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      President Duterte Plans to Run for the Vice Presidency

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      The president of the Philippines says he’ll run for the vice presidency next year. Critics see a plot to avoid prosecution for the killings in his drug war.MANILA — Rodrigo Duterte has dominated politics in the Philippines since becoming president five years ago, with an antidrug crusade blamed for thousands of extrajudicial killings and a pressure campaign against opposition leaders and the news media.Now, with mere months left in his six-year term, his opponents fear he is laying the groundwork to stay in power for years to come.Mr. Duterte announced this week that he intended to run for the vice presidency in the elections next May. Critics say it is a blatant attempt by Mr. Duterte, 76, to save himself from his “political sins” as he confronts possible prosecution by the International Criminal Court. An I.C.C. report last year said there was sufficient evidence to show that crimes against humanity had been committed in Mr. Duterte’s bloody drug war, which has left thousands dead.But Mr. Duterte says he still has unfinished business, chiefly the drug war and his fight against the country’s Communist insurgency.“I may not have the power to give direction or guidance, but I can always express my views in public,” he said of his potential new role as vice president.He has long flirted with the idea of staying on in government, though he repeatedly said during the past year that he was tired of the presidency, which he claimed had taken a toll on his health.Then, late Wednesday, during a nationally televised cabinet meeting, Mr. Duterte said unequivocally: “All right, I will run for the vice presidency. Then I will continue the crusade.”The political and defense analyst Chester Cabalza, founder of the Manila-based International Development and Security Cooperation, a research institute, said Mr. Duterte’s decision was clearly meant to save him from prosecution.Jimboy Bolasa, 25, of Manila was found dead in 2016 with gunshot wounds and signs of torture. His killing was one of thousands that have been attributed to Mr. Duterte’s drug war. Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times“However, international laws are tested to have teeth against world leaders who have committed crimes against humanity,” Mr. Cabalza said in an interview. “And this will not spare him from his political sins.”In addition, he said, Mr. Duterte likes to be portrayed as the man in charge, and playing second fiddle is clearly not his style.“We will see clashes and divides if this happens,” Mr. Cabalza said, adding that the president’s fading health could also work against him.In the Philippines, the president and vice president are elected separately, with each serving a single six-year term. The Constitution bars a president from seeking re-election, but it allows him or her to run for a lower office afterward.Two graft-tainted former presidents, Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, were elected to other public offices after their terms as leader of the country ended.There is no legal reason why Mr. Duterte cannot be prosecuted as president, but he has made it clear that he would defy any summons by the international court. A vice president would have less power to do so, but Mr. Duterte hopes to run in tandem with Senator Christopher Lawrence Go as the presidential candidate.If both men win, political experts say, Mr. Go can either resign to allow Mr. Duterte to step in as leader or let Mr. Duterte rule the country by proxy, ensuring he escapes prosecution.Harry Roque, the president’s spokesman, confirmed on Thursday said that all Mr. Duterte was waiting for now was for Mr. Go “to make up his mind” about his candidacy.Mr. Go did not return a phone call requesting comment and has not publicly addressed the issue of running for president. In a statement to local reporters, he said of Mr. Duterte: “I promised him that I will serve him as long as he lives. And that promise includes taking care of his children when he is gone.”Mr. Duterte hopes to run in tandem with Senator Christopher Lawrence Go, left, as the presidential candidate.King Rodrigues/Presidential Photo Division, via Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Duterte’s decision puts him on a collision course with his daughter, Sara Duterte, the mayor of the city of Davao. She has shored up popularity as a potential successor to his father but is not a member of his political party.She appeared not to be amused by the latest development. She said that her father had informed her ahead of time about his decision and that “it was not a pleasant event.”Mr. Roque, for his part, said he did not wish to comment on an internal “family affair.”Among other figures who have indicated they planned to contest the presidency are Senator Manny Pacquiao, the boxing star who parlayed his sports popularity into a career in politics; Francisco Domagoso, the current mayor of Manila, who was once a matinee idol known as Isko Moreno; and Vice President Leni Robredo, the opposition leader, who is a lawyer and a former member of Congress.The former congressman Neri Colmenares, a human rights lawyer, said Mr. Duterte’s announcement appeared to be an attempt to perpetuate his own political dynasty. He suggested that the president was exploiting the Constitution.Mr. Duterte remains popular in the impoverished Philippines, though his luster has been dimmed somewhat by corruption allegations and the extrajudicial killings, according to various surveys. Corruption accusations have also hounded Mr. Duterte’s Covid-19 response; he has refused to fire his health secretary over discrepancies in the accounting of state funds.“He is now a lame duck and will surely lose in the 2022 elections,” Mr. Colmenares predicted.Mr. Colmenares, who is one of a group of lawyers who brought charges against Mr. Duterte before the I.C.C., added, “His craving for immunity only shows he is afraid of the International Criminal Court after all his bluster of being a fearless president.”The only way for Mr. Duterte to escape prosecution is for him to stay on as president, Mr. Colmenares added, and the only way he can do that is through the back door.“He’s hoping to escape prosecution after he is out of power,” he said. “It is not only legally insane, but also exposes his real fear of going to prison.” More

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      How a Defunct Federal Provision Helped Pave the Way for New Voting Restrictions

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      Curbs on drop boxes, tougher ID requirements and purges of voter rolls would have been weakened, or never even passed, if a federal oversight system had been in place.Georgia toughened identification requirements for absentee voting. Arizona authorized removing voters from the rolls if they do not cast a ballot at least once every two years. Florida and Georgia cut back sharply the use of drop boxes for mail-in ballots.All of these new voting restrictions would have been rejected or at least softened if a federal civil rights protection from the 1960s were still intact, experts in election law said.For decades, the heart of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a practice known as preclearance, largely detailed under Section 5 of the statute. It forced states with a history of racial discrimination to seek approval from the Department of Justice before enacting new voting laws. Through preclearance, thousands of proposed voting changes were blocked by Justice Department lawyers in both Democratic and Republican administrations.In 2013, however, Section 5 was hollowed out by the Supreme Court, as Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote in a majority opinion that racial discrimination in voting no longer constituted a significant threat.As Republican-led state legislatures have tightened voting rules after the 2020 election, new restrictions have been enacted or proposed in four states that are no longer required to seek approval before changing voting laws: Georgia, Arizona, Texas and Florida. Those new restrictions would almost certainly have been halted, stalled or altered had Section 5 still been in use, according to interviews with former federal prosecutors and a review by The New York Times of past civil rights actions by the Justice Department.“There’s nothing subtle about what they’re trying to do,” said Tom Perez, the former head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division and a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee. “If Section 5 were still around, those laws would not see the light of day.”The restoration of preclearance is now at the center of a debate in Congress over the passage of federal voting legislation.On Tuesday, the House passed the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would restore preclearance in several states, among other changes. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland has urged Congress to revive preclearance, but Senate Republicans oppose such a move, and a filibuster in the Senate threatens to sink the bill before it can reach President Biden’s desk.President Lyndon B. Johnson greeted Martin Luther King Jr. after signing the Voting Rights Act into law in August 1965.Lyndon B. Johnson LibrarySection 5 covered nine states — Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia — and several counties in New York, Florida, California, South Dakota and North Carolina.Many changes sailed through the Department of Justice during the years of preclearance. Still, thousands of proposed voting laws and rules were found to be discriminatory. From January 1982 to July 2005, Justice Department lawyers filed 2,282 objections to 387,673 proposed voting changes under Section 5, according to a study by the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.Again and again this year, states have enacted voting restrictions that closely track measures that were flagged and rejected years ago under preclearance.In Georgia, a law that toughened ID requirements for absentee voting will have a disproportionate effect on Black voters, who make up about a third of the electorate. More than 272,000 registered voters lack the forms of identification that are newly required to cast absentee ballots, according to a study by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. More than half of them are Black.“If you have a voter-ID law where a lot of people don’t have one of the IDs, that’s a red flag,” said Jon Greenbaum, chief counsel for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and a former voting rights lawyer for the Justice Department under the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations.Mr. Perez, the head of the civil rights division from 2009 to 2013, recalled an Arizona bill that proposed barring third parties from dropping off absentee ballots on behalf of voters. The Navajo Nation protested that some of its communities were hours from the nearest mailbox, making the act of voting by mail an arduous one.The Justice Department pushed back at Arizona lawmakers in preclearance. “We asked them a series of very pointed questions because we had real concerns that it was discriminatory, and they withdrew it,” he said. “As a result of the questions we asked, Section 5 worked in that case. But once Section 5 was emasculated in 2013, they had free rein to enact it.”That bill, Mr. Perez noted, was similar to a new Arizona ban on ballot collection upheld in a recent Supreme Court decision.Republicans across the country have defended the new voting laws and denied they are restrictive, often repeating the mantra that the laws make it “easier to vote, harder to cheat.”Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia called a Justice Department lawsuit over the state’s new ID requirements “disgusting” and a “politically motivated assault on the rule of law.”Republicans do not dispute that the current Department of Justice, under Mr. Garland, would have challenged the new laws under Section 5. But they argue that the Biden administration is focusing on the politics of voting rights and not on the merits of the laws.“Laws that would have likely been precleared in a previous Democratic administration would be easily objected to by the current Biden administration,” said Justin Riemer, the chief counsel at the Republican National Committee.He added: “And it is very apparent to us that their determinations would be politically motivated in stopping states from enacting reasonable regulations that protect the integrity of their election processes.”Six former leaders of the civil rights division under Republican presidents from Ronald Reagan to Donald J. Trump declined to comment or did not respond to requests to comment.The greatest power of Section 5, voting rights experts said, was as a deterrent.The burden of proof that laws were not discriminatory was placed on covered states: They had to show that the laws were not going to further restrict voting rights among communities of color.“A lot of these provisions would have never been enacted in the first place if Section 5 were still there,” Mr. Greenbaum said. “Because these states know that if they couldn’t disprove retrogression, it would go down in flames.”The recent law in Arizona that removed voters from the permanent early voting list if they do not cast a ballot at least once every two years caught the eye of Deval Patrick, who led the civil rights division during the Clinton administration and later was governor of Massachusetts.People rallied in support of the Voting Rights Act outside the Supreme Court in February 2013.Christopher Gregory for The New York TimesIn 1994, Mr. Patrick objected to a Georgia proposal that would purge registered voters from the rolls if they failed to vote for three years unless they reaffirmed their registration status. He said the Arizona law struck him as another example of purging.“I think purging is one of the more pernicious undertakings, and I say this as somebody who is preternaturally neat,” Mr. Patrick said. “It is easier in many states today to keep a driver’s license than it is to keep your voter registration.”Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona, a Republican, insisted that the new law was about election integrity. Active voters would still get ballots, while resources would be freed for “priorities like election security and voter education,” he said in a video after signing the bill. “Not a single Arizona voter will lose their right to vote as a result of this new law.”Mr. Patrick also said the preclearance process had helped prevent changes in voting rules aimed at engineering a victory.He pointed to Georgia, where Mr. Biden won by fewer than 12,000 votes. Georgia’s new voting law prohibits the use of provisional ballots by voters who show up at the wrong precinct before 5 p.m. on Election Day. But “out of precinct” voters accounted for 44 percent of provisional ballots last year, by far the most common reason. Of 11,120 provisional ballots counted, Mr. Biden won 64 percent.“When the margin of victory was as slim as it was, the notion that the provisional ballots might not be counted because of some very technical and frankly trivial issue, that’s a problem,” Mr. Patrick said.Voting rights lawyers also liken new laws curbing the use of drop boxes to past attempts — blocked by the Justice Department under preclearance — to reduce the numbers of polling places or absentee-ballot locations.In 1984 alone, for example, Reagan administration lawyers objected to the relocation of a Dallas polling place to a predominantly white community from a largely Black one, and challenged bills in Arizona that would have reduced access to polling places by rotating locations and cutting operating hours.In Georgia, 56 percent of absentee voters in urban Fulton County and suburban Cobb, DeKalb and Gwinnett counties returned their ballots in drop boxes, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Under Georgia’s new law, those counties will now have just 23 drop boxes, compared with 94 during the 2020 election.And in Texas last year, with roughly a month left before Election Day, Gov. Greg Abbott directed counties to offer only one location for voters to drop off mail-in ballots.“So you had counties with four million people and it was one place essentially to drop off your ballot,” said Chad Dunn, a longtime voting-rights lawyer. “Those are provisions that would have been stopped immediately.” More

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      Israel’s Spy Agency Snubbed the U.S. Can Trust Be Restored?

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      Israel’s new prime minister, Naftali Bennett, heads to Washington promising better relations and seeking support for covert attacks on Iran’s nuclear program.WASHINGTON — The cable sent this year by the outgoing C.I.A. officer in charge of building spy networks in Iran reverberated throughout the intelligence agency’s Langley headquarters, officials say: America’s network of informers had largely been lost to Tehran’s brutally efficient counterintelligence operations, which has stymied efforts to rebuild it.Israel has helped fill the breach, officials say, its robust operations in Iran providing the United States with streams of reliable intelligence on Iran’s nuclear activities, missile programs and on its support for militias around the region.The two countries’ intelligence services have a long history of cooperation and operated in virtual lock step during the Trump administration, which approved or was party to many Israeli operations in its shadow war against Iran.That changed after the election of President Biden, who promised to restore the nuclear agreement with Iran that Israel so vigorously opposed. In the spring, Benjamin Netanyahu, then Israel’s prime minister, even curtailed intelligence sharing with the United States because he did not trust the Biden administration.The challenge for the two countries — as Israel’s new prime minister, Naftali Bennett, meets with Mr. Biden at the White House on Thursday — will be whether they can rebuild that trust even as they pursue contradictory agendas on Iran. The Biden administration favors a diplomatic approach, reviving and building on the 2015 nuclear agreement, while Israeli officials say that only force can stop Iran from building an atomic bomb.A key goal for Mr. Bennett will be to determine whether the Biden administration will continue to support Israel’s covert operations against Iran’s nuclear program, senior Israeli officials said.Israeli officials hope that any new deal with Iran will not limit such operations, which in the past have included sabotage of Iranian nuclear facilities and the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists.The White House meeting comes just weeks after William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, traveled to Israel to meet his counterpart, David Barnea, as well as Mr. Bennett, a sign of the importance of intelligence cooperation to the bilateral relationship.“The sharing of intelligence and operational activity between Israel and the United States is one of the most important subjects on the agenda for the meeting,” said Maj. Gen. Aharon Zeevi Farkash, a former director of Israeli military intelligence. “Israel has developed unique capabilities for intelligence collection in a number of enemy countries, capabilities that the United States was not able to grow on its own and without which its national security would be vulnerable. ”William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, second from left, recently met with his counterpart in Israel. The two agencies are trying to rebuild trust as their countries pursue contradictory agendas on Iran.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesIn his meeting with Mr. Biden, Mr. Bennett’s hand will be strengthened by the fact that the United States has become more dependent on Israel for information on Iran. The United States has other sources of information, including electronic eavesdropping by the National Security Agency, but it lacks the in-country spy network Israel has..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The risk of such dependence became clear in April when Israel set off explosives at Iran’s Natanz nuclear plant.Mr. Netanyahu had ordered his national security officials to reduce the information that they conveyed to the United States about planned operations in Iran, American and Israeli officials said.And on the day of the attack, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, the Mossad, gave the United States less than two hours’ notice, according to American and Israeli officials, far too short a time for the United States to assess the operation or ask Israel to call it off.Israeli and American officials interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified operations.Israeli officials said they took the precautions because Americans had leaked information about some Israeli operations, a charge U.S. officials deny. Other Israeli officials say the Biden administration had been inattentive to their security concerns, too focused on reviving the Iran nuclear agreement that President Donald J. Trump had pulled out of.A satellite photo showing the Natanz nuclear facility in April 2021. Days earlier, Israeli operatives set off a large explosion inside the plant. Planet Labs Inc., via Associated PressIn Washington, many American officials said they believed that Mr. Netanyahu was just resuming the grudge he had held against the Obama administration, which negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran.The last-minute notification of the Natanz operation was the starkest example that Israel had changed its procedures since the Trump presidency.Senior Biden administration officials said that the Israelis, at least in spirit, had violated a longstanding, unwritten agreement to at least advise the United States of covert operations, giving Washington a chance to object.Mr. Burns called his counterpart, Yossi Cohen, the Mossad chief, expressing concern over the snub, according to people briefed on the call.Mr. Cohen said that the belated notification was the result of operational constraints and uncertainty about when the Natanz operation would take place.For the American-Israeli intelligence relationship, it was another a sharp turnabout.Relations had soured during the Obama era.The Obama White House, concerned that Israel was leaking information, kept the existence of the negotiations with Iran secret from Israel, a former Obama administration official said. Israeli intelligence learned of the meetings from its own sources.Mr. Netanyahu was also convinced that American spy agencies were keeping him under surveillance, according to a former Israeli official.During the Trump administration, cooperation reached new highs.In the spring, Benjamin Netanyahu, then Israel’s prime minister, curtailed intelligence sharing with the United States because he did not trust the Biden administration.Dan Balilty for The New York TimesWhen the Mossad stole Iran’s nuclear archive in 2018, the only foreign officials briefed in advance were Mr. Trump and his C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo.Israeli officials used the documents to convince Mr. Trump that Iran had an active nuclear weapons program, and Mr. Trump cited them when he withdrew from the nuclear agreement months later, a major victory for Mr. Netanyahu.“This was clever use of intelligence,” Mr. Netanyahu told The New York Times in 2019.Iran has denied that it seeks a nuclear weapon, but the archives showed that Iran had a nuclear weapons program as recently as 2003. According to American intelligence officials, no evidence has emerged that the program continued.During meetings with senior Trump administration officials in late 2019 and early 2020, Mr. Cohen presented a new Iran strategy, arguing for aggressive covert operations to sabotage Iran’s nuclear facilities and killing key personnel to force Iran to accept a stricter agreement.Israel began a wave of covert operations, keeping the Trump administration in the loop on a series of cyber and bombing attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities and on the assassination of Iran’s chief nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, in November 2020, after the American election but before Mr. Biden took office.The two countries also cooperated on two operations in 2020: a U.S. operation to kill the leader of Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, and an Israeli operation to kill a Qaeda leader who had taken refuge in Tehran.Mr. Pompeo, who later served as secretary of state, said that there was no relationship more important during his four years in the Trump administration than the one that the C.I.A. had with the Mossad.“The two organizations really had a moment, an important moment in history,” he said in an interview in June.In January 2020, an American drone strike killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani as he was leaving the Baghdad airport. The strike was aided by Israeli intelligence.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesBut the warmth of the Trump years quickly gave way to chillier relations this year. The Biden administration’s announcement of its plan to return to the Iran nuclear deal and repeated delays of visits by Israeli intelligence officials to Washington deepened skepticism of the new administration in Israel.Mr. Cohen sought to repair the relationship with the United States during his final months as Mossad chief, a senior Israeli official said.On his final visit to Washington in April, a little more than two weeks after the Natanz bombing, he met with C.I.A. officials and Mr. Biden, promising a more transparent intelligence relationship. Mr. Burns gave him a warm reception, and an award for fostering the close partnership between the Mossad and the C.I.A.“You have people within both intelligence organizations that have had relationships for a very long time,” said Will Hurd, a former C.I.A. officer and former member of the House Intelligence Committee. “There is a closeness and an ability to potentially smooth out some of the problems that may manifest from the leaders.”Arguably as important in rebooting the relations between the two spy shops was the departure of Mr. Netanyahu from the prime minister’s office.Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who meets with President Biden on Thursday, said he would use the meeting with Mr. Biden to try to reset the tone of Israel’s relationship with the United States.Amit Elkayam for The New York TimesMr. Bennett says he wants to open a new chapter in relations with the White House, and has promised a more constructive approach.But the Mossad is already planning more secret operations in Iran. The question for the Biden administration is which are acceptable and when, General Zeevi Farkash said.“The U.S. and Israel must jointly identify the red lines so that if Iran crosses them, Israel can act to prevent it from achieving military nuclear capacity,” he said.Julian E. Barnes and Adam Goldman reported from Washington, and Ronen Bergman from Tel Aviv. Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington. More

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      Brian Benjamin Is Kathy Hochul's Pick for N.Y. Lieutenant Governor

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      Gov. Kathy Hochul chose Mr. Benjamin, a state senator from Harlem, to fill the second highest-ranking role in New York’s government.ALBANY, N.Y. — Gov. Kathy C. Hochul has chosen Brian A. Benjamin, a Democratic state senator from Harlem, to be her lieutenant governor, the second highest-ranking position in New York State, according to two people familiar with the decision.Ms. Hochul, a Democrat from Western New York who was sworn in as the state’s first female governor on Tuesday, is expected to announce the appointment at an event in Harlem on Thursday.The selection of Mr. Benjamin, who is Black, underscored Ms. Hochul’s attempt to diversify her ticket as she mounts her first campaign for governor next year, choosing a potential running mate who could help broaden her appeal in the voter-heavy New York City region.Mr. Benjamin is the senior assistant majority leader in the State Senate, where he has been a vocal proponent of criminal justice reforms. He ran unsuccessfully for city comptroller earlier this year, placing fourth in a crowded Democratic primary. Ms. Hochul’s office declined to comment. Mr. Benjamin, 44, who represents a large swath of Upper Manhattan, did not respond to requests for comment.A lieutenant governor becomes governor when the governor dies, resigns or is impeached. He or she also serves as acting governor when the governor is absent or disabled.But the position, which became vacant as a result of Ms. Hochul’s ascension after former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s resignation, has traditionally served a mostly ceremonial role, entrusted with few statutory duties besides the formality of serving as president of the State Senate.Ms. Hochul, who was recruited by Mr. Cuomo as his running mate in 2014, did not have a close relationship with her predecessor during her nearly seven years as lieutenant governor; for example, she was not a part of Mr. Cuomo’s coronavirus briefings.Pointing to the work dynamic between President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Ms. Hochul has said recently that she wanted to avoid sidelining whoever she picked as lieutenant governor, and entrust them with a policy portfolio.Ms. Hochul had indicated that she intended to select someone from New York City. Ms. Hochul, who is white, approached a handful of city politicians who are people of color, including State Senator Jamaal Bailey, a rising star in Bronx politics; Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte, the leader of Brooklyn’s Democratic Party; and Rubén Díaz Jr., the outgoing Bronx borough president.She settled on Mr. Benjamin, a graduate of Brown University and Harvard University who worked at Morgan Stanley and was a managing partner at Genesis Companies, a real estate firm with a focus on affordable housing, before entering politics.In 2017, he ran for the State Senate seat vacated by Bill Perkins, who had won a seat in the City Council. He emerged as the Democratic Party’s pick for the seat after a convention vote in March and went on to easily defeat his Republican opponent in the overwhelmingly blue district, assuming office that June.As a senator, Mr. Benjamin has backed efforts to close Rikers Island and supported legislation on a range of criminal justice issues, from ending cash bail and reforming discovery to ending solitary confinement and reforming parole laws.He has also sponsored bills to get banks to divest from private for-profit prisons and create a so-called “rainy day fund” that New York City could tap into during fiscal emergencies. Mr. Benjamin said earlier this year that he supported the defund the police movement.Michael Blake, a former assemblyman from the Bronx who endorsed Mr. Benjamin in the comptroller primary, stressed that he should be recognized for his skills and experience, not just how his race and standing among Black voters could aid Ms. Hochul politically.“I think it’s important to realize that Brian is talented, and he is also Black,” Mr. Blake said.“People are always paying attention to talent even when there is no success,” Mr. Blake added. “He ran for city comptroller — I think he was the most qualified — and lost, but at the end of the day, God had bigger plans for him.”The competitive Democratic primary for comptroller included Corey Johnson, the speaker of the City Council, and Councilman Brad Lander, who emerged victorious as the standard-bearer of the party’s left flank. Mr. Benjamin finished fourth, behind Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, a former CNBC anchor.During the primary, Mr. Benjamin’s campaign relinquished nearly two dozen donations after The City raised questions about their authenticity.Mr. Benjamin’s poor showing in the primary could raise questions about how many votes from New York City he could help Ms. Hochul attract as a running mate, especially if the governor faces a primary challenge from a person of color.Jumaane Williams, the city’s public advocate, has said he is actively exploring a run for governor and Letitia James, the state attorney general, is considered a strong candidate, although she has given no indication that she intends to run.“Brian did not have a successful run citywide, but that doesn’t mean he won’t have a successful run statewide,” said Christina Greer, an associate professor of political science at Fordham University. “He has a financial background and could galvanize Black voters. He would translate well upstate.”Mr. Benjamin is a close friend of Keith L.T. Wright, the chairman of the Democratic Party in Manhattan, who backed Mr. Benjamin’s Senate candidacy. On Wednesday, Mr. Wright praised Ms. Hochul’s choice.“He’s bright, he’s intelligent and I think he’ll be a great pick,” Mr. Wright said. “I think he would be someone who would roll up his sleeves and get to work.”Charles B. Rangel, the former congressman and New York political icon, described the selection of Mr. Benjamin as “a tremendous opportunity for the governor to broaden her base now and make her case for re-election.”Some wondered whether Mr. Benjamin’s ascension could signal a resurgence of Black political power in Harlem, which has ceded ground to Brooklyn.David N. Dinkins, the city’s first Black mayor, hailed from Harlem and was a part of the “Gang of Four,” a group of African-American elected officials who had an outsize influence on state politics. David A. Paterson, who served as the state’s first Black governor and lieutenant governor, was connected to that history through his father, Basil Paterson, a former state senator. Mr. Rangel and Percy E. Sutton, the former Manhattan borough president and a civil rights leader, were the other members of the group.“It’s nice to see that younger generation of Harlem politicians come into their own,” said Lupé Todd-Medina, a Brooklyn-based Democratic communications strategist who counts Mr. Benjamin as a former client.Even so, many of the leading elected officials in the city and the state are Black and hail from Brooklyn.“The public advocate is from Brooklyn, the state attorney general is from Brooklyn, the incoming mayor is from Brooklyn and the possible first Black speaker of the House is from Brooklyn,” Ms. Todd-Medina added, “so I think that speaks for itself.” More

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      South Koreans Now Dislike China More Than They Dislike Japan

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      There is growing anti-China sentiment in South Korea, particularly among young voters. Conservative politicians are eager to turn the antipathy into a presidential election issue.SEOUL — The list of election issues set to define South Korea’s presidential race next year is long. The runaway housing prices, the pandemic, North Korea and gender inequality are a start. But an unlikely addition has also emerged in recent weeks: China.South Korea’s decision ​​to let the American military deploy a powerful antimissile radar system on its soil​ in 2017 has been the subject of frequent criticism from China. And last month, a presidential hopeful, Yoon Seok-youl, told the country to stop complaining, unless it wanted to remove its own ​radar systems near the Korean Peninsula.Political elites here are usually careful not to antagonize China, the country’s largest trading partner. But Mr. Yoon’s blunt rhetoric reflected a new phenomenon: a growing antipathy toward Beijing among South Koreans, particularly young voters whom conservative politicians are eager to win over.Anti-Chinese sentiment has grown so much this year that China has replaced Japan — the former colonial ruler — as the country regarded most unfavorably in South Korea, according to a ​joint ​survey by ​the polling company ​Hankook Research​ and the Korean newsmagazine SisaIN. In the same survey, South Koreans said they favored the United States over China six to one.Over 58 percent of the 1,000 respondents called China “close to evil” while only 4.5 percent said that it was “close to good.”Yoon Seok-youl, a conservative politician, on television during a press conference in Seoul in June. He has been openly critical of China.Ahn Young-Joon/Associated PressNegative views of China have deepened in other advanced countries as well, but among the 14 nations surveyed last year by Pew Research Center, South Korea was the only one in which younger people held more unfavorable views toward China than previous generations.“Until now, hating Japan was such a part of Korean national identity that we have a common saying: You know you are a real Korean when you ​feel hateful toward Japan for no particular reason,” said Jeong Han-wool, a chief analyst at Hankook Research​. “In our survey, people in their 40s and older still disliked Japan more than China. But those in their 20s and 30s, the generation who will lead South Korea in the coming decades, tipped the scale against China.”South Korea elects its next president in March, and observers are watching closely to see how younger people vote on the country’s policy toward Beijing.Conservatives in South Korea have called anything less than full-throated support of the alliance with Washington “pro-North Korean” and “pro-Chinese.” Progressives usually support reconciliation with North Korea and calls for diplomatic “autonomy” between the United States and China. Younger South Koreans have traditionally voted progressive, but millennials are breaking that pattern, and possibly turning into swing voters.An American military vehicle that was part of an antimissile radar system arriving in Seongju, South Korea, in 2017. China railed against South Korea over the deployment of the system.Reuters“We feel frustrated when we see our government act spineless while Beijing behaves like a bully,” said Chang Jae-min, a 29-year-old voter in Seoul. “But we also don’t want too much tension with China or North Korea.”For decades, South Korea has benefited from a military alliance with the United States while cultivating trade ties with China to fuel economic growth. But that balance has become increasingly difficult to maintain as relations between Washington and Beijing deteriorate.President Moon Jae-in’s conservative rivals, like Mr. Yoon, have complained that South Korea’s ambiguous policy on the United States and China made the country the “weakest link” in the American-led coalition of democracies working to confront Chinese aggression.“We cannot remain ambiguous,” Mr. Yoon told JoongAng Ilbo, a South Korean daily, last month during an interview in which he made his critical remarks about China.The conservative opposition has long accused Mr. Moon of being “pro-China.” His government has maintained that South Korea — like other American allies, including those in Europe — should avoid alienating either power. While South Koreans overwhelmingly support the alliance with Washington, the country’s trade with China is almost as big as its trade with the United States, Japan and the European Union combined.Chinese tourists in a shopping district in Seoul last year.Jean Chung for The New York Times“We cannot pick sides,” Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong has said.Yet when Mr. Moon met with President Biden in Washington in May, the two leaders emphasized the importance of preserving “peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” and vowed to make their alliance “a linchpin for the regional and global order.” Many analysts saw the statement as a sign that South Korea was aligning itself more closely with Washington at the risk of irritating China, which has called Taiwan a red line.The main conservative opposition, the People Power Party, has already begun harnessing young voters’ anti-China sentiment to secure electoral wins.In April, young voters helped deliver landslide victories for the party in the mayoral races in South Korea’s two largest cities. Last month, the party’s young leader, Lee Jun-seok, 36, said his fellow South Korean millennials would fight against Chinese “cruelty” in places like Hong Kong and Xinjiang, where China has been accused of genocide.Older Koreans, while often anti-Communist, tend to respect Chinese culture, which influenced the Korean Peninsula for millenniums. They have also looked upon the country as a benign giant whose rapid economic growth was a boon for South Korean exporters. Younger South Koreans tend not to share that perspective.President Moon Jae-in of South Korea with President Biden during a press conference at the White House in May.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesMost of them grew up proud of their homegrown economic and cultural successes. And as China’s foreign policy became more assertive under President Xi Jinping, they began to see the country’s authoritarianism as a threat to free society. They have also been critical of China’s handling of the coronavirus, its expansionism in the South China Sea and fine-dust pollution from China that regularly blankets Seoul.“They have grown up in a liberal environment the earlier generations built through sweat and blood, so they hold an inherent antipathy toward illiberal countries,” said Ahn Byong-jin, a political scientist at Kyung Hee University in Seoul. “They root for politicians who criticize China.”Nowhere has South Korea’s dilemma between Washington and Beijing been magnified more dramatically than over the deployment of the American antimissile radar, known as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD.When South Korean officials agreed to the deployment, they called it a necessity in defending against North Korea. China saw it as part of a continuing threat from the United States military presence in the region, and retaliated by curbing tourism to South Korea and boycotting the country’s cars, smartphones, shopping malls and TV shows.South Korean students demonstrated in support of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, outside the Chinese Embassy in Seoul, in 2019.Ed Jones/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHa Nam-suk, a professor of Chinese politics and economy at the University of Seoul, has monitored how deepening animosity toward Beijing has played out on and off campuses in recent years, as cash-starved South Korean universities began accepting more Chinese students.South Korean and Chinese students clashed over whether to support young pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, he said. They have also gotten into spats online over K-pop and kimchi. In March, many young South Koreans forced a TV station to cancel a drama series after it showed an ancient Korean king dining on Chinese dumplings.“As they watched what China did in places like Hong Kong,” Mr. Ha said, “Koreans began asking themselves what it would be like to live under a greater sphere of Chinese influence.” More

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      Why the Recall in California May Replace Newsom with a Republican

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      The populist politics that may eject Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a Democrat, from office before his term is out are more than a century old. Progressive reformers took power in California in 1911 promising, in the words of then newly elected Gov. Hiram Johnson, to restore “the people’s rule” and destroy “the former political master of this state,” the Southern Pacific Railroad.As part of their program, the progressives convinced voters to enact the initiative and referendum, promising that those electoral tools would prevent private interests from ever again subverting the people’s will. They also enshrined in the state Constitution “an admonitory and precautionary measure which will ever be present before weak officials,”: the recall.Though they worked to strengthen democracy, the well-meaning reformers created a weapon that, one hundred years later, could be wielded by an aggrieved minority to thwart the will of the people whom turn-of-the-century progressives aimed to protect. The relative ease of California’s recall process is just one of many long-term factors that, combined with Mr. Newsom’s inconsistent leadership, has created the possibility that California, one of the bluest states in the nation, may soon find itself with an extremely conservative Republican governor. A recent poll gives Mr. Newsom only a 3 percent edge among likely voters in the recall election, scheduled for Sept. 14. If he gets anything less than 50 percent, then the top vote-getter among his opponents — at this point, the Trump-backing, mask- mandate-opposing radio host Larry Elder, with only about 20 percent support among likely voters polled — would replace him.America’s constitutional landscape, at both state and federal scale, contain provisions that can be bent to fulfill anti-majoritarian agendas. Like the filibuster in the U.S. Senate, the Senate itself and the Electoral College, California’s recall process allows a determined minority to overrule the will of the voters. The state constitutional amendment promoted by Governor Johnson that established the recall set a relatively low bar for its use. Recall proponents need attain the signatures of only 12 percent of voters in the most recent election for governor. (Many other states set the minimum at 25 percent.) Still, despite dozens of attempts, recall organizers almost always failed to get enough signatures within the 160 days prescribed by law. The one exception occurred in 2003, when voter anger over rolling electrical blackouts led to the successful recall of another Democrat, Gov. Gray Davis and his replacement by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Hollywood celebrity and a Republican. The recall proponents of 2021 would have failed as well, but a judge agreed to give them an additional 120 days because the pandemic made it difficult to obtain signatures in person.The extension gave recall proponents enough time to target right-wing voters and encourage them to send in their petitions. Partisan polarization, as pronounced in California as in the rest of the nation, is another long-term reason for Mr. Newsom’s current state of political peril. California is a deep blue state: Joe Biden won 64 percent of the presidential vote in 2020, Mr. Newsom won 62 percent of the vote for governor in 2018, and the Republican Party claims only 24 percent of registered voters. But some areas of the state, particularly the Sierra Nevada foothills and the sparsely populated counties in the state’s Far North, are home to right-wing activists who abhor Mr. Newsom’s liberal policies on immigration, marriage equality, gun control and income taxes.Living in an overwhelmingly Democratic state, these conservative residents feel angry, alienated and powerless. Some even want to secede and form a new state with like-minded rural conservatives in southern Oregon. Residents of California’ northernmost counties, whose hand-painted signs proclaim that drivers on Interstate 5 north of Redding are entering the “State of Jefferson,” signed the recall petition in astonishing numbers. In Lassen County, more than 18 percent of registered voters signed, as opposed to less than 2 percent in San Francisco County. These conservative voters are more likely to believe that the 2020 election was stolen from the Republicans and that mask and vaccine mandates are examples of tyranny. Some of them believe that any Democratic executive is by definition illegitimate.Mr. Newsom was the first governor in the nation to issue a mask mandate, and his early pandemic response won him high approval ratings from most Californians. But the state’s shifting guidance on masks, as well as on business and school reopenings, caused some of those early supporters to change their minds. The governor made his biggest personal mistake last November, when he and his wife joined other guests without masks to celebrate the birthday of a lobbyist friend. Not only did the governor violate his own face-covering policy, he did so at one of Northern California’s most expensive restaurants, the French Laundry, in Napa Valley. The pictures of the event crystallized an image of him as an elitist and a hypocrite, and helped the recall campaign surge to more than 442,000 signatures in just one month from a little more than 55,000. Though Republicans see Mr. Newsom as the worst kind of tax-and-spend, gay-friendly, immigrant-loving liberal, many left-leaning Californians find him to be ineffectual at solving the structural problems of the state. Income inequality, they note, is increasing, despite some redistributive efforts by the governor and the state Legislature, and the number of homeless residents has reached historic levels. Fires destroy the homes of thousands of Californians every year, and make the air unbreathable for tens of millions more.Yet Mr. Newsom has accomplished a great deal, especially given the size of the various crises — involving the climate, the economy and public health — that he faces. He has pledged to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to try to prevent future wildfires, and forced the private utility PG&E, which has admitted blame for starting some of the worst blazes, to spend billions to compensate victims and to forgo dividend payments to shareholders for three years. He’s also signed the largest funding package for affordable housing and aid to the homeless in state history. Hiram Johnson and the progressives wanted to empower the voters to recall corrupt public officials, not punish those who struggled because they faced enormous public health and environmental emergencies.If liberal Californians cannot muster enough enthusiasm to send in their ballots against the recall, they might wake up on Sept. 15 to find themselves with a new governor-elect who has just a sliver of voter support. Such a result would almost certainly prompt a movement to change or even abolish the recall. To achieve Hiram Johnson’s stated goal of “the return of popular government in California,” its voters might need to consider getting rid of one of his signature reforms.Kathyrn Olmsted is a professor of history and the interim chair of gender, sexuality and women’s studies at the University of California, Davis. She is the author, most recently, of “Right Out of California: The Big Business Roots of Modern Conservatism.”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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      Kathy Hochul’s Rise to the Governorship of New York

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      A western New Yorker with centrist Democratic roots, she is described as both tough and disarming. She is also relatively untested.As Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo barreled into the 2018 primary season, buffeted by criticisms from the increasingly powerful left wing of the Democratic Party, his team privately worried that he needed a more progressive running mate or a person of color with deeper ties downstate.Publicly, he suggested that Kathy Hochul, his moderate lieutenant from Buffalo, might be better suited running for Congress. His camp floated potential replacements, including the current state attorney general, Letitia James.Those efforts were not lost on Ms. Hochul — indeed, his allies asked her multiple times if she would consider pulling out of the race, an adviser to Ms. Hochul said. But she ran and won re-election anyway, giving no public indication of any daylight with the governor.Three years later, it is Mr. Cuomo who is being replaced by Ms. Hochul, as she moves to become New York’s first female governor after he resigned in disgrace. But the tensions over the 2018 Democratic ticket remain a revealing episode, illustrating both Ms. Hochul’s strengths and vulnerabilities as she takes on one of the most consequential and challenging jobs in American politics.Behind her mild-mannered style, zeal for meeting voters and earnest tweets in support of “#BicycleDay” and “#NationalCerealDay,” she is a shrewd politician who has been underestimated at pivotal moments, her allies say.“No one will ever describe my administration as a toxic work environment,” Ms. Hochul said during her first news conference after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo resigned.Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesBut when she takes office on Aug. 24, she will also be the first governor in more than a century to have deep roots in western New York, in a state where the political center of gravity is the more liberal environs of New York City. Cognizant of that, Ms. Hochul on Sunday said she wants her lieutenant governor to be from New York City.And while she championed the Cuomo administration’s record — which included some major progressive achievements despite Mr. Cuomo’s frequent clashes with the left — earlier in her career she was a relatively conservative Democrat. More

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      In Zambia Election, Opposition Leader Storms to Decisive Win Over President

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      Voters picked Hakainde Hichilema, a businessman who had lost five previous bids for the job, to take over from Edgar Lungu, who has led the southern African nation since 2015.JOHANNESBURG — The leader of Zambia’s main opposition party sailed to victory in the nation’s presidential election, according to results announced on Monday, staving off strong-arm tactics from the incumbent governing party that had stoked fears of a rigged vote.The opposition leader, Hakainde Hichilema, a businessman who had lost five previous bids for the presidency, captured more than 2.8 million votes in the election, which was held Thursday, unseating Edgar Lungu, who drew 1.8 million votes. Mr. Lungu had governed the southern African nation since 2015.Analysts saw the victory by Mr. Hichilema, 59, who leads the United Party for National Development, as a resounding rebuke of Mr. Lungu’s shepherding of an economy that was in tatters. Zambia, a copper-producing nation, has been marred by huge inflation, stifling debt, rising food prices and unemployment.On top of the economic problems, activists and opposition politicians warned that increasingly repressive tactics from Mr. Lungu’s government would cause an erosion of the country’s democracy, which was seen as a model across the continent after Zambia’s founding father, Kenneth Kaunda, reluctantly stepped aside when he lost the first multiparty elections in 1991.Mr. Hichilema, in a written statement provided to The New York Times by Vanguard Africa, a pro-democracy nonprofit that is working with him, said, “In the 2021 elections, the people voted to save democracy.”“We know that a healthy and functioning democracy is one in which the voices of citizens can be heard freely,” he added. “We will listen to those voices rather than seeking to silence critics.”Ahead of the election, irregularities in voter registration led to a greater number of people on the rolls in areas that historically favored Mr. Lungu’s party, the Patriotic Front. The government cracked down on Mr. Hichilema’s ability to campaign, in some cases blocking his travel. And activists accused the government of rights abuses in violently squashing opposition demonstrations and of trying to stifle critical independent media.Even during the voting, the government deployed the military to the streets, citing attacks on Lungu supporters, and it restricted access to social media sites, a decision that a court quickly overturned.Despite all of the challenges, Mr. Hichilema won decisively.President Edgar Lungu of Zambia at the United Nations in 2018. Activists accused his government of rights abuses in violently squashing opposition rallies and of trying to stifle critical news media.Eduardo Munoz/ReutersZambians were “anxious about the possibility of another five years under such a dysfunctional regime,” said Laura Miti, director of the Alliance for Community Action, a nongovernmental organization based in Lusaka, the Zambian capital, that works on public accountability. That made people even more vigilant in the face of the Patriotic Front’s efforts to sway the election toward Mr. Lungu, she said.“I think, in a way, the attempts to subvert the election worked against them,” Ms. Miti said. “I think more people turned out.”Although voter registration was higher in Mr. Lungu’s traditional bases of support, turnout there was lower than in the regions that tended to favor Mr. Hichilema, analysts said. And Mr. Hichilema’s party generally lost by narrow margins in Mr. Lungu’s strongholds, while winning handily the constituencies most favorable to him.As the first rounds of election results were released, Mr. Lungu issued a statement declaring that the voting was “not free and fair.”He claimed that violence at polling stations on Thursday had kept his supporters away. Mr. Lungu posted a lengthy thread on Twitter condemning the killings of two of his supporters and railing about the effect that he said it was having on the elections.Mr. Lungu’s Twitter feed leading up to the voting has been laced with calls for prayer and images of infrastructure projects during his tenure as he sought to portray his re-election as necessary to continue that progress. But that messaging stood in contrast to the everyday realities of Zambians, said Nicole Beardsworth, a lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg who has been in Zambia since early last month studying the election.“I heard this from a lot of people that, ‘You can’t eat the roads,’” she said. “And what point is a school if you don’t have a teacher, and what’s the point of a clinic if you don’t have medicine? That was really the thing that turned the election against the P.F. and against Lungu.”A campaign poster for Mr. Lungu on a tree in downtown Lusaka on Sunday. As the first rounds of election results were released, he issued a statement declaring that the vote was “not free and fair.”Marco Longari/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn his statement, Mr. Hichilema said that, while it would take time to get the economy headed in the right direction, Zambians could expect to see immediate changes in transparency and governance.“We will not bring the military out on the streets,” he said. “We will not arrest civil society activists speaking out in the interests of the people. And we will act quickly to stop the plunder of state resources.”Ms. Miti said that with Mr. Hichilema’s margin of victory and support from Parliament members outside his party, he could govern with a two-thirds majority — the level of support required to make constitutional changes. In the past, presidents have tried to change the Constitution to their benefit. It will be up to Zambians now to hold him accountable, she said.“The question is: What does he do with that power?” Ms. Miti said. “If citizens go to sleep and say, ‘Well, we’ve done our part,’ then you could easily create another regime that either becomes tyrannical or rules in self-interest.” More