become prime minister.“It’s clear now that in the current system, winning the people’s trust isn’t enough to run the country,” he wrote.Why was it such an uphill battle?Mr. Pita had faced a slew of challenges even before Parliament denied him a chance to stand for a second vote.The Constitutional Court said on Wednesday morning, for example, that it was suspending Mr. Pita from Parliament until a ruling is made in a case involving his shares of a media company. Investigators are trying to determine whether Mr. Pita properly disclosed owning the shares before running for office, as required by Thai law.Young supporters cheering for Mr. Pita in Nonthaburi, Thailand, in May.Lauren DeCicca for The New York TimesThe court’s ruling forced Mr. Pita to leave the chamber. It would not necessarily have prevented his coalition from nominating for a second time. But Parliament saw to that on its own. Mr. Pita’s supporters have said the investigation is one of many ways that the establishment has been trying to unfairly derail his candidacy.So who will be prime minister?Before the drama on Wednesday, Mr. Pita had said if it became clear that he could not win, his party would allow its coalition partner, Pheu Thai, to nominate its own candidate.Pheu Thai probably will do just that, but is also likely to form a brand-new coalition, one that is more palatable to conservative lawmakers who cannot stomach Mr. Pita and Move Forward.Pheu Thai’s candidate would likely be Srettha Thavisin, 60, a property mogul with little political experience. If a new coalition materializes, he could be voted in as prime minister as early as this week.Srettha Thavisin could be the candidate that the Pheu Thai Party puts forward if it has a chance.Narong Sangnak/EPA, via ShutterstockMr. Srettha would immediately present a sharp contrast to the current prime minister, former Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha, who led the 2014 military coup.A more remote, but not impossible, scenario is that Pheu Thai allows a party from the conservative establishment to nominate a candidate as a condition for joining a new coalition. That candidate could be Gen. Prawit Wongsuwan, 77, the deputy prime minister in the current government.What would a Srettha victory represent?Many would see it as a triumph for the democratic process in Thailand, a country with a long history of mass protests and military coups. Some foreign investors would also see a potential boost for a sluggish, coronavirus-battered economy.But many of Move Forward’s progressive supporters would be angry about the establishment blocking their party from forming a government. On Wednesday evening, a demonstration reflecting that anger was taking shape at the city’s Democracy Monument.Police officers in riot gear gathering near the Thai Parliament on Wednesday. The intensity of any protests in coming days could depend on who becomes the country’s next prime minister.Lauren Decicca/Getty ImagesThe size of the protests over the next days or weeks will likely depend on who becomes prime minister. If it’s Mr. Srettha, demonstrations could be sporadic and modest. If it’s General Prawit or another military figure, they could be sustained and intense.Ms. Wichuda, the protester, was one of hundreds who gathered outside Parliament on Wednesday afternoon, peering through its gates at police officers in riot gear. She said that while she did not agree with Mr. Pita’s contentious pledge to revise a law that criminalizes criticism of the monarchy, she still felt he had been “robbed” by politicians who were afraid to give a younger generation the chance to improve the country.“If they can do such things to people with money and power,” she said, “what will be left for us, the common people, who have no position and no title?” More

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      Thailand’s Prime Minister Vote Puts Coalition at Risk

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      The progressive Move Forward Party has failed to form a government, leaving members of the liberal opposition scrambling to find alternatives.After winning the general election in May, the progressive Move Forward party in Thailand promised to introduce bold democratic reforms in the Southeast Asian nation. But last week, the party suffered an embarrassing defeat in Parliament when its candidate of choice failed to muster enough votes to win the premiership and form a government.Now, as Parliament gathers on Wednesday to vote for prime minister for a second time in less than a week, the fragile coalition that Move Forward has cobbled together is on the verge of falling apart. At stake may be the fate of democracy in a nation that has repeatedly tried to overturn military rule and in a region where autocracy is on the rise.“Thailand is not ready to change,” said Pongkwan Sawasdipakdi, a political scientist at Thammasat University in Bangkok. “People in the establishment are not going to let change happen.”Opposition parties tend to come and go in Thailand. Each time, they face rough headwinds brought on by the military-appointed Senate and royalist allies that form the bedrock of the country’s conservative political establishment.Move Forward’s predecessor, the Future Forward Party, was dissolved by the Thai government in 2020 after being accused of violating election law. The leader of Move Forward, Pita Limjaroenrat, is under investigation for owning undisclosed shares of a media company, which could disqualify him from office.Supporters see both cases as flagrant moves by the establishment to block the opposition from wresting power from the ruling conservative government.If the Move Forward coalition falls short on Wednesday, that may be a prelude to another cycle of unrest in Thailand, which was rocked by widespread pro-democracy protests during the coronavirus pandemic. But analysts say the opposition could offer a compromise: a new coalition led by the populist Pheu Thai Party, a familiar name in Thai politics that hews much closer to the status quo.Mr. Limjaroenrat reacting after failing to muster enough votes to win the premiership last week.Rungroj Yongrit/EPA, via ShutterstockAfter Wednesday, Pheu Thai could try to form an alternate coalition that appeals to voters who thought Move Forward was pushing for too much change, as well as to the conservative establishment, whose dismal performance in the election has left it with few options for maintaining its present grip on power.Forming a new opposition coalition will present its own challenges for Pheu Thai.For any new coalition to stand a chance, it needs to include conservative and military-backed parties, which will make demands that will likely run counter to the wishes of Move Forward voters. Those supporters, rather than backing the new government, may choose to take to the streets.“There will be protests,” said Phit Bunwiwatthanakan, 32, a Move Forward voter who owns a cat cafe in the northern Thai city of Chiang Rai. “People feel that, since they won the election, their people have a right to form a government.”There is also a possibility that Mr. Pita may not be given the opportunity to stand for renomination on Wednesday. He has said that if it becomes clear Move Forward cannot get him approved as prime minister, the party would allow Pheu Thai to lead the same coalition.The sort of compromises Pheu Thai might be willing to make in order to form its own coalition are unclear. The party, which won the second-largest vote share in the election, was established by Thailand’s most famous politician, the populist leader Thaksin Shinawatra, who has been living in exile after being ousted by a coup and accused of corruption. Many of Mr. Thaksin’s populist policies remain popular among Thais.“Pheu Thai’s really in the driver’s seat for deciding the future of Thailand,” in part because the establishment will likely try to dissolve Move Forward, said David Streckfuss, a historian and the author or “Truth on Trial in Thailand.”With the vote on Wednesday unlikely to end with a new government in power, analysts are already looking ahead to a third vote, which could happen as early as Thursday.Winning the premiership requires a simple majority of votes in the 500-seat House of Representatives and the 250-seat, military-appointed Senate. Pheu Thai has 141 seats, just 10 less than Move Forward, so it would need conservative parties to cobble together a new coalition.A coalition built by Pheu Thai would likely be led by Srettha Thavisin, 60, a property mogul with little political experience, but who is seen as a more palatable option to the generals than Mr. Pita, the Move Forward candidate. (Paetongtarn Shinawatra, 36, the youngest daughter of Mr. Thaksin, had been an early front-runner in the general election, but told reporters on Tuesday that the party would support Mr. Srettha as prime minister.)Paetongtarn Shinawatra, right, and Sretta Thavisin, left, accompanied by key members of the Pheu Thai Party at party headquarters in Bangkok, in May.Rungroj Yongrit/EPA, via ShutterstockTo some Pheu Thai supporters, Move Forward’s tactics, including its refusal to water down its ambitious plans challenging the military and the monarchy, look unworkable in a hierarchical society where pragmatic, palace-friendly parties tend to do best.Pheu Thai cannot deliver on economic priorities if Move Forward leaders “keep complaining about social issues and laws,” Sanpiti Sittipunt, the son of the governor of Bangkok, wrote on Instagram on Tuesday. He added that Move Forward should “listen to the adults.”By defecting from the opposition coalition formed by Move Forward, Pheu Thai could damage its political brand and that of its figurehead, Mr. Thaksin. But the long-term reputational damage might be worth another chance at power, analysts said, particularly if a compromise with the military involved getting permission for Mr. Thaksin to return from exile in Dubai.For now, Pheu Thai is still publicly projecting unity with Move Forward. This week, the two allies and their six smaller partners agreed that Mr. Pita would stand again for the second vote for prime minister on Wednesday.If street protests swell across Thailand after the votes are cast, the fear is that the military would feel compelled to restore order with gunfire, as it did in 2010, or even with a coup, as it did four years later.Any protests would probably only escalate if a military figure became prime minister again, following the lead of the current one, former Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha. Analysts say there is still an outside chance that the conservative establishment could nominate its own candidate for a third vote, such as Gen. Prawit Wongsuwan, 77, a top official in the current government.Anti-government protesters gathering at Ratchaprasong Intersection in the commercial center of Bangkok, in 2020.Adam Dean for The New York TimesEvery possible move to break the current political impasse risks creating more problems, said Jatuporn Prompan, a former protest leader and Pheu Thai lawmaker. A prolonged state of limbo without a prime minister could lead to raging demonstrations, followed by a crackdown, and perhaps another coup.“This is why the country’s in a crisis,” he said.Ms. Paetongtarn, Mr. Thaksin’s youngest daughter, said that Pheu Thai was eager to get to work on developing the economy and improving the lives of ordinary people. “If we focus on the small picture, it’s one of who’s up and this and that,” she told reporters on Tuesday. “But the country has to move on already.”Muktita Suhartono More