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      Turkish Opposition Begins Joining Ranks Against Erdogan

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

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      Barbados Elects Its First Head of State, Replacing Queen Elizabeth

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      The country’s Parliament chose Sandra Mason, the governor general, to assume the symbolic title, a decisive move to distance itself from Barbados’s colonial past.The island nation of Barbados has elected a female former jurist to become its next head of state, a symbolic position held since the 1950s by Queen Elizabeth II, as the country takes another step toward casting off its colonial past.Sandra Mason, 72, the governor general of Barbados, became the country’s first president-elect on Wednesday when she received the necessary two-thirds majority vote in the Parliament’s House of Assembly and Senate. She will be sworn in on Nov. 30, making Barbados a republic on the 55th anniversary of its independence from Britain.“We believe that the time has come for us to claim our full destiny,” Prime Minister Mia Mottley said in a speech after the vote.“It is a woman of the soil to whom this honor is being given,” she added.Barbados, a parliamentary democracy of about 300,000 people that is the easternmost island in the Caribbean, announced in September that it would remove Elizabeth as its head of state. At the ceremony, Ms. Mason read from a speech prepared by Ms. Mottley that was explicit in its rejection of imperialism.The speech highlighted the urgency of self-governance, quoting a warning by Errol Walton Barrow, the first prime minister of Barbados, against “loitering on colonial premises.”“The time has come to fully leave our colonial past behind,” Ms. Mason said. “Barbadians want a Barbadian head of state.”Barbados has since become the latest Caribbean island to shed the symbolic role of the queen and pursue the formation of a republic. Guyana led earlier republican movements in the Caribbean, cutting ties to the queen in 1970, followed by Trinidad and Tobago, and then Dominica.Ms. Mason, who has been the governor general, a position appointed by the queen, since 2018, had been nominated to take on the position of president, subject to the parliamentary vote, the prime minister announced in August. Ms. Mottley said other steps in the island’s transition included work on a new constitution, which would begin in January.“Barbados shall move forward on the first of December as the newest republic in the global community of nations,” Ms. Mottley said on Wednesday.People in Barbados and its government were “conscious that we are going not without concern on the part of some, but with absolute determination that at 55, we must know who we are, we must live who we are, we must be who we are,” she said.Dame Sandra Prunella Mason was born on Jan. 17, 1949, in St. Philip, Barbados. She was educated on the island at Queen’s College, attended the University of the West Indies and was the first woman from Barbados to graduate from the Hugh Wooding Law School in Trinidad and Tobago.In the early 1990s, Ms. Mason served as an ambassador to Venezuela, Chile, Colombia and Brazil. In 2008, she became the first woman to serve as a judge on the Barbados Court of Appeal.Ambassador Noel Lynch, whose own appointment as Barbados’s representative in Washington, D.C., had to be endorsed by the queen, said in an interview that Ms. Mason’s judicial experience made her “well versed” for the work that needs to be done as the nation transitions to a republic.Ms. Mason’s election is also notable because both the prime minister and the head of state will soon be Barbadian women. “Even if it is mostly ceremonial,” Mr. Lynch said in an interview, “you have got to have confidence if the president and the prime minister have got confidence in each other.”After she is sworn in, Ms. Mason will become the ceremonial leader of an island that is facing labor shortages, the effects of climate change and economic difficulties due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on its tourism sector, the prime minister said.In her speech after the parliamentary vote, Ms. Mottley said the real work would begin the day after the island becomes a full republic.“We look forward, therefore, to Dec. 1, 2021,” she said. “But we do so confident that we have just elected from among us a woman who is uniquely and passionately Barbadian.” More

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      India's Farmer Protesters Are Confronting Modi Head-On

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      LAKHIMPUR KHERI, India — The jeep plowed into the protesters, sending bodies tumbling, the windshield cracking against bone. The son of a prominent politician was then accused of murder. Rifle-toting security personnel flooded the area. Tempers flared so hotly that local officials shut down the internet.With that series of events, a yearlong protest by farmers against the Indian government escalated into a dangerous new phase.Frustrated at what they see as intransigence by Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, over a series of new agricultural laws, the farmers have taken a more confrontational approach with the country’s top leaders. They are now shadowing top officials of Mr. Modi’s government as they travel and campaign, ensuring their grievances will be difficult to ignore.The farmers blame government supporters for the jeep incident in early October, which left four of their number dead and killed four others, including a local journalist. But the incident shows that farmers who have camped outside the Indian capital of New Delhi for months are increasingly prepared to take their protest directly to government officials’ doorsteps.Jagdeep Singh talking about his late father, Nachhattar Singh, in Namdar Purva.Saumya Khandelwal for The New York TimesOne of the two vehicles set ablaze after a convoy rammed into protesters.Saumya Khandelwal for The New York Times“This is now a fight for those who died,” Jagdeep Singh, whose 62-year-old father was among those run over by the jeep, said from the family farm. “And those who are living, this is now a fight for all of us until we die.”Elsewhere, under the harsh light of an LED lamp in an unfinished brick farmhouse, Ramandeep Kaur wept over the loss of her cousin, Lovepreet Singh, a 19-year-old who was studying English in hopes of getting an education and living in Australia.“Until they take back those laws,” she said, “the farmers’ agitation will continue.”The deadly incident took place in a remote corner of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state and a prize in elections to be held early next year. The protesters were shadowing top members of Mr. Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., as they began to campaign.The farmers’ goal is not necessarily to defeat the B.J.P., whom polls suggest will cruise to an easy victory. The party’s top elected leader, Yogi Adityanath, is a Hindu monk and protégé of Mr. Modi who is popular with the party’s Hindu base, and the opposition is fragmented. Instead, the farmers aim to draw more national and international attention to their plight.The protesting farmers think that Mr. Modi’s market-friendly overhaul last year of the nation’s agricultural laws will put them out of business. India’s Supreme Court has suspended implementation, and the government has proposed a series of amendments. The farmers balked, saying they would settle for nothing less than their full repeal.Further action could take years, given the court’s full docket, but the farmers fear the suspension will be lifted if they let up.No one disputes that the current system, which incentivizes farmers to grow a huge surplus of grains, needs to be fixed. The protesters fear the speed — the laws were passed in mere weeks — and the breadth of the changes will send the price of crops plunging. Mr. Modi’s government argues that introducing market forces will help fix the system.Lovepreet Singh’s family, including his mother, Satwinder Kaur, and father, Satnam Singh, mourning his death.Saumya Khandelwal for The New York TimesLovepreet Singh’s father displaying his son’s photograph.Saumya Khandelwal for The New York Times“The composition of farming has to somewhat change,” said Gopal Krishna Agarwal, a B.J.P. spokesman on economic issues. “The farm sector needs heavy investment, and that can come from the private sector.”Mr. Modi has responded to the protesters by waiting them out, a strategy apparently driven by the calculation that their movement does not represent a coherent political threat. Many of the protesters come from India’s minority Sikh community, while the B.J.P. draws its political power from rallying the country’s Hindu majority.“‘Farmers’ is not a category that the B.J.P. uses,” said Gilles Verniers, a political science professor at Ashoka University. “They talk about the poor and they speak the language of caste and obviously the language of religion.”Farmers have sought to get not only the B.J.P.’s attention, but the attention of the nation. A series of confrontations with B.J.P. leaders since September may not sway the election in Uttar Pradesh, but it could revive support across India and even globally for a protest movement that appeared to have been running out of steam, Mr. Verniers said.Though the protests have been largely peaceful, they have spurred occasional bouts of violence. In January protesters and the police clashed after some farmers drove their tractors into New Delhi. Protest leaders have distanced themselves from a shocking incident earlier this month at the farmer protest camp outside New Delhi, in which a group from a Sikh warrior sect killed and cut off the hand of a lower-caste Sikh, a Dalit, who they accused of desecrating a holy book.The B.J.P. needs the campaign in Uttar Pradesh to go without a hitch, despite the party’s lead in the polls. The party is trying to bounce back from the coronavirus’s second wave, which hit after Mr. Modi declared victory over the pandemic and showed the country’s lack of preparedness. Uttar Pradesh was hit particularly hard, with bodies of suspected victims washing up on the banks of India’s sacred Ganges River.Police officers standing guard outside the house of Raman Kashyap, a journalist who was killed in the violence in Lakhimpur Kheri.Saumya Khandelwal for The New York TimesRam Dulare Kashyap, right, father of Raman Kashyap, speaking with reporters about the death of his son.Saumya Khandelwal for The New York TimesWhile Mr. Modi, normally voluble, has said little about the farmers, other leaders in his party have embraced a language of force to rally supporters against them.In Haryana, a state neighboring Uttar Pradesh that is also governed by the B.J.P., a local official was captured on video ordering the police to use violence to break up one gathering. Farmers responded by breaking through police barricades outside a government office. The tensions eased only after the government agreed to investigate the official’s conduct.A week later, in Uttar Pradesh, Rakesh Tikait, a 59-year-old farm union leader, rallied tens of thousands of farmers, declaring an all-out campaign against the B.J.P.Earlier this month, farmers gathered again in Haryana and surrounded the site of a planned visit by the state’s top elected official, forcing him to cancel.Days before the incident in Uttar Pradesh, Ajay Mishra, Mr. Modi’s junior minister of home affairs, warned farmers in a speech to “behave, or we will teach you how to behave. It will take just two minutes.”Outraged, a group of farmers stood on a one-lane road in the village of Tikunia, carrying black flags they planned to wave at Mr. Mishra, who was visiting his constituency with his son, Ashish Mishra, and other party members.Farmers protested by driving their tractors toward New Delhi in January.Dinesh Joshi/Associated PressRakesh Tikait, a leader of the protesting farmers and spokesman for the Bhartiya Kisan Union, met with supporters in February to discuss the farm reforms proposed by India’s government.Saumya Khandelwal for The New York TimesThe farmers received word that Mr. Mishra’s plans had changed and started to disperse when Ashish Mishra’s convoy came hurtling at them from behind, according to video footage and police officials. After the jeep rammed into the crowd, the farmers attacked the convoy with bamboo sticks and set two of the vehicles ablaze. By the end of the day, eight people were dead, including three people in the convoy.The farmers claim that they saw Ashish Mishra, known to villagers as Monu, in the convoy and blamed him for the incident. The minister has denied his family’s involvement. The police arrested Ashish Mishra, saying he failed to cooperate with the investigation, along with nine others in the murder case.The victims’ families said they have little hope of justice. “Long live Monu,” village walls proclaimed in graffiti next to a brightly painted lotus flower, the B.J.P. symbol. The Mishra family home, a sprawling compound hidden behind high walls and flowering bougainvillea, hovers over shanties.Opposition leaders have tried to capitalize on the moment, but many were prevented or delayed from reaching the victims’ families. Some, including Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, a leader of the Congress party, were detained.“All I can say is if, as a nation, we have a conscience,” she said, “then we cannot forget this.”The remains of burnt wood from the cremation of Lovepreet Singh in the field outside his house.Saumya Khandelwal for The New York Times More

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      Donald Trump Shouldn’t Be Underestimated

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      Like most Democrats, I initially underestimated Donald Trump. In 2015, I founded a super PAC dedicated to electing Hillary Clinton. Through all the ups and downs of the campaign, I didn’t once imagine that Americans would vote Mr. Trump in.He was an obvious pig (see the “Access Hollywood” tapes), a fraud (multiple failed businesses and bankruptcies) and a cheat (stiffing mom-and-pop vendors). Not to mention the blatant racism and misogyny. About the outcome, I was spectacularly wrong.Once he was in office, I misread Mr. Trump again. Having worked inside the conservative movement for many years, I found his policies familiar: same judges, same tax policy, same deregulation of big business, same pandering to the religious right, same denial of science. Of course, there were the loopy tweets, but still I regarded Mr. Trump as only a difference of degree from what I had seen from prior Republican presidents and candidates, not a difference of kind.When a raft of books and articles appeared warning that the United States was headed toward autocracy, I dismissed them as hyperbolic. I just didn’t see it. Under Mr. Trump, the sky didn’t fall.My view of Mr. Trump began to shift soon after the November election, when he falsely claimed the election was rigged and refused to concede. In doing so, Mr. Trump showed himself willing to undermine confidence in the democratic process, and in time he managed to convince nearly three-quarters of his supporters that the loser was actually the winner.Then came the Capitol Hill insurrection, and, later, proof that Mr. Trump incited it, even hiring a lawyer, John Eastman, who wrote a detailed memo that can only be described as a road map for a coup. A recent Senate investigation documented frantic efforts by Mr. Trump to bully government officials to overturn the election. And yet I worry that many Americans are still blind, as I once was, to the authoritarian impulses that now grip Mr. Trump’s party. Democrats need to step up to thwart them.Are Democrats up for such a tough (and expensive) fight? Many liberal voters have taken a step back from politics, convinced that Mr. Trump is no longer a threat. According to research conducted for our super PAC, almost half of women in battleground states are now paying less attention to the political news.But in reality, the last election settled very little. Mr. Trump not only appears to be preparing for a presidential campaign in 2024; he is whipping up his supporters before the 2022 midterms. And if Democrats ignore the threat he and his allies pose to democracy, their candidates will suffer next fall, imperiling any chance of meaningful reform in Congress.Going forward, we can expect bogus claims of voter fraud, and equally bogus challenges to legitimate vote counts, to become a permanent feature of Republican political strategy. Every election Republicans lose will be contested with lies, every Democratic win delegitimized. This is poison in a democracy.As of late September, 19 states had enacted 33 laws that will make it harder for their citizens to vote. The Republican National Committee’s “election integrity director” says the party will file lawsuits earlier and more aggressively than they did in 2020. Trump wannabe candidates like Glenn Youngkin, running for Virginia governor, are currying favor with the Republican base by promoting conspiracy theories suggesting that Virginia’s election may be rigged.More alarmingly, Republicans in swing states are purging election officials, allowing pro-Trump partisans to sabotage vote counts. In January, an Arizona lawmaker introduced a bill that would permit Republican legislators to overrule the certification of elections that don’t go their way. In Georgia, the legislature has given partisan election boards the power to “slow down or block” election certifications. Why bother with elections?Democrats now face an opposition that is not a normal political party, but rather a party that is willing to sacrifice democratic institutions and norms to take power.The legislation Democrats introduced in Congress to protect our democracy against such assaults would have taken an important step toward meeting these challenges. But on Wednesday, Republicans blocked the latest version of the legislation, and given the lack of unanimity among Democrats on the filibuster, they may well have succeeded in killing the last hope for any federal voting rights legislation during this session of Congress.Having underestimated Mr. Trump in the first place, Democrats shouldn’t underestimate what it will take to counter his malign influence now. They need a bigger, bolder campaign blueprint to save democracy that doesn’t hinge on the whims of Congress.We should hear more directly from the White House bully pulpit about these dire threats. The Jan. 6 investigators should mount a full-court press to get the truth out. Funding voting rights litigation should be a top priority.Where possible, Democrats should sponsor plebiscites to overturn anti-democratic laws passed by Republicans in states. They should underwrite super PACs to protect incumbent election officials being challenged by Trump loyalists, even if it means supporting reasonable Republicans. Donations should flow into key governor and secretary of state races, positions critical to election certification.In localities, Democrats should organize poll watching. Lawyers who make phony voting claims in court should face disciplinary action in state bar associations. The financiers of the voting rights assault must be exposed and publicly shamed.The good news is that liberals do not have to copy what the right is doing with its media apparatus — the font of falsehoods about voter fraud and a stolen election — to win over voters. Democrats can leapfrog the right with significant investments in streaming video, podcasting, newsletters and innovative content producers on growing platforms like TikTok, whose audiences dwarf those of cable news networks like Fox News.Issues like racial justice, the environment and immigration are already resonating online with audiences Democrats need to win over, such as young people, women and people of color. Democratic donors have long overlooked efforts to fund the media, but with so much of our politics playing out on that battlefield, they can no longer afford to.David Brock (@davidbrockdc) is the founder of Media Matters for America and American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic super PAC.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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      In Hungary’s Heartland, Orban Faces a Unified Challenge to His Rule

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      The country’s normally fractious opposition has rallied around a conservative mayor who just might be able to oust the authoritarian prime minister after more than a decade.HODMEZOVASARHELY, Hungary — A devout Catholic, he abhors abortion as “murder” and once voted for Viktor Orban, Hungary’s pugnacious populist leader, impressed by his promises to root out corruption and end the disarray left by years of leftist rule.On Sunday, however, Peter Marki-Zay, the mayor of this town in Hungary’s conservative rural heartland, became the most potent threat yet to the decade-long stranglehold on the country by Mr. Orban and his combative brand of far-right nationalism.Mr. Marki-Zay, 49, victorious in a primary election that brought together six previously squabbling opposition parties, is now the standard-bearer for a rickety political alliance that will challenge and, according to opinion polls, perhaps defeat Mr. Orban and his political machine, Fidesz, in legislative elections next year.Previous challengers hoping to unseat Mr. Orban, who has been prime minister since 2010, mostly channeled the frustrations and anger of a liberal elite in Budapest. This time, the mayor is fighting Fidesz on its own terms and home turf — small towns and villages where many voters, Mr. Marki-Zay included, once found comfort in Mr. Orban’s conservative message but grew disenchanted with what they see as his corruption, hypocrisy and authoritarian tendencies.“Orban’s only real ideology now is corruption,” Mr. Marki-Zay, the mayor of Hodmezovasarhely, (pronounced HOD-may-zur-vash-ar-hay), in southern Hungary, said in an interview in Budapest.Opposition supporters in Mr. Marki-Zay’s hometown, Hodmezovasarhely, casting ballots on Sunday in a primary to choose a single candidate to oppose Prime Minister Viktor Orban in elections next year.Akos Stiller for The New York TimesMany voters, particularly in Budapest, he added, do not share his own conservative views, “but they know I don’t steal and can beat Orban. I’m not corrupt.”Janos Csanyi, a 78-year-old former porcelain factory worker who used to vote for Mr. Orban’s Fidesz party, scoffed at Mr. Orban’s oft-repeated claim that, by demonizing migrants, many of whom are Muslim, and confronting the European Union over media freedom, L.G.B.T.Q. rights and other issues, Hungary is defending Europe’s traditional, Christian values.“I don’t understand what he is talking about,” Mr. Csanyi said, resting in the sun on a park bench in Hodmezovasarhely’s main square, adding that he had other priorities. “There are Ten Commandments and a very important one of these is: ‘Don’t Steal.’”An anti-corruption stance resonates loudly in Hodmezovasarhely. A former Fidesz mayor and a close associate of Mr. Orban, Janos Lazar, is part owner of a vast hunting lodge on a landed estate outside town, and a contract for an E.U.-funded street lighting project when it was controlled by Fidesz went to a company controlled by Mr. Orban’s son-in-law, upsetting many.Mr. Orban’s party had previously been Hodmezovasarhely’s only serious political force.Akos Stiller for The New York TimesThe European Union’s anti-graft agency investigated the lighting project and in 2018 reported “serious irregularities” and “conflicts of interest” in the awarding of contracts. Fidesz-appointed prosecutors declined to take up the case.“The lights don’t even work. When the sun goes down you can’t see anything,” said Norbert Forrai, a local resident who, despairing at Hungary’s direction under Mr. Orban, moved to England but recently returned home “to be part of the change that I hope is finally coming.”Fidesz still has many ways to block that change. It has a firm grip on most media outlets, and controls an extensive patronage network rooted in jobs in the state sector and in companies controlled by Mr. Orban’s associates.This gives the governing party far more levers to influence voters than the region’s other populist strongmen, one of whom, Andrej Babis, the Czech Republic’s billionaire prime minister, this month suffered an electoral defeat at the hands of a center-right coalition.Trained to savage Mr. Orban’s opponents as traitorous liberals serving the Hungarian-born financier George Soros, pro-Fidesz media outlets have struggled to find a new line of attack against an unexpected conservative opponent. A news portal close to Fidesz gave up trying over the weekend and claimed that Mr. Marki-Zay was also an agent of Mr. Soros.Mr. Marki-Zay with supporters at a campaign event in Budapest last week.Akos Stiller for The New York TimesFidesz has been so wrong-footed by the primaries that, at its local headquarters in Hodmezovasarhely last week, it was still collecting signatures for a petition denouncing a candidate who had already lost — the liberal mayor of Budapest.The Budapest mayor, Gergely Karacsony, withdrew from the primaries after the first round last month and urged his liberal base to rally behind Mr. Marki-Zay, a former marketing manager with seven children, who lived for five years in Canada and the United States.“We have to accept political reality. It is not liberals or greens who can beat right-wing populists,” Mr. Karacsony said in an interview. A future government led by a churchgoing provincial mayor, he added, “will obviously have different strategies than those I would pursue,” but “the important thing is to pick a candidate who can win against Orban.”And, he said, “Nationalist populism is most successful in small towns and rural areas where people are afraid.” He added, “Marki-Zay is a mayor in one of these places and understands the fears and problems of these people.”“We have to accept political reality. It is not liberals or greens who can beat right-wing populists,” Mayor Gergely Karacsony of Budapest said.Akos Stiller for The New York TimesThe populist wave that swept across Eastern and Central Europe and other parts of the world over the past decade was, he said, in the process of “passing” following the defeat of President Donald J. Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel and Mr. Babis in the Czech Republic.“Now it is up to Hungary and Poland,” Mr. Karacsony said, referring to his own country’s election next year and elections in 2023 that will decide whether Poland’s nationalist governing party, Law and Justice, hangs on to power.While describing himself as “first and foremost a Catholic,” Mr. Marki-Zay insists he respects the separation of church and state in Hungary and that his personal views on things like abortion will not shape his policies should he become prime minister. Mr. Orban, he added, was never really a conservative, “just an opportunist.”“He openly betrays Europe, the United States, NATO and Christian values,” he said, referring to Mr. Orban’s warm relations with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and China’s Communist Party leadership. “He is a crook.”Counting votes in Budapest on Sunday. The primary election brought together six previously squabbling opposition parties.Akos Stiller for The New York TimesHe expressed dismay that right-wing pundits and politicians in the United States like Tucker Carlson, who visited Hungary in August and lavished praise on Mr. Orban, view the country as a bastion of conservative values and a lodestar for those who value liberty. “Tucker Carlson forgot to mention where Orban stands on China and Putin,” Mr. Marki-Zay said.Mr. Marki-Zay shocked Fidesz in 2018 when he easily won a by-election in his hometown after the death of the incumbent, a supporter of Mr. Orban. A year later, he won a regular mayoral election with an even bigger margin.The end of Fidesz’s previous near-monopoly over local affairs rattled the party faithful.“It came as a big surprise for us all,” said Tomas Cseri, a Fidesz member of the municipal council.“If this could happen in a place like this it can happen anywhere,” Mr. Cseri added. “The longer you are in power the more and more people think it is time for a change.”“Fear is what keeps the whole system together,” said Imre Kendi, an architect who runs a construction business in Hodmezovasarhely, referring to Mr. Orban’s political machine.Akos Stiller for The New York TimesHe acknowledged that Mr. Marki-Zay is a more threatening opponent to the party than the losing left-wing candidate in the final round of the opposition primary, but, echoing a line promoted by Fidesz’s propaganda apparatus, dismissed him as a Trojan horse for leftists in the six-party coalition and denounced corruption allegations against Fidesz as a lie.“If we had stolen so much I would not be still riding that,” he said, pointing to an old bicycle parked against a lamppost.Still, anger against what many local residents, including former fans of Mr. Orban, see as theft and bullying by Fidesz is widespread.Imre Kendi, an architect who runs a construction business, used to vote for the governing party and once served as an adviser to Mr. Lazar when Fidesz still controlled the town. But he fell out with the former mayor, and soon found himself not being paid for money he was owed for a government contract, which he said forced him to declare bankruptcy.“Fear is what keeps the whole system together,” he said.But, he predicted, “change started here in this small town and now it is going to continue around the nation.”Portraits of Mr. Marki-Zay at a campaign event in Budapest.Akos Stiller for The New York Times More

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      Adams Commits to Keeping Gifted and Talented, But Leaves Details Unclear

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      Eric Adams, New York City’s likely next mayor, rebuked Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to scrap the current system as he prepares to leave office. Eric Adams said on Friday that he would keep New York City’s elementary school gifted and talented program if, as expected, he wins the general election for mayor next month — a clear rebuke to Mayor Bill de Blasio, who recently announced plans to eliminate the program.“There’s a new mayor next year, that mayor must evaluate how he’s going to deal with the gifted and talented program,” Mr. Adams, the Democratic nominee for mayor, said in an interview with CNN. “He can’t get rid of it until next year,” he added of Mr. de Blasio.Asked directly whether he would eliminate the gifted program, Mr. Adams replied, “no I would not, I would expand the opportunities for accelerated learning.”In another break with Mr. de Blasio, Mr. Adams said in a radio interview on Friday that he supported requiring students to receive a coronavirus vaccine to attend class — an action the mayor has steadfastly resisted over concerns it could motivate some parents to keep their children home.“I say yes, if it’s F.D.A.-approved, we should also mandate it as we mandate with other vaccinations,” Mr. Adams said in the interview, with WCBS.As to the gifted program, Mr. de Blasio said last week that he wanted to scrap the current system, including an admissions exam for 4-year-olds that has been heavily criticized, and start over with a new one that offers an accelerated education to every elementary school student. Mr. Adams has yet to release his own plan for the city’s schools, and he has reversed course previously on at least one contentious education issue. But he made it clear on Friday that he was not going to let the outgoing mayor dictate a policy that has major implications for the nation’s largest school system. And although Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president and an ally of Mr. de Blasio’s, avoided directly criticizing the mayor during the CNN interview, his comments appeared to betray some irritation that the plan had been announced barely a month before the election. Mr. de Blasio did not consult with Mr. Adams before releasing it. “There’s nothing to put back in place, because the next mayor must make the determination,” Mr. Adams said in the interview.Mr. de Blasio’s plan has elicited outrage among some parents who see the gifted program as a way of keeping their children enrolled in the public school system and as an alternative to struggling neighborhood schools. Many other families, as well as activists pushing to integrate the system, have strongly endorsed ending or overhauling the program, saying that it excludes too many Black and Latino students while weakening instruction for children in regular classes by removing strong performers.Mr. de Blasio is considering running for governor next year. Having won election in 2013 on a pledge to broadly reduce inequality in the city, he has been criticized for not doing more to reduce segregation in the schools and, more specifically, for not addressing inequities in the gifted program until the end of his tenure.About 75 percent of the 16,000 students enrolled in gifted classes are white or Asian American while 70 percent of the students in the overall system are Black and Latino, according to Department of Education data. The gifted program, which puts students on a separate academic track even before they enter the public schools, has exacerbated segregation in the city’s schools. Mr. Adams acknowledged the problem on Friday.“The gifted and talented program was isolated only to certain communities,” he said. “That created segregation in our classrooms.” Mr. Adams also said on CNN that all children should be assessed to determine whether accelerated classes were right for them. But he said such assessments would be a part of a broader plan to evaluate all students frequently, not just for academic strengths but also for challenges that might cause them to struggle in school. “We’re focusing on the gifted students,” he said. “They are going to be all right. How come we’re not focusing on those children with dyslexia, learning disabilities? We should be testing them periodically. That feeds our prison population. Fifty-five percent of Rikers inmates have learning disabilities.”Mr. Adams’s aides said he was considering delaying or altering next year’s test for screening 4-year-olds for the gifted program, and then seeking broader changes to the program the following year. His transition team will announce more details after the election, according to a person with direct knowledge of the work who was authorized to discuss it publicly. At the moment, there is no contract for administering a gifted exam in 2022 because an advisory board rejected the last one in a surprise decision. If Mr. Adams wanted to restore the test, he would need approval from the panel, which could again reject the contract.He would also have to move very quickly: If elected, he would take office on Jan. 1. His Republican opponent, Curtis Sliwa, has said that he would keep the gifted program.Under Mr. de Blasio’s plan, New York City would no longer admit rising kindergarten students into separate gifted classes or schools starting next fall. Instead, the city would train all of its roughly 4,000 kindergarten teachers to accommodate students who need accelerated instruction within their general education classrooms. Students who are already enrolled in the program would be allowed to finish, and the program would be phased out over five years.The National Association for Gifted Children criticized Mr. de Blasio’s plan in a recent statement, but praised his action on the test. The association said it was “supportive of the mayor’s plan to eliminate the one-size-fits-all standardized test to identify gifted students, as it often fails to recognize a significant number of Black, Brown and impoverished gifted students.” Many parents, including those whose children are enrolled in gifted classes or who support the program, have said the test causes unnecessary anxiety for young children, and has benefited some wealthy parents who can pay for test preparation for their 4-year-olds. Mr. Adams has been clear throughout the campaign that he did not plan to eliminate the gifted program. But he has appeared to take clear positions on education issues before, only to change his mind. As Brooklyn borough president, he was among the strongest supporters of a plan to eliminate the high-stakes admissions exam for the city’s so-called specialized high schools. The schools enroll tiny numbers of Black and Latino students, something that Mr. Adams has said infuriates him. A few weeks after standing alongside Mr. de Blasio to call for an end to the test, Mr. Adams reversed his position amid an outcry from some parents. He now says he wants to keep the exam in place. Researchers who study gifted education, including those who support the city’s current program, have said Mr. Adams’s call to expanding gifted classes would do little to diversify the program unless fundamental changes are made to the admissions process. Gifted programs in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods all but disappeared in many parts of the city after former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg introduced a citywide test-based threshold for admission into gifted classes. Today, there are nearly twice as many gifted programs in Manhattan’s District 2, one of the city’s whitest and wealthiest districts, as there are in all of the Bronx, the city’s poorest borough. In order to change that dynamic, Mr. Adams would almost certainly have to make big changes to the admissions system. Mr. de Blasio defended his plan during a radio appearance on Friday, although he was not asked about Mr. Adams’s comments. The current system, he said, is “incredibly exclusive and unhelpful.” Emma G. Fitzsimmons contributed reporting. More

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      Emily’s List Backs Hochul for Governor in Key Early Endorsement

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      The group decided to not wait for other potential primary rivals, most notably the state attorney general, Letitia James, to enter next year’s race.Emily’s List, the fund-raising juggernaut dedicated to electing women who back abortion rights, threw its support on Thursday behind Gov. Kathy Hochul’s campaign for a full term as New York governor.The group’s endorsement opens doors to deep-pocketed donors and seasoned campaign strategists across the country. But for Ms. Hochul, the state’s first female governor, it may prove more valuable as an early stamp of approval for female activists, donors and operatives as she attempts to freeze out potential rivals and head off a raucous Democratic primary next year.In its endorsement, Emily’s List cited Ms. Hochul’s management of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, as well as steps she has taken since assuming office in August to clean up a culture of intimidation and harassment that flourished in Albany under her predecessor, Andrew M. Cuomo.“Governor Hochul stepped up to lead New York in a moment rife with skepticism and mistrust for Albany,” said Laphonza Butler, the group’s president. “As governor, she has prioritized rebuilding trust between her administration and New Yorkers, and delivering results.”The timing of the endorsement by the group, known for making shrewd calculations about who it thinks can win, was conspicuous. It is likely to make ripples through the large field of high-profile Democrats mulling campaigns, including the state attorney general, Letitia James, who would be the first Black woman elected governor of any state.In backing Ms. Hochul before others decide whether to enter the race, the group appeared to simultaneously signal that it believed she was the candidate best positioned to win and do its part to help keep others out of the race.The endorsement stood in sharp contrast to many of New York’s most influential unions, campaign donors and other elected leaders, who appear to be withholding support until it becomes clearer whether Ms. James and other Democrats — including Mayor Bill de Blasio, Representative Tom Suozzi or Jumaane Williams, the New York City public advocate — decide to run.The decision may be particularly stinging for Ms. James, who is generally viewed as Ms. Hochul’s most formidable potential opponent and whose investigation into claims of sexual harassment prompted Mr. Cuomo to resign. Emily’s List endorsed Ms. James’s campaign for attorney general in 2018, touting her as a candidate who “always had the back of every New Yorker, especially women.”The group, however, has also endorsed Ms. Hochul in past races for lieutenant governor and for a seat in Congress.In many ways, Ms. Hochul is a natural candidate for Emily’s List to back. She has been a stalwart supporter of abortion rights for decades, and achieved a historic first in a state that has resisted elevating women to some top offices.Ms. Hochul, who is Catholic, has made abortion rights a priority of her young administration. After Texas last month instituted a ban on any abortions after six weeks, the governor declared New York a “safe harbor” for women from the state. She also vowed to implement New York’s 2019 Reproductive Health Act, including drawing up a patient bill of rights.The endorsement is the latest sign that Ms. Hochul, the only Democrat who has formally entered the race for governor, is moving swiftly to amass resources and support in hopes of altering the shape of the primary field.In recent weeks, she has locked down endorsements from the Democratic Governors Association, the chairman of the New York State Democratic Party, and nearly two dozen other leaders of party county committees. She has hired a campaign manager and key consultants. And she has set a blistering fund-raising pace to try to raise $10 million or more by the end of the year from many of the state’s largest political donors.So far, the hard-charging approach, coupled with Ms. Hochul’s performance as governor, appear to be paying dividends with voters.A Marist College poll released on Tuesday showed Ms. Hochul with a considerable head-to-head edge over her potential opponents if the election were to take place today. But that could change should Ms. James or another candidate formally enter the race. More

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      Nicholas Kristof Leaves The New York Times as He Weighs Political Bid

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      Mr. Kristof, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, is weighing a run for governor of Oregon, the state where he grew up.After 37 years at The New York Times as a reporter, high-level editor and opinion columnist, Nicholas Kristof is leaving the newspaper as he considers running for governor of Oregon, a top Times editor said in a note to the staff on Thursday.Mr. Kristof, 62, has been on leave from The Times since June, when he told company executives that he was weighing a run for governor in the state where he grew up. On Tuesday, he filed to organize a candidate committee with Oregon’s secretary of state, signaling that his interest was serious.In the email to the staff announcing his departure, Kathleen Kingsbury, The Times’s opinion editor, wrote that Mr. Kristof had redefined the role of opinion columnist and credited him with “elevating the journalistic form to a new height of public service with a mix of incisive reporting, profound empathy and a determination to bear witness to those struggling and suffering across the globe.”Mr. Kristof, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, joined The Times in 1984 as a reporter and later became an associate managing editor, responsible for the Sunday editions. He started his column in 2001.“This has been my dream job, even with malaria, a plane crash in Congo and periodic arrests abroad for committing journalism,” Mr. Kristof said in a statement included in the note announcing his departure. “Yet here I am, resigning — very reluctantly.”In July, Mr. Kristof, who grew up on a sheep and cherry farm in Yamhill, Ore., said in a statement that friends were recruiting him to succeed Kate Brown, a Democrat, who has been Oregon’s governor since 2015 and is prevented from running again by the state law.“Nick is one of the finest journalists of his generation,” A.G. Sulzberger, The Times’s publisher, said in a statement. “As a reporter and columnist he has long embodied the best values of our profession. He is as empathetic as he is fearless. He is as open-minded as he is principled. He didn’t just bear witness, he forced attention to issues and people that others were all too comfortable ignoring.”As part of the announcement, Ms. Kingsbury noted that Mr. Kristof had been on leave from his column in accordance with Times guidelines, which forbid participation in many aspects of public life. “Journalists have no place on the playing fields of politics,” the handbook states.Mr. Kristof, a former Beijing bureau chief, won his first Pulitzer Prize in 1990, for international reporting, an award he shared with his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, a former reporter, for their coverage of the protests at Tiananmen Square and the crackdown by China’s military. The second, in 2006, recognized his columns on the Darfur conflict in Sudan, which the International Criminal Court has classified as a genocide.Mr. Kristof and Ms. WuDunn have written several books together. The most recent, “Tightrope,” published last year, examines the lives of people in Yamhill, a once-prosperous blue-collar town that went into decline when jobs disappeared and poverty, drug addiction and suicides were on the rise.“I’ve gotten to know presidents and tyrants, Nobel laureates and warlords, while visiting 160 countries,” Mr. Kristof said in his statement on Thursday. “And precisely because I have a great job, outstanding editors and the best readers, I may be an idiot to leave. But you all know how much I love Oregon, and how much I’ve been seared by the suffering of old friends there. So I’ve reluctantly concluded that I should try not only to expose problems but also see if I can fix them directly.” More