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      Choose Wisely, Choose Often: Ranked-Choice Voting Returns to New York

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      The new voting system was used in the mayor’s race in 2021. It is back this month for the primary races for the City Council.The last time New Yorkers went to the polls, they had to contemplate a governor’s race and a slew of congressional races in the critical 2022 midterm elections.But there was one variable that they did not have to deal with: ranked-choice voting, which had been used the previous year in the mayoral election.For the City Council races on the ballot this year, ranked-choice voting returns for the June 27 primaries, with early voting beginning Saturday, June 17.Here’s what you need to know about the voting system:Ranked-choice voting was used in the 2021 primaries in New York City.Desiree Rios for The New York TimesHow does ranked-choice voting work?The voting system, overwhelmingly approved by the city’s voters in 2019, is used in primary and special elections for mayor, public advocate, comptroller, borough president and the City Council.Under ranked-choice voting, voters can list up to five candidates on their ballots in order of preference.If a candidate receives more than 50 percent of first-choice votes in the first round, they win.If no candidate does, the winner is decided by a process of elimination: The lowest-polling candidate is removed from each round, and their votes are reallocated to whichever candidate those voters ranked next until only two candidates are left. The candidate with the most votes wins.That might sound complicated. But all you need to know as a voter is this: Rank your favorite candidate first and then pick as many as four other choices, in order of preference.How Does Ranked-Choice Voting Work in New York?New Yorkers first used the new voting system in the mayor’s race in 2021. Confused? We can help.Did the voting system help Eric Adams become mayor?Maybe.Mr. Adams had expressed doubts about ranked-choice voting, but it might have helped him win — even if the process was messy.Initially, early unofficial results showed Mr. Adams with a narrow lead. But then election officials announced they had miscounted the ballots. A new tabulation still found that Mr. Adams had collected the most first-round votes, but he was not declared the winner until weeks later, when voters’ secondary choices were tabulated.Under the old system, Mr. Adams would have faced a runoff because he did not receive at least 40 percent of votes. In a runoff, he would have faced his closest first-round rival in the 2021 Democratic primary: Maya Wiley, a lawyer and MSNBC contributor. Voters would have faced a clear choice between two candidates, and it is not clear who might have won.But after voters’ ranked choices were considered, Ms. Wiley was eliminated, and in the last round, only Mr. Adams and Kathryn Garcia, the city’s former sanitation commissioner, remained.Mr. Adams won the primary by a slim margin: only 7,197 votes. The ranked-choice system also aided Ms. Garcia; she was in third place after the initial count of first-place votes, but moved up to second as other candidates were eliminated, and their supporters’ votes were reallocated.Will ranked-choice be a factor in the Council primaries?Every member of the 51-member City Council is running to keep their seat, including candidates who won two years ago under unusual rules that were part of the City Charter.Less than half of races are being contested, and of those, 13 races feature more than two candidates — making ranked-choice voting necessary.The most interesting of those races is in Harlem, where the current council member, Kristin Richardson Jordan, a democratic socialist, recently bowed out of the race.Are there benefits to ranked-choice voting?Proponents say the system enables people to more fully express their preferences and to have a greater chance of not wasting their vote on a less popular candidate. Voters can leave a candidate they really don’t like off their ballot and make sure their vote helps one of their opponents.There is also evidence that ranked-choice voting encourages more candidates to run, especially women and people of color, and that it discourages negative campaigning, since candidates are no longer competing for a person’s only vote.Candidates sometimes cross endorse each other to boost like-minded allies. Some political experts believe that if Ms. Garcia and Ms. Wiley had cross-endorsed each other in the primary, one of them would have become New York City’s first female mayor.Ranked-choice voting is used in Maine and Alaska, and in dozens of cities including San Francisco and Minneapolis. Opponents believe that it confuses many voters, and may discourage some to vote.Will cross-endorsements be a factor this year?Yes.Just days before early voting started, two Democratic candidates in the competitive City Council race in Harlem endorsed each other: Yusef Salaam, an activist who was wrongly imprisoned in the Central Park rape case, and Al Taylor, a state assemblyman.The move appeared aimed at stopping Inez E. Dickens, a Democratic state assemblywoman who formerly held the Council seat. More

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      De Blasio Owes City $475,000 for Bringing Police on Presidential Campaign

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      New York City’s Conflicts of Interest Board said the former mayor must reimburse the city for police officers’ travel, and pay a record fine.Bill de Blasio, the former mayor of New York City, must reimburse the city nearly $320,000 and pay a $155,000 fine for bringing his security detail on trips during his failed presidential campaign, the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board ordered on Thursday.The hefty fine and repayment — both the highest penalty and the largest amount the board said it has ever issued — may be the most lasting impact to date of Mr. de Blasio’s doomed run for president.The former mayor’s campaign lasted just four months in 2019 and damaged his standing with city residents, who griped that their mayor was making an ill-considered play for national relevance at the expense of addressing problems at home.According to the Conflicts of Interest Board, the city spent $319,794.20 in travel-related costs for members of Mr. de Blasio’s security detail to accompany either him or his wife, Chirlane McCray, on 31 out-of-state trips related to the campaign. The expenses included airfare, car rentals, overnight lodging, meals and other incidentals.Shortly before Mr. de Blasio launched his campaign, the board — an independent body with five members appointed by the mayor, comptroller and public advocate — told Mr. de Blasio that the city could pay for salary and overtime for his security detail. But it advised him that paying for the officers’ travel costs would be a “misuse of city resources,” it said.But Mr. de Blasio did not heed the board’s guidance, it said. His failure to do so was one of several issues addressed in a 47-page report by the city’s Department of Investigation, which found that Mr. de Blasio misused public resources for both political and personal purposes, including having a police van and officers help move his daughter to Gracie Mansion.Jocelyn Strauber, the investigations commissioner, said in a statement that the Conflicts of Interest Board’s order backed her department’s report and showed “that public officials — including the most senior — will be held accountable when they violate the rules.”The board, which still has two members appointed by Mr. de Blasio, ordered the former mayor to repay the expenses borne by the city and fined him $5,000 for each out-of-state trip.Mr. de Blasio’s presidential campaign reported having just $1,422.76 on hand in its last filing with the Federal Election Commission, in December 2020. A political action committee associated with Mr. de Blasio, Fairness PAC, last reported having more than $32,000 in debt and less than $3,000 on hand.Mr. de Blasio, who ran New York City from 2014 through 2021, was plagued by ethics questions during his time in office. He was the subject of a number of investigations into whether his fund-raising methods violated the city’s ethics law, a ban against soliciting contributions from people who had business in front of the city.In April, the Federal Election Commission fined his presidential campaign for accepting improper contributions from two political action committees he and others had set up.Since leaving his post, Mr. de Blasio made a short-lived run for an open House seat that ended after two months on the campaign trail. (His House campaign reported having roughly $156,000 in its coffers at the end of March, but it is not clear whether he could use that money to pay expenses associated with his presidential run.)Mr. de Blasio left politics behind and moved into academia, becoming a visiting teaching fellow at Harvard University and teaching a class at New York University.He has recently become more candid about his time in office. In an uncommonly frank interview with New York Magazine published on Wednesday, Mr. de Blasio opened up about criticisms he received as mayor, including an infamous moment when he dropped a groundhog in 2014. He also expressed some regret about seeking the presidency.“It was a mistake,” he said. “I think my values were the right values, and I think I had something to offer, but it was not right on a variety of levels.”Mr. de Blasio did not respond to a message seeking comment. One of his lawyers, Andrew G. Celli Jr., said in a statement that Mr. de Blasio’s legal team had already filed a lawsuit to appeal the ruling and block the board’s order. He accused the board of breaking “decades of N.Y.P.D. policy and precedent” and violating the Constitution.“In the wake of the January 6th insurrection, the shootings of Congress members Giffords and Scalise, and almost daily threats directed at local leaders around the country, the C.O.I.B.’s action — which seeks to saddle elected officials with security costs that the city has properly borne for decades — is dangerous, beyond the scope of their powers, and illegal,” Mr. Celli said. More

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      Election Probe in Thailand Targets Pita Limjaroenrat

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      Activists say the case against the candidate, Pita Limjaroenrat, is part of a broader effort to nullify election results and further erode democracy in Thailand.Thailand’s Election Commission has announced that it will investigate Pita Limjaroenrat, the front-runner in the May general election, to determine whether he violated election rules that would disqualify him from becoming the country’s next prime minister.The investigation, announced last week, is centered on Mr. Pita’s shares of iTV, a company that used to be a news broadcaster but is now focused on advertising. Mr. Pita, 42, said he inherited the shares from his father. Thai law prohibits parliamentary candidates from owning media shares.Thailand’s Election Commission said it needs 60 days to certify the results of the vote, after which the House of Representatives and the military-appointed Senate are expected to jointly vote for the prime minister in August.But a month after Thai voters delivered a stinging rebuke to the military junta and handed Mr. Pita’s Move Forward Party a decisive victory, his fate as an elected leader remained unclear. Here’s what to know about the investigation.What’s at stake?Activists say the case against Mr. Pita and the Move Forward Party is part of a broader effort to roll back the results of the election and erode democracy in Thailand.The May election had a record turnout and was seen by many to be a vote against military rule. It also showed broad support for Move Forward, one of the few major political parties in Southeast Asia with a progressive platform.Arnon Nampa, a prominent Thai human rights lawyer, wrote on Facebook on Saturday that “people will take to the streets if the Thai elite makes elections meaningless.”Mr. Pita’s party wants to overhaul the old power structures that have dominated Thailand for decades, shrink the military’s budget, eliminate conscription and weaken a law that criminalizes criticism of the Thai monarchy.Move Forward has also said it wants to abolish monopolies, threatening the fortunes of the country’s wealthy aristocrats.What happens next?On June 20, a Senate committee will review the election commission’s order to investigate Mr. Pita, according to Senator Seree Suwanpanont.A former elections commissioner, Somchai Srisutthiyakorn, said the iTV case could go to the Constitutional Court if at least 50 members of Parliament or 25 senators sign a petition against Mr. Pita’s bid for prime minister.Even before this case, Mr. Pita was contending with an obstinate Senate unlikely to support him as prime minister. Mr. Somchai wrote on Facebook that now, the investigation could result in more senators refusing to back him.If Mr. Pita’s bid for prime minister fails, Pheu Thai, the second-largest party in Mr. Pita’s coalition, could field a candidate on its own as an alternative. Many expect Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the youngest daughter of Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister now living in exile, to be in the running.Pheu Thai could also break away from Move Forward to form a new coalition that is more aligned with conservative parties. Pheu Thai has denied such plans.Has this happened before?Mr. Pita’s case echoes one filed against his predecessor, Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, in 2019. That year, the Constitutional Court disqualified Mr. Thanathorn from elected office because he was found to have held shares in a media company. He argued unsuccessfully that he had sold the shares to his mother before running for Parliament.Mr. Thanathorn was the leader of the Future Forward Party, which was disbanded in 2020 by the Constitutional Court and is the predecessor of the Move Forward Party.Last week, the Election Commission dismissed several complaints from critics of Mr. Pita seeking to disqualify his candidacy, but the commission decided to launch its own criminal probe to find out if Mr. Pita ran for Parliament knowing he was ineligible because of his iTV shares.If he is found guilty, Mr. Pita could face up to 10 years in prison and a 20-year ban on voting.On Tuesday, Mr. Pita told reporters that he was confident about his legal standing, saying the investigation “will not be an obstacle to me becoming Thailand’s 30th prime minister.”On Thursday, iTV said that the minutes of the meeting did not intend to imply that it was still operating as a media company.What are the details of the complaint?Politicians from the Move Forward Party have said the case is a blatant attempt to prevent them from forming a new government and taking back power from the conservative establishment and military-appointed Senate.Earlier this month, Mr. Pita posted on Facebook that iTV had not operated as a media company since March 2007.Thailand has been roiled by a leaked audio recording released last weekend of an April 26 iTV shareholders’ meeting. In the recording, the president of the company tells a shareholder that iTV is no longer in the media business.But the recording contradicts the minutes of the same meeting, in which the president calls iTV a media entity. Those minutes have been submitted in the complaint against Mr. Pita.In his Facebook post, Mr. Pita said that the shareholder raised the question a few days before he applied to run for prime minister and suggested that the inquiry was politically motivated.Muktita Suhartono More

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      Berlusconi’s Legacy Lives On Beyond Italy’s Borders

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      Silvio Berlusconi rose when political parties were weakened and carried on through a cascade of scandals. Leaders like Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro have had similar trajectories.In a strange bit of synergy, both the indictment of former U.S. President Donald Trump and the death of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy took place this week. Berlusconi, arguably, was the O.G. of populist leaders whose political careers carried on through a cascade of scandals and criminal cases.Both are examples of how the weakening of mainstream political parties can open the field for charismatic outsiders with a populist bent.In the early 1990s, Italy’s national “clean hands” investigation revealed that wide-ranging corruption had infected business, public works and politics, and found that the country’s political parties were largely financed by bribes. The two parties that had dominated Italian politics since the fall of fascism, the Christian Democrats and the Socialists, collapsed after a wave of indictments. So did nearly every other established political party.“The party system that was the anchor of the democratic regime in the postwar period basically crumbled,” Ken Roberts, a Cornell University political scientist, told me a few years ago. “What you end up with is a political vacuum that gets filled by a populist outsider in Berlusconi.”That 2017 conversation with Roberts, notably, was focused on another country, where another corruption scandal was opening the path to power for another right-wing outsider: Brazil, where an obscure lawmaker named Jair Bolsonaro was just starting to gain national traction in the wake of the Carwash corruption investigation.“I really worry that in cleaning it up, the whole system is going to crumble,” Roberts said at the time. “I really fear what a Brazilian Berlusconi is going to look like.”In another conversation this week, Roberts recalled that back then, most analysts did not yet take Bolsonaro seriously. “But he was beginning to stir, and my quote to you was in anticipation of his rise,” he said.“I think it holds up pretty well over time,” he added.A year after Roberts and I first spoke, Bolsonaro was elected president after running on a far-right platform that included opposition to same-sex marriage and fulsome praise for Brazil’s former military dictatorship.As his term neared its close, he spent more than a year warning that he might not accept the results of the 2022 election if he failed to win. When he lost, he made baseless claims of fraud. A mob of his supporters eventually overran federal buildings in Brasília, the capital, in a failed effort to prevent the candidate who won the vote, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, from taking office.Bolsonaro is now set to face trial next week over his electoral fraud claims.Other examples of this pattern aren’t hard to find. In Venezuela, a series of corruption scandals opened a power vacuum that Hugo Chávez easily filled with populist appeals, leading to to an authoritarian government that, by the time of his death, oversaw a country racked by crises. In Guatemala, after a corruption investigation forced President Otto Pérez Molina out of office in 2015, he was replaced by Jimmy Morales, a charismatic television comedian with no political experience who ran on the slogan “not corrupt, nor a thief,” as president. When the U.N.-backed group that had investigated Molina began looking into Morales as well, he expelled it from the country.The United States has not had a massive corruption scandal that sent politicians to courtrooms and jail cells and decimated faith in its political parties. But, as I discussed in columns in April and May, Trump rose to power after the Republican Party was profoundly weakened by other factors, including campaign finance laws that allowed big-money donors to circumvent the party, and the rise of social media that meant the party was no longer a gatekeeper for press and messaging access.That kind of institutional weakness creates an opening for outsider politicians who might once have been kept out of politics by robust political parties. But more specifically, it also privileges a certain type of candidate, who has celebrity name recognition (perhaps a celebrity entertainer like Morales, a famous businessman like Berlusconi, or one like Trump, who bridges both worlds), charisma, and a willingness to win votes and headlines by embracing positions that would be taboo for mainstream candidates.Unfortunately, it is rare for such politicians to also be good at building new, strong institutions to replace those whose decay enabled their rise to power.In Italy, Berlusconi presided over and helped maintain decades of weak coalition governments and political turmoil, not to mention the multiple corruption scandals he landed in. And that chaos looks set to outlive him.“Even in death,” my colleague Jason Horowitz, the Rome bureau chief of The Times, wrote this week, “Berlusconi had the power to potentially destabilize the political universe and Ms. Meloni’s governing coalition, of which his party, Forza Italia, is a small but critical linchpin.”Thank you for being a subscriberRead past editions of the newsletter here.If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Browse all of our subscriber-only newsletters here.I’d love your feedback on this newsletter. Please email thoughts and suggestions to interpreter@nytimes.com. You can also follow me on Twitter. More

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      José Rubén Zamora mostró la corrupción en Guatemala y enfrenta prisión

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      Durante años, elPeriódico denunció los manejos indebidos del gobierno. El juicio a su fundador se produce, aseguran los críticos, cuando la democracia en el país se desmorona.Para los activistas que defienden la libertad de prensa y los derechos humanos en Guatemala, el miércoles se perfila como un indicador clave de la tambaleante salud democrática del país.En un tribunal de la capital del país, se espera un veredicto en el juicio de uno de los periodistas más destacados de Guatemala, un caso ampliamente visto como otra señal del deterioro del estado de derecho en el país centroamericano.El periodista, José Rubén Zamora, fue el fundador y director de elPeriódico, un diario líder en Guatemala que investigaba con regularidad la corrupción gubernamental, incluidas las acusaciones contra el actual presidente, Alejandro Giammattei, y la fiscal general, María Consuelo Porras.Zamora es juzgado por cargos de irregularidades financieras que, según los fiscales, se centran en sus negocios y no en su periodismo. Un panel de jueces emitirá un veredicto y, si es declarado culpable, impondrá una sentencia.Una condena, que muchos observadores legales y el mismo Zamora dicen es el resultado probable, sería otro golpe a la frágil democracia de Guatemala, según los defensores de los derechos civiles, ya que el gobierno y sus aliados han apuntado repetidamente a instituciones clave y medios de comunicación independientes.El juicio también se produce cuando el país se dirige hacia una elección presidencial este mes que ha estado plagada de irregularidades, con cuatro candidatos de la oposición descalificados antes de la carrera.“El estado de derecho está roto”, dijo Ana María Méndez, directora para Centroamérica de WOLA, un instituto de investigación con sede en Washington. El caso de Zamora, agregó, representa “un paso más hacia la consolidación de una dictadura” en Guatemala.Sin embargo, a diferencia de otros países centroamericanos, como Nicaragua y El Salvador, donde la democracia también se ha erosionado, el poder en Guatemala no se concentra en una familia o un individuo, dijo Méndez.En Guatemala, agregó, “el autoritarismo se ejerce por redes ilícitas que están conformadas por la élite económica, la élite militar y el crimen organizado en contubernio con la clase política”.Zamora, de 66 años, ha negado repetidamente haber actuado mal y acusó al gobierno de tratar de silenciar a sus críticos.“Soy un preso político”, dijo a los periodistas el 2 de mayo, el día en que comenzó su juicio. Señaló que esperaba que el proceso termine con un veredicto de culpabilidad y agregó: “Me van a sentenciar”.Durante su cargo al frente de elPeriódico, Zamora fue demandado decenas de veces, principalmente por difamación, por parte del gobierno como resultado de la cobertura del diario.Las máquinas prensa guardaban silencio el mes pasado en las oficinas de elPeriódico en Ciudad de Guatemala. El periódico cerró después de que el gobierno congelara sus finanzas.Simone Dalmasso para The New York TimesPero su enfrentamiento legal más serio con las autoridades se inició en julio pasado, cuando fue acusado de lavado de dinero, tráfico de influencias y chantaje.Como parte del caso de la fiscalía, las cuentas bancarias de elPeriódico fueron congeladas, lo que dificultó su economía antes de que cerrara sus puertas definitivamente el mes pasado.El principal testigo del caso fue un exbanquero, Ronald Giovanni García Navarijo, quien dijo a los fiscales que Zamora le pidió que lavara 300.000 quetzales guatemaltecos, o casi 40.000 dólares. También afirmó que Zamora lo había obligado a pautar publicidad de paga anual en el periódico para evitar recibir una cobertura poco halagüeña.Pero la acusación no presentó ninguna prueba que demostrara que Zamora hubiera obtenido el dinero de manera ilegal. La mayor parte de los fondos, que según Zamora eran para pagar los salarios de los empleados del periódico, provenían de un empresario que no quería que se revelara su conexión con elPeriódico por temor a represalias.Su defensa se vio obstaculizada por varias medidas tomadas por los fiscales y una organización de extrema derecha que apoya al fiscal general, la Fundación Contra el Terrorismo, que según los críticos ha tratado de intimidar a algunos de los abogados de Zamora.Pasó por nueve abogados defensores, y al menos cuatro han sido acusados ​​de obstrucción de la justicia por su papel en el caso.“La defensa de Zamora se ha visto obstaculizada desde el primer día por una puerta giratoria de abogados defensores”, dijo Stephen Townley, director legal de la iniciativa TrialWatch de la Fundación Clooney para la Justicia, un grupo defensor de derechos. “Cuatro de sus abogados han sido procesados ​​por las autoridades guatemaltecas. Otros parecían no tener acceso a los materiales de sus predecesores”.Un juez que había estado presidiendo el caso anteriormente no permitió que Zamora presentara ningún testigo y rechazó la mayoría de las pruebas que trató de presentar por considerarlas irrelevantes.“Hemos visto un montaje’’, dijo Zamora en una entrevista, “como un teatro de terror”.El hijo de Zamora, José Carlos Zamora, quien también es periodista, calificó el juicio como “una persecución política”.Por su parte, Giammattei, refiriéndose al caso contra Zamora, ha dicho que ser periodista no le da a una persona el “derecho a cometer actos criminales”.El presidente Alejandro Giammattei se encontraba entre las principales figuras guatemaltecas investigadas por el periódico de Zamora.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesAun así, su gobierno ha sido acusado por grupos de derechos humanos de usar el sistema de justicia para atacar a cualquiera que lo desafíe.Los casos de corrupción y derechos humanos se han estancado y el sistema de justicia ha sido “secuestrado” por una red de actores corruptos, según un informe de WOLA.Desde 2021, casi tres decenas de jueces, fiscales anticorrupción y sus abogados han huido de Guatemala, al igual que 22 periodistas que dijeron haber sido amenazados por su trabajo.Cuando se fundó elPeriódico en 1996, Guatemala estaba entrando en un período más esperanzador luego de una brutal guerra civil que duró casi cuatro décadas y dejó cientos de miles de muertos o desaparecidos. Para muchos guatemaltecos agotados, existía la sensación de que la democracia se estaba afianzando y que el gobierno gobernaría con transparencia.Un panel internacional de investigadores respaldado por la ONU trabajó 12 años junto con el poder judicial de Guatemala para exponer la corrupción en la élite del país, incluidos altos funcionarios gubernamentales y empresarios, antes de ser expulsado del país en 2019 por el presidente anterior, a quien el panel estaba investigando.“Lo que vemos hoy es un sistema que quiere seguir protegiendo esa clase de prácticas”, dijo Daniel Haering, analista político en Ciudad de Guatemala.El caso de Zamora y la desaparición de su periódico hacen retroceder los esfuerzos para hacer que el gobierno rinda cuentas por sus acciones, dijo Méndez.“¿Quién va a decir ahora la verdad en Guatemala?”, dijo. “Quedará un vacío enorme”.Zamora con su abogada el día de la apertura de su juicio el mes pasado. No se le permitió presentar ningún testigo ni la mayor parte de las pruebas en su defensa.Santiago Billy/Associated PressEl juicio de Zamora termina cuando el país se prepara para las elecciones nacionales del 25 de junio, que según los grupos de derechos civiles ya se han visto empañadas después de que los jueces en los últimos meses prohibieron la participación a cuatro candidatos presidenciales de partidos de oposición.Entre ellos estaba Carlos Pineda, un populista conservador, que se había comprometido a luchar contra la corrupción y que, según una encuesta reciente, había ascendido a puntero. El tribunal supremo de Guatemala lo retiró de la contienda por acusaciones de que los métodos que usó el partido de Pineda para elegirlo como su candidato habían violado la ley electoral.El caso de Zamora también ha entrampado a los periodistas simplemente por cubrirlo. Ocho reporteros, editores y columnistas están siendo investigados por obstrucción a la justicia tras escribir sobre el proceso para elPeriódico. La mayoría se ha ido de Guatemala.Desde que Giammattei asumió el cargo en enero de 2020, el Asociación de Periodistas de Guatemala ha documentado 472 casos de hostigamiento, agresiones físicas, intimidación y censura contra la prensa.“De inmediato te preguntas: ‘¿En qué momento mis coberturas son interpretadas como un delito?’”, dijo Claudia Méndez, quien trabajó en elPeriódico como reportera y editora y ahora conduce un programa de radio. “‘¿En qué momento mi labor es ya no un ejercicio de crítica y rendición de cuentas, sino visto como un acto ilícito?’”. More

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      He Exposed Corruption in Guatemala. Now He Faces Prison.

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      The trial of José Rubén Zamora, the founder of a newspaper that long shone a spotlight on government graft, comes as critics say democracy in Guatemala is crumbling.For activists defending press freedom and human rights in Guatemala, Wednesday looms as a key gauge of the country’s wobbly democratic health.In a courtroom in the country’s capital, a verdict is expected in the trial of one of Guatemala’s most high-profile journalists, a case widely seen as another sign of the deteriorating rule of law in the Central American country.The journalist, José Rubén Zamora, was the founder and publisher of elPeriódico, a leading newspaper in Guatemala that regularly investigated government corruption, including accusations involving the current president, Alejandro Giammattei, and the attorney general, María Consuelo Porras.He stands trial on charges of financial wrongdoing that prosecutors say focus on his business dealing and not his journalism. A panel of judges will deliver a verdict and, if he is found guilty, will impose a sentence.A conviction, which many legal observers and Mr. Zamora himself say is the likely outcome, would be another blow to Guatemala’s already fragile democracy, according to civil rights advocates, as the government and its allies have taken repeated aim at key institutions and independent news media outlets.The trial also comes as the country heads toward a presidential election this month that has already been plagued by irregularities, with four opposition candidates disqualified ahead of the race.“The rule of law is broken,” said Ana María Méndez, the Central America director at WOLA, a Washington-based research institute. Mr. Zamora’s case represents, she added, yet another “step toward the consolidation of a dictatorship” in Guatemala.Unlike other Central American countries, like Nicaragua and El Salvador, where democracy has also eroded, however, power is not concentrated in a family or an individual, Ms. Méndez said.In Guatemala, she added, “authoritarianism is exercised by illicit networks made up of the economic elite, the military elite and organized crime in collusion with the political class.”Mr. Zamora, 66, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and accused the government of trying to silence its critics.“I am a political prisoner,” he told reporters on May 2, the day his trial started. He said he fully expected it would end with a guilty verdict, adding, “I will be sentenced.”During his tenure running elPeriódico, Mr. Zamora was sued scores of times, mostly for slander, by the government as a result of the newspaper’s coverage.The presses were silent last month at the elPeriódico newspaper offices in Guatemala City. The newspaper shut down last month after the government froze its finances.Simone Dalmasso for The New York TimesBut his most serious legal confrontation with authorities was set in motion last July, when he was charged with money laundering, influence peddling and blackmail.As part of the prosecution’s case, elPeriódico’s bank accounts were frozen, hobbling its finances before it finally closed its doors for good last month.The main witness in the case was a former banker, Ronald Giovanni García Navarijo, who told prosecutors that Mr. Zamora asked him to launder 300,000 Guatemalan quetzales, or nearly $40,000. He also claimed that Mr. Zamora had forced him to place annual paid advertising in the newspaper to avoid receiving unflattering coverage.But the prosecution did not present any evidence showing that Mr. Zamora had obtained the money illegally. Most of the funds, which Mr. Zamora has said was to pay the salaries of the newspaper’s employees, had come from a businessman who did not want his connection to elPeriódico disclosed for fear of reprisals.His defense was hampered by various steps taken by prosecutors and a far-right organization that supports the attorney general, the Foundation Against Terrorism, which critics say has tried to intimidate some of Mr. Zamora’s lawyers.He cycled through nine defense lawyers, and at least four have been charged with obstruction of justice for their role in the case.“Zamora’s defense has been hamstrung from day one by a revolving door of defense lawyers,” said Stephen Townley, legal director of the TrialWatch initiative at the Clooney Foundation for Justice, a rights group. “Four of his lawyers have been prosecuted by the Guatemalan authorities. Others then seemed not to have access to their predecessors’ materials.”A judge who had been presiding over the case earlier in the process did not allow Mr. Zamora to present any witnesses and rejected most of the evidence he tried to submit, deeming it irrelevant.“We have seen,’’ Mr. Zamora said in an interview, “a theater of terror.”Mr. Zamora’s son, José Carlos Zamora, who is also a journalist, called the trial a “political persecution.’’For his part, Mr. Giammattei, referring to the case against Mr. Zamora, has said that being a journalist does not give a person the “right to commit criminal acts.’’President Alejandro Giammattei was among the leading Guatemalan figures being investigated by Mr. Zamora’s newspaper.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesStill, his administration has been accused by human rights groups of using the justice system to target anyone who challenges his government.Corruption and human rights cases have stalled and the justice system has been “hijacked” by a network of corrupt actors, according to a report by WOLA.Since 2021, nearly three dozen judges, anti-corruption prosecutors and their lawyers have fled Guatemala, as have 22 journalists who say they had been threatened because of their work.When elPeriódico was founded in 1996, Guatemala was entering a more hopeful period following a brutal civil war that lasted nearly four decades and left hundreds of thousands dead or missing. For many weary Guatemalans, there was a feeling that democracy was taking hold and the government would rule with transparency.A U.N.-backed international panel of investigators spent 12 years working alongside Guatemala’s judiciary to expose graft among the country’s elite, including top government officials and businessmen, before being expelled from the country in 2019 by the previous president whom the panel was investigating.“What we see today is a system that wants to continue to protect’’ criminal behavior, said Daniel Haering, a political analyst in Guatemala City.Mr. Zamora’s case and the demise of his newspaper sets back efforts to hold the government accountable for its actions, Ms. Méndez said.“Who’s going to tell the truth in Guatemala now?” she said. “There will be a huge void left.”Mr. Zamora with his lawyer on the opening day of his trial last month. He had not been allowed to present any witnesses or submit most of the evidence in his defense.Santiago Billy/Associated PressMr. Zamora’s trial ends as the country prepares for national elections on June 25, which civil rights groups say have already been tarnished after judges in recent months banned four presidential candidates from opposition parties from the vote.Among those was Carlos Pineda, a conservative populist, who had pledged to fight corruption and who a recent poll showed had risen to the top of the field. Guatemala’s top court removed him from the race on charges that the methods Mr. Pineda’s party used to choose him as its candidate had violated electoral law.Mr. Zamora’s case has also ensnared journalists simply for covering it. Eight reporters, editors and columnists are being investigated on charges of obstruction of justice after writing about the process for elPeriódico. Most have left Guatemala.Since Mr. Giammattei took office in January 2020, the Journalists Association of Guatemala has documented 472 cases of harassment, physical attacks, intimidation and censorship against the press.“You immediately ask yourself, ‘At what point is my coverage interpreted as a crime?’” said Claudia Méndez, who worked at elPeriódico as a reporter and editor and now works for a Guatemalan radio show. “‘At what point is my work no longer an exercise in criticism and accountability, but seen as an unlawful act?’” More

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      He’s No Jack Kennedy

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      Let’s just go ahead and say the quiet part out loud: Robert Kennedy Jr. — the nephew of John F. Kennedy, the son of Robert F. Kennedy — is a bit of a crank.This is not breaking news. The 69-year-old scion of America’s most famous political family has been peddling anti-vaccine hysteria since long before Covid-19 made it trendy, along with a spicy stew of other conspiracy theories. Notable offerings: that the 2004 presidential election was stolen by Republicans, psychopharmaceuticals are responsible for mass shootings and the C.I.A. had a hand in the assassination of his uncle.But now Mr. Kennedy is looking to take his screwball act prime time, challenging President Biden for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination. The troubling part is that this guy has a non-negligible degree of support.Multiple polls from recent months show backing for Mr. Kennedy hovering around 20 percent among Democratic-inclined voters — not enough to pose an existential threat to Mr. Biden, but sufficient to give some in the party the jitters. The last thing Democrats want is some conspiracy-mongering fringe dweller highlighting the vulnerability of the party’s re-election-seeking incumbent. And the last thing the American public needs in this twitchy political moment is another high-profile circus act.It’s no mystery what’s going on. The only reason anyone cares what Mr. Kennedy thinks or says is because of his political pedigree. The Kennedy name ain’t what it used to be, but it still speaks to plenty of voters. (Sooo much Camelot nostalgia lingering out there.) In a recent CNN poll, 64 percent of Democratic voters and leaners said they would support or at least consider supporting Mr. Kennedy’s White House run, with 20 percent of those who would consider it citing his political lineage as the top reason.This is about more than one overromanticized family. The American electorate has a long-running, if tortured, romance with political dynasties in general. We love to grumble about them. Another Bush running for office? Another Clinton? Come on. But we also love to embrace them, up and down the political ladder. Just ask the Roosevelts or the Udalls or the Sununus or the scores of other clans for whom politics has become the family business.There is nothing inherently wrong with this inclination. In many ways, voters going with the devil they think they know makes perfect sense — but only if they avoid letting a candidate’s familiar name become a lazy substitute for a real measure of the person.Many Americans find the whole concept of political dynasties distasteful. Legacy politicians can carry a whiff of inherited power and entitlement that seems downright undemocratic. Way back in 2013, when the political world was waiting for Jeb Bush to become the third member of his family to run for president, his doting mother, Barbara, shared her reservations: “I think it’s a great country, there are a lot of great families, and it’s not just four families or whatever,” she told the “Today” show. “There are other people out there that are very qualified, and we’ve had enough Bushes.”This maternal wisdom proved painfully on point for poor Jeb. And, several years on, the Republican Party has gone all in on trashing “professional politicians” — or pretty much anyone with a clue about or an interest in how government works. The more ignorant and unqualified you are, the more the base loves you. (See: Marjorie Taylor Greene.)Still, no one is entitled to any elective office by virtue of their birth. That said, there is a case to make in appreciation of candidates who hail from families that take public service seriously and who are familiar with the weird world of politics. Exhibit A is Nancy Pelosi, the most formidable and effective House speaker in more than 60 years, who learned much about her craft growing up in a local Democratic dynasty in Baltimore.Plenty of Americans follow their families into a particular field, be it the military, law enforcement, teaching, acting or journalism. So if George P. Bush wants to run for this or that office in his home state of Texas, more power to him. And if voters choose to smack him down, as they did in the Republican primary for state attorney general last year, good on them. (Although sticking with Ken Paxton instead? Really?)But there is a dark side to all of this. Certain dynastic players can begin to feel — and behave — as though they are entitled to elected office, treating the honor as if it is not something to be earned so much as handed down like a family heirloom or a dry-cleaning business. That way inevitably leads to trouble.Just as problematic, and far more common, is when voters treat a well-known political name as a substitute for seriously vetting a candidate’s fitness for office. As one poll respondent mused to CNN about the colorful Mr. Kennedy: “I liked his dad (R.F.K.) and his uncle (J.F.K.) a lot. I would hope he has a similar mind-set.” Woo, boy. Cross your fingers that this voter does some due diligence before casting a ballot.Being born into a political family doesn’t magically make you qualified for office. As the scholar Stephen Hess, who literally wrote the book on America’s political dynasties, has pointed out, the offspring of these high-powered clans all too frequently turn out to be extremely … problematic. At the risk of sounding harsh, for every Beau Biden, there is a Hunter.Seriously, if you think Mr. Kennedy’s presidential aspirations are troubling — and you should — best start trying to wrap your mind around what a Trump dynasty could look like. Governor Ivanka? Senator Jared? President Don Jr.? Mock if you must. But spend a minute on the campaign trail with Don Jr. and it’s clear he has developed a taste for it. And voters in the Republican base love him.As chilling as this thought may be, it points to the democratic twist that America has put on political royalty. Our dynasties are not fixed. As Mr. Hess has noted, they are forever shifting and expanding. Influential families fall out of favor even as new ones rise up. And anyone can aspire to start their own power clan. Which makes it all the more important for voters to pay attention and refuse to give an easy pass to any candidate, no matter how storied his or her family tree.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Scotland’s Independence Movement Is Down, but Not Out, Analysts Say

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      Support for Scottish independence has dipped, but backing for Scotland remaining part of the United Kingdom is fragile, too. Nicola Sturgeon’s arrest leaves the fate of the movement in flux.For almost a decade Nicola Sturgeon, as the leader of the Scottish government, was the uncontested figurehead of the push to break Scotland’s centuries-old union with England.Her resignation earlier this year — and now her arrest on Sunday over an investigation into her Scottish National Party’s finances — leaves the fate of the movement in flux.Support for independence has dipped, but backing for Scotland remaining part of the United Kingdom, a bond forged in 1707, is fragile, too. Opinion polls show the Scottish public still roughly split on the issue. For now, the political path to an independent Scotland is blocked.“It’s a stalemate, there is no settled will for independence, but equally we have to acknowledge that there is no settled will for union either,” said Nicola McEwen, professor of territorial politics at the University of Edinburgh.“Reports of the demise of the independence movement and indeed of the S.N.P. are somewhat exaggerated,” said Professor McEwen, who added that “given everything that’s going on, maybe it’s surprising that support hasn’t declined more than it has.”Operation Branchform, the code name for inquiry into the Scottish National Party’s finances, began in 2021 and was reported to have followed complaints about the handling of about 600,000 pounds, or about $750,000, in donations raised to campaign for a second vote on Scottish independence. In 2014, Scots voted by 55 to 45 percent against breaking away from the United Kingdom in a divisive referendum.Ms. Sturgeon, who was released on Sunday after seven hours of questioning and who swiftly proclaimed her innocence, has not been charged. On Monday, her successor, Humza Yousaf, rejected calls for Ms. Sturgeon to be suspended from the party.She is the third senior figure in the party to be arrested but not charged. Another is Ms. Sturgeon’s husband, Peter Murrell, the party’s former chief executive who held the post from 1999 until March, when he resigned after accepting blame for misleading statements from the party about the size of its dues-paying membership.Police officers outside the home of Ms. Sturgeon and her husband, Peter Murrell, in Uddingston, Scotland, in April.Andrew Milligan/Press Association, via Associated PressThe police investigation deepened in the weeks after Ms. Sturgeon’s surprise resignation and the fractious competition to succeed her that was won, narrowly, by Mr. Yousaf.His leadership is still relatively new but, so far, he has struggled to match the high profile of his predecessor, or to advance toward the prize that ultimately eluded her: Scottish independence.Supporters have pressed for a second vote on Scottish independence after the first one failed in 2014. Their argument was bolstered by Brexit, which took Britain out of the European Union because the majority of Scots who voted in the Brexit referendum of 2016 wanted to remain in the European bloc. They were outnumbered by voters in England and Wales who wanted to leave.But, to have legal force, the government in London must agree to another vote on independence, and successive prime ministers have refused, insisting that the decision of 2014 stands for a generation.Ms. Sturgeon hit another roadblock last year when she tested in court her right to schedule a referendum without approval from London. In November, Britain’s Supreme Court ruled against her.Some hard-line voices favor unilateral action, perhaps holding a vote in defiance of London. Catalan separatists in Spain took that route in 2017, but it led to the imprisonment or exile of some independence movement leaders. And going outside the law would block an independent Scotland’s path toward membership of the European Union, the S.N.P.’s objective.Frustrated on all sides, Ms. Sturgeon finally proposed using the next British general election, which is expected in the second half 2024, as a de facto independence referendum, making Scotland’s constitutional future the central question. Internal critics doubted the practicality of that idea, given that other political parties would not agree.Nicola Sturgeon at a news conference in 2022 about Scottish independence.Andrew Milligan/Press Association, via Associated PressIn an interview broadcast on Sunday, before Ms. Sturgeon’s arrest, Mr. Yousaf said he was confident that, even with recent setbacks, an independent Scotland was coming.“Despite having some of the most difficult weeks our party has probably faced, certainly in the modern era, that support for independence is still rock solid. It’s a good base for us to build on,” he told the BBC. “I’ve got no doubt at all, that I will be the leader that will ensure that Scotland becomes an independent nation.”The party might have missed its moment, however. It is hard to see a more favorable backdrop for the independence campaign than the messy aftermath of Brexit, the chaotic leadership of the former prime minister, Boris Johnson — who was unpopular in Scotland — and the political dramas of 2022 when Britain changed prime ministers twice.Paradoxically, while Brexit may have strengthened the political case for Scottish independence, it has complicated the practical one. Britain has left the European Union’s giant single market and customs union, and that implies that there would be a trade border between an independent Scotland and England, its biggest economic partner.The years of gridlock and chaos that followed the Brexit referendum may also have scared some Scottish voters away from further constitutional changes.In addition, the S.N.P. has been criticized over its record in government, and the opposition Labour Party senses an opportunity to recover in Scotland, where it dominated politically before the S.N.P. decimated it.“Coming after dishonest claims of party membership, a very poor record in government and making no progress on independence this simply adds to the S.N.P.’s woes,” said James Mitchell, a professor of public policy at Edinburgh University, referring to recent events.“It would be damaging enough to the S.N.P.’s electoral prospects but with Labour looking ever more confident and competent in Scotland as well across Britain, it looks as if the S.N.P.’s opportunity to advance its cause has passed.”Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s new first minister, has said he was confident that, despite recent setbacks, an independent Scotland was coming.Russell Cheyne/ReutersThe next British general election might present Mr. Yousaf with a new opening if, as some pollsters predict, Labour emerges as the biggest party but without an overall majority. In that scenario, the S.N.P. could try to trade its support for a minority Labour government in exchange for a promise to hold a second referendum.The problem is that Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, has so far rejected any such deal. And, if some Scottish independence supporters vote for Labour to try and defeat the Conservative government, led by Rishi Sunak, the S.N.P. could lose seats at Britain’s Parliament, weakening its hand.Some analysts believe that the independence movement should concentrate on building wider popular support, including through other organizations and political parties, reaching out beyond the confines of the S.N.P. and its supporters.After all, Scotland’s union with England was entered into voluntarily, and were opinion polls to show around 60 percent of voters consistently favoring an independent Scotland, that would be difficult for a British government to ignore.Even Mr. Yousaf acknowledges that is some way off, however. At present, he told the BBC, “it’s pretty obvious that independence is not the consistent settled will of the Scottish people.”The question confronting him, his colleagues and the wider independence movement is how they intend to change that. “I don’t really see any signs of a strategy,” said Professor McEwen, “that doesn’t mean there isn’t one, I just don’t see any evidence of it.” More