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      Britain’s By-elections: So Far, a Win and a Defeat for the Tories

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      The governing Conservative Party lost in one electoral district but avoided defeat in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Boris Johnson’s former seat. A third contest was still to be decided.Britain’s governing Conservative Party suffered a crushing defeat in the contest for what had been considered one of its safer seats in Parliament, but avoided losing another district as results came in early Friday in three by-elections, a critical test of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s popularity.The small, centrist Liberal Democrats party won in Somerton and Frome, in the southwest of England, overturning a big majority. In an emphatic victory, the Liberal Democrats received 21,187 votes against the Conservatives’ 10,790.But there was better news for Mr. Sunak in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, in the northwestern fringes of London, where his Conservatives narrowly held on against the main opposition Labour Party in the district that had been represented by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.A third, critical contest — in Selby and Ainsty, in Yorkshire in the north of England — was still to be decided.For Mr. Sunak, the by-elections were an anxious foretaste of the general election that he must call by January 2025.Uxbridge and South Ruislip is the sort of seat that Labour has needed to win to prove that it is credibly closing in on power. Its failure to do so was attributed by the victorious Conservative candidate to public anger toward the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, a Labour member, for his plans to extend a costly ultralow emission zone across all of London’s boroughs, including Uxbridge.While the result could raise questions about Labour’s ability to win the next general election, the scale of the defeat in Somerton and Frome will most likely alarm Conservative lawmakers who are under pressure in some of the party’s heartland districts in the south of England.With Britain besieged by high inflation, a stagnating economy and widespread labor unrest, his Conservatives face a real threat of being thrown out of power for the first time in 14 years.While Britain shares some of these economic woes with other countries in the wake of the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Conservatives amplified the problems through policy missteps and political turmoil that peaked in the brief, stormy tenure of Mr. Sunak’s predecessor, Liz Truss.She proposed sweeping but unfunded tax cuts that alarmed the financial markets and triggered her own downfall after on 44 days in office. Mr. Sunak shelved Ms. Truss’s trickle-down agenda and restored Britain’s fiscal stability. But her legacy has been a poisoned chalice for Mr. Sunak and his Tory compatriots with much of the British electorate.“The Liz Truss episode really dented their reputation for economic competence, and that will be very hard to win back,” said Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. “It’s going to be very difficult.”So convincing is the Labour Party’s lead in opinion polls that some analysts predicted in advance that Mr. Sunak would become the first prime minister to lose three so-called by-elections in one day since 1968.But the narrow victory for the Conservatives in Uxbridge and South Ruislip averted that prospect. There, when all votes were counted, the final tally was 13,965 for Steve Tuckwell of the Conservative Party, and 13,470 for Labour’s Danny Beales.By-elections take place when a seat in the House of Commons becomes vacant between general elections. This time around, the contests were also a reminder of the toxic legacy of another of Mr. Sunak’s predecessors, Mr. Johnson.Mr. Johnson resigned his seat in the district of Uxbridge and South Ruislip, on the western fringe of London, after lawmakers ruled that he lied to Parliament over lockdown-breaking parties held in Downing Street during the pandemic.Voters in Selby and Ainsty in northern England were selecting a replacement for one of Mr. Johnson’s closest allies, Nigel Adams, who quit after not being given a seat in the House of Lords, as he had expected.The contest in Somerton and Frome, a rural district in southwestern England, took place because another Conservative lawmaker, David Warburton, gave up his seat after admitting he had taken cocaine.“This is probably the closing of a chapter of the story of Boris Johnson’s impact on British politics,” said Robert Hayward, a polling expert who also serves as a Conservative member of the House of Lords. But he added, “Whether it’s the closing of the whole book is another matter.”Because the voting took place in very different parts of England, it provided an unusual snapshot of public opinion ahead of the general election. It also captured several trends that have run through British politics since the last general election in 2019, when Mr. Johnson’s Conservative won a landslide victory.In Selby and Ainsty, a Tory stronghold, Labour hoped to show that it has regained the trust of voters in the north and middle of England — regions it once dominated but where it lost out to the Tories in the 2019 election.The vote in Somerton and Frome was a test of the Conservative Party’s fortunes in its heartland areas of southern England, known as the “blue wall” — after the party’s campaign colors. It has been under pressure in the region from a revival of the smaller, centrist, Liberal Democrats.The Liberal Democrats have benefited from some voters, who are opposed to the Conservatives, casting their ballots strategically for whoever seems best placed to defeat the Tory candidate.Recent British elections have featured talk of a grand political realignment, with candidates emphasizing values and cultural issues. But analysts said these by-elections have been dominated by the cost-of-living crisis — kitchen-table concerns that hurt the Conservatives after more than a decade in power. More

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      Building a Legal Wall Around Donald Trump

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      The American legal system is on the cusp of a remarkable historical achievement. In real time and under immense pressure, it has responded to an American insurrection in a manner that is both meting out justice to the participants and establishing a series of legal precedents that will stand as enduring deterrents to a future rebellion. In an era when so many American institutions have failed, the success of our legal institutions in responding to a grave crisis should be a source of genuine hope.I’m writing this newsletter days after the Michigan attorney general announced the prosecution of 16 Republicans for falsely presenting themselves as the electors qualified to vote in the Electoral College for Donald Trump following the 2020 election. That news came the same day that the former president announced on Truth Social that he’d received a so-called target letter from Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. The target letter signals that the grand jury investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol is likely to indict Trump, perhaps any day now.On Monday, a day before this wave of news, the Georgia Supreme Court rejected a desperate Trump attempt to disqualify the Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis from prosecuting Trump and to quash a special grand jury report about 2020 election misconduct. Trump’s team filed their petition on July 13. The court rejected it a mere four days later. Willis can continue her work, and she’s expected to begin issuing indictments — including potentially her own Trump indictment — in August, if not sooner.Presuming another Trump indictment (or more than one) is imminent — or even if it is not — the legal response to Jan. 6 will continue. But to truly understand where we are now, it’s important to track where we’ve been. If you rewind the clock to the late evening of Jan. 6, 2021, America’s long history of a peaceful transfer of power was over, broken by a demagogue and his mob. To make matters worse, there was no straight-line path to legal accountability.Prosecuting acts of violence against police — or acts of vandalism in the Capitol — was certainly easy enough, especially since much of the violence and destruction was caught on video. But prosecuting Trump’s thugs alone was hardly enough to address the sheer scale of MAGA misconduct. What about those who helped plan and set the stage for the insurrection? What about the failed candidate who set it all in motion, Donald Trump himself?Consider the legal challenges. The stolen election narrative was promulgated by a simply staggering amount of defamation — yet defamation cases are difficult to win in a nation that strongly protects free speech. Trump’s legal campaign was conducted by unethical lawyers raising frivolous arguments — yet attorney discipline, especially stretching across multiple jurisdictions, is notoriously difficult.The list continues. Trump’s team sought to take advantage of ambiguities in the Electoral Count Act, a 19th-century statute that might be one of the most poorly written statutes in the entire federal code. In addition, Trump’s team advanced a constitutional argument called the independent state legislature doctrine that would empower legislatures to dictate or distort the outcomes of congressional and presidential elections in their states.There’s more. When we watched insurrectionists storm the Capitol, we were watching the culminating moment of a seditious conspiracy, yet prosecutions for seditious conspiracy are both rare and difficult. And finally, the entire sorry and deadly affair was instigated by an American president — and an American president had never been indicted before, much less for his role in unlawfully attempting to overturn an American election.Now, consider the response. It’s easy to look at Trump’s persistent popularity with G.O.P. voters and the unrepentant boosterism of parts of right-wing media and despair. Does anything make a difference in the fight against Trump’s lawlessness and lies? The answer is yes, and the record is impressive. Let’s go through it.The pro-Trump media ecosphere that repeated and amplified his election lies has paid a price. Fox News agreed to a stunning $787 million defamation settlement with Dominion Voting Systems, and multiple defamation cases continue against multiple right-wing media outlets.Trump’s lawyers and his lawyer allies have paid a price. Last month the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld the bulk of a sanctions award against Sidney Powell and a Mos Eisley cantina’s worth of Trump-allied lawyers. A New York State appellate court temporarily suspended Rudy Giuliani’s law license in 2021, and earlier this month a Washington, D.C., bar panel recommended that he be disbarred. Jenna Ellis, one of Guiliani’s partners in dangerous dishonesty and frivolous legal arguments, admitted to making multiple misrepresentations in a public censure from the Colorado Bar Association. John Eastman, the former dean of Chapman University’s law school and the author of an infamous legal memo that suggested Mike Pence could overturn the election, is facing his own bar trial in California.Congress has responded to the Jan. 6 crisis, passing bipartisan Electoral Count Act reforms that would make a repeat performance of the congressional attempt to overturn the election far more difficult.The Supreme Court has responded, deciding Moore v. Harper, which gutted the independent state legislature doctrine and guaranteed that partisan state legislatures are still subject to review by the courts.The criminal justice system has responded, securing hundreds of criminal convictions of Jan. 6 rioters, including seditious conspiracy convictions for multiple members of the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. And the criminal justice system is still responding, progressing steadily up the command and control chain, with Trump himself apparently the ultimate target.In roughly 30 months — light speed in legal time — the American legal system has built the case law necessary to combat and deter American insurrection. Bar associations are setting precedents. Courts are setting precedents. And these precedents are holding in the face of appeals and legal challenges.Do you wonder why the 2022 election was relatively routine and uneventful, even though the Republicans fielded a host of conspiracy-theorist candidates? Do you wonder why right-wing media was relatively tame after a series of tough G.O.P. losses, especially compared to the deranged hysterics in 2020? Yes, it matters that Trump was not a candidate, but it also matters that the right’s most lawless members have been prosecuted, sued and sanctioned.The consequences for Jan. 6 and the Stop the Steal movement are not exclusively legal. The midterm elections also represented a profound setback for the extreme MAGA right. According to an NBC News report, election-denying candidates “overwhelmingly lost” their races in swing states. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the relentless legal efforts also had a political payoff.And to be clear, this accountability has not come exclusively through the left — though the Biden administration and the Garland Justice Department deserve immense credit for their responses to Trump’s insurrection, which have been firm without overreaching. Multiple Republicans joined with Democrats to pass Electoral Count Act reform. Both conservative and liberal justices rejected the independent state legislature doctrine. Conservative and liberal judges, including multiple Trump appointees, likewise rejected Trump’s election challenges. Republican governors and other Republican elected officials in Arizona and Georgia withstood immense pressure from within their own party to uphold Joe Biden’s election win.American legal institutions have passed the Jan. 6 test so far, but the tests aren’t over. Trump is already attempting to substantially delay the trial on his federal indictment in the Mar-a-Lago case, and if a second federal indictment arrives soon, he’ll almost certainly attempt to delay it as well. Trump does not want to face a jury, and if he delays his trials long enough, he can run for president free of any felony convictions. And what if he wins?Simply put, the American people can override the rule of law. If they elect Trump in spite of his indictments, they will empower him to end his own federal criminal prosecutions and render state prosecutions a practical impossibility. They will empower him to pardon his allies. The American voters will break through the legal firewall that preserves our democracy from insurrection and rebellion.We can’t ask for too much from any legal system. A code of laws is ultimately no substitute for moral norms. Our constitutional republic cannot last indefinitely in the face of misinformation, conspiracy and violence. It can remove the worst actors from positions of power and influence. But it cannot ultimately save us from ourselves. American legal institutions have responded to a historical crisis, but all its victories could still be temporary. Our nation can choose the law, or it can choose Trump. It cannot choose both. 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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      Theme Park’s Selective History Appeals to a New Spanish Nationalism

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      Puy du Fou España has drawn visitors with spectacular shows about Spanish history. But part of its success lies in what goes unsaid.Moving through the darkened holds of a replica of Christopher Columbus’s ship, visitors on a recent afternoon marveled at the tangle of compasses, cordage and barrels. They stumbled as the ship swang and creaked with the swell of the sea. At last, a voice shouted “Land!” and the white sands of America appeared.“Our journey has changed the world. May it be for the greater glory of God,” Columbus was then heard telling Queen Isabella I of Castile. Referring to America’s Indigenous people, he added, “I apologize in advance if iniquities or injustices are committed.”And so ends one of the shows at Puy du Fou España, a historical theme park that is all the rage in Spain today, with over a million visitors expected this year.The popularity of the park has come as a surprise in a country that has long been shy about celebrating its history. Nationalist sentiments were largely taboo after the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco, who died in the 1970s.But the time that has elapsed since Franco and the recent secessionist movement in Catalonia, which threatened to fracture the country, have helped spur a resurgent nationalism in Spain. It may now give a lift to conservatives and their far-right allies when Spaniards vote in a general election on Sunday.The theme park expects more than a million visitors this year.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesThe park is filled with hallowed symbols like the cross and the flag, and most of the shows feature conquests and glorious battles to defend the country. The more questionable aspects of Spain’s past — from the bloody conquest of America that followed Columbus’s trip to Franco’s repressive rule — do not appear in more than 10 productions.“What we’re trying to do is present a history that’s not divisive,” said Erwan de la Villéon, the head of the park, noting that historical taboos continued to run through Spanish society.But the approach has raised concerns about the history that the park is highlighting instead — pageantry that emphasizes Spain’s Catholic identity and its unity against foreign invaders — and how it may shape visitors’ views.“This is a selective history,” said Gutmaro Gómez Bravo, a historian at Madrid’s Complutense University who has visited the park twice. “You can’t or shouldn’t teach that to people. History is not gratuitous — it carries major political weight.”The park was launched in 2019 after the founders of the original Puy du Fou in France, the country’s second most-visited theme park after Disneyland Paris, decided to take their concept abroad.Historians have long criticized the French park as promoting nationalist views. It similarly glosses over some of the most painful episodes in France’s past, such as its history of colonialism, and highlights the country’s Catholic identity.The founder of the French park, Philippe de Villiers, whom Mr. de la Villéon called “a mentor” and “a genius,” is a prominent far-right politician.Erwan de la Villéon, the head of Puy du Fou España, said he had sought to find unifying aspects of Spain’s history, and it was “too soon” to mention Franco’s dictatorship.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesMr. de la Villéon denied that the Spanish park promoted any political line. But he called supporters of Catalan independence his “enemies” and railed against the former prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, a Socialist who passed a memory law to honor victims of the Civil War and Franco’s repressive rule.Spain, Mr. de la Villéon said, proved an ideal place for a new park because of the country’s “great historical trajectory” of invasions and conquests. He chose to build it in Toledo, he said, because the ancient city south of Madrid once stood at the crossroads of Europe’s kingdoms.There, some 200 million euros, about $220 million, have been invested to create an impressive complex of castles, farms and medieval villages filled with terra-cotta vases and whitewashed houses with exposed beams.But it is the historical stage productions, performed in large amphitheaters, that are the big draw.“The Last Song” takes place in a rotating auditorium and follows El Cid, a knight and warlord who became Spain’s greatest medieval hero, as he fights enemies appearing successively behind large panels that open onto the semicircular stage. In “Toledo’s Dream,” the flagship evening show retracing 15 centuries of Spanish history, Columbus’s life-size ship emerges from a lake on which characters were dancing moments before.Supporters of the far-right Vox party at rally in Barcelona, Spain, in July. The party is expected to increase its vote in Sunday’s general election.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesBoth shows received the IAAPA Brass Ring award for “Best Theater Production,” considered one of the international entertainment industry’s most prestigious prizes. On a recent afternoon, visitors were ecstatic about the experience.“Great — it’s just great. I didn’t know that history could be so appealing,” said Vicente Vidal, 65, as he exited a show featuring Visigoths fighting Romans. In the park, children could be seen playing sword-fighting, shouting, “We’ll fight for our country!”Mr. de la Villéon, who is French, said the success of the park reflected a desire among Spanish people to reclaim their past. “People want to have roots, that’s the first need that the park’s success reveals,” he said. “You come here and you think, ‘Man, it’s cool to be Spanish.’”Modern Spain has an uneasy relationship with its history because of chapters such as the Inquisition and the colonization of the Americas, said Jesús Carrobles, head of Toledo’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts and Historical Sciences, who was consulted on the park project.The Cross of Burgundy, on prominent display at the park, is a longstanding symbol of the Spanish monarchy that has also been embraced by some on the far right.Samuel Aranda for The New York Times“The park allows you to reclaim an idea of your past that you can be proud of,” Mr. Carrobles said. “A beautiful past, a past that’s worth remembering.”But it has also proved to be a selective past.The shows depict Isabella I as a visionary and a merciful queen, making no mention of her order to expel Jews during the Inquisition. The Aztecs appear once in a dance scene, but their deadly fate at the hands of the conquistadors is omitted.Perhaps most telling is the park’s treatment of the Spanish Civil War, whose legacy continues to divide the country. The conflict is only vaguely mentioned at the end of “Toledo’s Dream,” when a woman mourns her brothers who “killed each other.” The scene lasts one minute, out of a 75-minute performance, and the show ends without mentioning the subsequent four-decade dictatorship of Franco.“Too soon to talk about it,” said Mr. de la Villéon, noting that memories of Francoist Spain were still raw.Some 200 million euros, or about $220 million, have been invested in creating a medieval atmosphere.Samuel Aranda for The New York Times“It’s a very consensual show, which has glossed over the questionable aspects of Spanish history,” said Jean Canavaggio, a French specialist in Cervantes who reviewed the script of “Toledo’s Dream.” He added that the park could not have succeeded had it taken a “critical look” at Spanish history, given how politically fraught that remains.Mr. de la Villéon said that he had looked for events illustrating Spain’s unity. In Puy du Fou España, they revolve around a central element: Catholicism.Nearly every show features clerics and soldiers dedicating their fights to God. In “The Mystery of Sorbaces,” a Visigoth king converts to Catholicism as his troops fall to their knees and a church rises from underground, to the sound of emotional music.Mr. de la Villéon — who makes no secret of his faith and had a small chapel set up in the park — argued that Catholicism was “the matrix” of Spanish history.A replica of Christopher Columbus’s caravel. Catholicism is central to the park’s shows.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesMr. Gómez Bravo, the historian, who specializes in the Civil War and Franco, said the park presented the Catholic reconquest of Muslim-ruled Spain as the foundation of Spanish unity. “This a very politically charged idea because it was promoted above all by Franco’s regime,” he said.Still, many in the Spanish park seemed to embrace the park’s mission.“Spain is a great country!” said Conchita Tejero, a woman in her 60s, who was seated with three friends at a large wooden table in a medieval-style tavern adorned with imperial flags. “This park is a way to reclaim our history.”Her friend, Esteban Garces, a supporter of the far-right Vox party, said he saw the park as a counterpoint to the “other history” that portrayed Spain as needing to make amends for its past.Exiting the park after nightfall, Mr. Garces said he had been delighted with “Toledo’s Dream.”“The true history,” he said.The idea that Spanish unity was founded on the Catholic reconquest was “charged,” one historian said, because that was the narrative promoted under Franco.Samuel Aranda for The New York Times 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

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      At No Labels Event, a Few Disagreements on Policy Seep In

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      Senator Joe Manchin III and former Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. stressed that they were not a third-party presidential ticket — yet. And on issues like climate and guns, they debated their views.As the ostensibly bipartisan interest group No Labels discovered on Monday, consensus campaigning and governance is all well and good until it comes time for the details.At an event at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., the group had something of a soft launch of its potential third-party bid for the presidency when Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, and Jon Huntsman Jr., the former Republican governor of Utah, formally released No Labels’ policy manifesto for political compromise.The two men took pains to say they were not the bipartisan presidential ticket of a No Labels candidacy, and that no such ticket would be formed if the Republican and Democratic nominees for 2024 would just embrace their moderation — “that won’t happen if they’re not threatened,” Mr. Manchin said threateningly.On the lofty matter of cooperation and compromise, both men were all in, as were their introducers, Joseph I. Lieberman, a former Democratic senator turned independent, Benjamin Chavis, a civil rights leader and Democrat, and Pat McCrory, a former Republican governor of North Carolina.“The common-sense majority has no voice in this country,” Mr. Huntsman said. “They just watch the three-ring circus play out.”But the dream unity ticket seemed anything but unified when it came down to the nuts and bolts.One questioner from the audience raised her concerns about worsening climate change, the extreme weather that was drenching New England and Mr. Manchin’s securing of a new natural gas pipeline in his home state.To that, Mr. Manchin fell back on his personal preference, promoted in No Labels’ manifesto, for an “all of the above” energy policy that embraced renewable energy sources, like wind and solar, as well as continued production of climate-warming fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.Mr. Huntsman jumped in to propose putting “a price on carbon,” something usually done through fossil fuel emissions taxes, to curb oil, gas and coal use, proposals that Mr. Manchin, hailing from a coal and gas state, roundly rejected.Asked about gun control, the two could not even seem to agree on the relatively modest proposals in the No Labels plan: universal background checks on firearms purchases and raising the buying age for military-style semiautomatic weapons to 21 from 18.Mr. Manchin, who co-wrote a universal background check bill in 2012 only to see it die in the Senate, said “there’s a balance to be had” in curbing gun purchases. Mr. Huntsman fell back on his party’s decade-long dodge on stricter gun regulation — mental health care.They even seemed to disagree on Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Republican from Georgia. Mr. Huntsman bristled at being asked about her statement that the United States should withdraw from NATO, saying serious policymakers are too often asked questions about “the flamethrowers.” Mr. Manchin said he would not speak ill of any sitting member of Congress.“All 535 people elected to Congress want to do good,” he said.One thing both men agreed on: No Labels need not divulge the big donors that are fueling the current drive toward a possible third-party bid for the White House. Democratic opponents of the effort have accused the group of hiding a donor list that leans heavily Republican, proof, opponents say, that the drive is all about electing former President Donald J. Trump to a second term.No Labels has denied that but declined to reveal its current donors.“I don’t think it’s right or good. I think there should be transparency and accountability,” Mr. Huntsman said of the group’s decision. “But that’s not the way you play the game.”He added, “The system sucks.” More

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      Canadian Politicians Who Criticize China Become Its Targets

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      The polls predicted a re-election victory, maybe even a landslide.But a couple of weeks before the vote, Kenny Chiu, a member of Canada’s Parliament and a critic of China’s human rights record, was panicking. Something had flipped among the ethnic Chinese voters in his British Columbia district.“Initially, they were supportive,” he said. “And all of a sudden, they just vanished, vaporized, disappeared.”Longtime supporters originally from mainland China were not returning his calls. Volunteers reported icy greetings at formerly friendly homes. Chinese-language news outlets stopped covering him. And he was facing an onslaught of attacks — from untraceable sources — on the local community’s most popular social networking app, the Chinese-owned WeChat.The sudden collapse of Mr. Chiu’s campaign — in the last federal election, in 2021 — is now drawing renewed scrutiny amid mounting evidence of China’s interference in Canadian politics.Mr. Chiu and several other elected officials critical of Beijing were targets of a Chinese state that has increasingly exerted its influence over Chinese diaspora communities worldwide as part of an aggressive campaign to expand its global reach, according to current and former elected officials, Canadian intelligence officials and experts on Chinese state disinformation campaigns.Canada recently expelled a Chinese diplomat accused of conspiring to intimidate a lawmaker from the Toronto area, Michael Chong, after he successfully led efforts in Parliament to label China’s treatment of its Uyghur Muslim community a genocide. Canada’s intelligence agency has warned at least a half-dozen current and former elected officials that they have been targeted by Beijing, including Jenny Kwan, a lawmaker from Vancouver and a critic of Beijing’s policies in Hong Kong.After Jenny Kwan, a member of Parliament, began speaking out against Beijing’s crackdown in Hong Kong and its treatment of the Uyghurs, invitations from some organizations dried up.Alana Paterson for The New York TimesThe Chinese government, employing a global playbook, disproportionately focused on Chinese Canadian elected officials representing districts in and around Vancouver and Toronto, experts say. It has leveraged large diaspora populations with family and business ties to China and ensuring that the levers of power in those communities are on its side, according to elected officials, Canadian intelligence officials and experts on Chinese disinformation.“Under Xi Jinping’s leadership, China has doubled down on this assertive nationalist policy toward the diaspora,” said Feng Chongyi, a historian and an associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney. China’s role in Canada mirrored what has happened in Australia, he added.Chinese state interference and its threat to Canada’s democracy have become national issues after an extraordinary series of leaks in recent months of intelligence reports to The Globe and Mail newspaper by a national security official who said that government officials were not taking the threat seriously enough.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has been criticized for not doing enough to combat reported interference by China, is under increasing pressure to call for a public inquiry.Current and former elected officials interviewed by national security agents said some of the intelligence appeared to stem from wiretaps of Chinese diplomats based in Canada. The Globe has said that it has based its reporting on secret and top-secret intelligence reports it has viewed.In Vancouver and two surrounding cities — Richmond and Burnaby — that are home to Canada’s largest concentration of ethnic Chinese, the reach of the Chinese Consulate and its allies has grown along with waves of immigrants from China, said longtime Chinese Canadian activists and politicians.Richmond, a city south of Vancouver, has one of Canada’s highest populations of ethnic Chinese and is believed to be a focus of China’s interference in Canadian politics.Alana Paterson for The New York TimesThe Chinese Benevolent Association, or C.B.A. — one of Vancouver’s oldest and most influential civic organizations — was a longtime supporter of Taiwan until it turned pro-Beijing in the 1980s. But it has recently become a cheerleader of some of Beijing’s most controversial policies, placing ads in Chinese-language newspapers to support the 2020 imposition of a sweeping national security law that cracked down on basic freedoms in Hong Kong.The association and the Chinese Consulate publicize close ties on their websites.A former president of the C.B.A., Hilbert Yiu, denied that the organization had any official ties to Chinese authorities, but acknowledged that the association tended to support China’s policies, arguing that Beijing’s human rights record was “a lot better” than in the past.Mr. Yiu, who remains on the C.B.A.’s board, said stories of Chinese state interference in Canadian politics were spread by losing candidates.“I think it doesn’t exist,” Mr. Yiu said, adding instead that Western nations were afraid of “China being strong.”Mr. Yiu, who as a host on a local Chinese-language radio station also pushes pro-Beijing views, was an overseas delegate in 2017 to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, an advisory body to the Chinese government that Beijing uses to win over and reward supporters who are not members of the Communist Party.The leaders of the C.B.A. — whose opinions hold sway, especially among immigrants not fully comfortable in English — say their organization is politically neutral.But in recent years, it and other ethnic Chinese organizations have excluded politicians critical of Beijing from events, including Ms. Kwan, the Vancouver lawmaker. A member of the left-leaning New Democratic Party, Ms. Kwan has represented, first as a provincial legislator and then at the federal level, a Vancouver district that includes Chinatown since 1996.But after Ms. Kwan began speaking out in 2019 against Beijing’s crackdown in Hong Kong and its treatment of the Uyghurs, invitations dried up — including to events in her district, like a Lunar New Year celebration.“Inviting the local member of Parliament is standard protocol,” Ms. Kwan said. “But in instances where I’ve not been invited to attend — whether or not that’s related to foreign interference are questions that I have.”Fred Kwok, another former C.B.A. president, said Ms. Kwan was not invited to the Lunar New Year celebration because the coronavirus pandemic forced organizers to hold the event virtually and there was “limited time.”Later that year, a couple of months before the federal election, Mr. Kwok held a luncheon for 100 people at a well-known seafood restaurant in Chinatown to support Ms. Kwan’s rival. Mr. Kwok said he was acting on his own behalf and not as the C.B.A.’s leader.Richard Lee, a councilor in Burnaby and a former provincial legislator, faced far worse.Mr. Lee, who immigrated to Canada from China in 1997, and was elected in 2001 to the provincial legislature, became known for supporting local businesses and never missing ribbon-cutting events. He also faithfully attended an annual commemoration of the massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in 1989.Richard Lee, a city councilor in British Columbia, said he was asked by a former Chinese consul general why he attended an event marking the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Alana Paterson for The New York TimesIt was once a low-key event, but with Mr. Xi in power, many participants started wearing masks to hide their identities, fearing reprisals from Beijing.Mr. Lee’s attendance became an issue at a barbecue party in the summer of 2015 when he said that the consul general at the time, Liu Fei, asked him, “Why do you keep attending those events?”Later, in November, Mr. Lee and his wife, Anne, flew to Shanghai. At the airport, he said he was separated from his wife and detained for seven hours while the authorities searched his personal cellphone and a government-issued Blackberry.He asked why and said he was told: “‘You know what you have done. We believe you could endanger our national security.’”He and his wife were put on a plane back to Canada.In Burnaby, the political climate shifted. He was no longer invited to some events because organizers told him that the consul general did not want to attend if Mr. Lee was also present. Longtime supporters started keeping their distance. Mr. Lee said he believed the icy treatment contributed to the loss of his seat in 2017, after 16 years in office.A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa did not reply to questions about the consulate’s alleged actions in Vancouver, saying only that “China never interferes in other countries’ internal affairs” and that accusations of interference were an “out-and-out smear of China.”But China’s former consul general in Vancouver, Tong Xiaoling, boasted in 2021, according to The Globe, about helping defeat two Conservative lawmakers, including one she described as a “vocal distractor” of the Chinese government: Kenny Chiu.After arriving from Hong Kong in 1992, Mr. Chiu settled in Richmond, where more than half of the population of 208,000 is made up of ethnic Chinese. He was elected to Parliament in 2019 as a Conservative.Mr. Chiu, 58, quickly touched on two issues that appeared to put him in the cross hairs of Beijing and its local supporters: criticizing Beijing’s crackdown in Hong Kong and proposing a bill to create a registry of foreign agents, inspired by one established by Australia in 2018.Mr. Chiu proposed a bill to create a registry of foreign agents, among the issues that put him in the cross hairs of China and its supporters.Alana Paterson for The New York TimesThe anonymous attacks against him on Chinese social media amplified criticism of the bill among some Canadians that it would unfairly single out Chinese Canadians.A month before the federal election in September 2021, the polls instilled confidence in Mr. Chiu’s campaign staff.But in the final 10 days, Mr. Chiu relayed growing concerns to his campaign manager, Jordon Wood: cooling response from ethnic Chinese voters and increasingly hostile and personal anonymous attacks. The attacks, which were going viral on WeChat, painted his bill as a racist assault on Chinese Canadians and Mr. Chiu as a traitor to his community.Mr. Wood recalled a frantic late-night call from Mr. Chiu after a searing meeting with Chinese Canadian voters.“‘Our community is more polite than this,’” Mr. Wood recalled Mr. Chiu telling him. “Even if you don’t like someone, you don’t go after them in this way. This was a level of rudeness and attack beyond what we would expect.”The attacks on WeChat drew the attention of experts on disinformation campaigns by China and its proxies.The attacks were driven by countless, untraceable human and artificial intelligence bots, said Benjamin Fung, a cybersecurity expert and a professor at McGill University in Montreal.Their proliferation made them especially effective because ethnic Chinese voters depend on WeChat to communicate, said Mr. Fung, who assessed Mr. Chiu’s case shortly after the vote.Less than a week before the vote, a Canadian internet watchdog, DisinfoWatch, noted the attacks against Mr. Chiu on WeChat.“My assumption was that this was a coordinated campaign,” said Charles Burton, a former Canadian diplomat in Beijing and senior fellow at an Ottawa-based research group behind DisinfoWatch.Mr. Chiu made last-ditch efforts to save his campaign, including meeting a group of older people who echoed the attacks against him and his bill on WeChat.“Why would I subjugate my grandchildren to generations of persecution and discrimination?” Mr. Chiu recalled being asked.The next day, he saw social media photographs of the same people publicly backing his main rival from the Liberal Party, Parm Bains, the eventual winner. Mr. Bains declined to comment.Mr. Chiu asked allies to reach out to local leaders who had suddenly dropped him, including prominent members of a Richmond-based umbrella group, the Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations. Its leader, Kady Xue, did not respond to messages seeking comment.Chak Au, a veteran city councilor nicknamed the “Chinese Mayor of Richmond” and a longtime ally of Mr. Chiu, pressed ethnic Chinese leaders about the sudden erosion of support.“There was a kind of silence,” Mr. Au said. “Nobody wanted to talk about it.”He added, “They didn’t want to create trouble.” More