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      In a Different Capitol Siege, Republicans in Oregon Call for Accountability

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      G.O.P. lawmakers in the state are calling for the resignation of a legislator who appears to have encouraged protesters to breach the State Capitol in December.A little more than two weeks before a mob of supporters of Donald J. Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol, falsely claiming that he had won the election, a strikingly similar event had unfolded on the other side of the country, at the State Capitol in Oregon.There, in December, a restive crowd had breached the exterior doors and battled law enforcement officers in a building that is capped by a gold-leaf pioneer wielding an ax. The agitators, waving Trump flags and clad in body armor, wielded pepper spray and smashed windows. “Arrest Kate Brown!” the crowd chanted, referring to the state’s Democratic governor.Republicans in Congress have resisted a full, formal investigation into the much larger attack by protesters on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, but in Oregon, lawmakers facing new evidence about the Dec. 21 siege in Salem are taking a different approach. On Monday, the state’s House Republican caucus signed a letter encouraging the resignation of a colleague, Representative Mike Nearman, who in a newly discovered video appeared to be coaching protesters on how they might gain access to the building.The House Republican leader, Christine Drazan, said on Tuesday that she believed there was enough support in her caucus to expel Mr. Nearman from the State Legislature if he did not resign. Legislators in the state have never before expelled one of their own.“I would hope that Representative Nearman would make the decision to not be the first,” Ms. Drazan said in an interview.The protest in Salem was part of a series of demonstrations that broke out across the country after the Nov. 3 election as supporters egged on by Mr. Trump mobilized to contest an election they falsely believed had been stolen. Some of the protests targeted state leaders who had imposed lockdowns and mask orders to counter the coronavirus pandemic.In Salem on Dec. 21, dozens of people mobilized outside the Capitol, expressing frustration that the building had been closed to the public amid the pandemic. Carrying signs condemning the “lying lockdown” and shouting, “Let us in,” some in the crowd surged through an open door on the building’s north side before law enforcement officers moved to confront them.A larger crowd later managed to push in through the doorway but, facing a line of officers in riot gear, they did not reach the rotunda area or areas of the building where legislators were working. Officers later made some arrests and cleared the building.In the months since the breach, videos have made it clear that the crowd had assistance from someone on the inside. Security footage made public days afterward showed Mr. Nearman, who has represented a district that lies south and west of Salem for the past six years, opening a door in a way that allowed protesters inside as he left the building. Mr. Nearman, who walked around the building and re-entered it, faces misdemeanor charges of official misconduct and criminal trespass.After the first video emerged, Mr. Nearman said he did not condone violence but also said he believed that legislative proceedings should be open to the public.Then last week, new footage surfaced, suggesting not only that he may have expected protesters to enter the building, but that he had offered to help them. The video, earlier reported by Oregon Public Broadcasting, appeared to be streamed online a few days before the December intrusion. It showed Mr. Nearman making public remarks in which he coyly gives out his own cellphone number with a suggestion that anyone who might need to enter the Capitol building could text him if they needed a way inside. He referred to the idea as “Operation Hall Pass.”“That is just random numbers that I spewed out. That’s not anybody’s actual cellphone,” Mr. Nearman said after giving out his cell number. “And if you say, ‘I’m at the West entrance’ during the session and text to that number there, that somebody might exit that door while you’re standing there. But I don’t know anything about that.”Barbara Smith Warner, a Democratic lawmaker from Portland who is the House majority leader, said she found it hard to believe that a sitting legislator would put everyone in the building at risk, not only by intentionally opening the door but by doing it in a premeditated way.“That is mind-boggling,” Ms. Smith Warner said. “If that’s not traitorous, I don’t know what is.”Mr. Nearman did not respond to messages seeking comment. In an interview with the conservative radio host Lars Larson, Mr. Nearman said he had been “clowning around” in the video and “setting up” for what he had assumed would be a peaceful protest. He said he had been speaking in the video to a group that was not known to be violent.“I’m willing to have some consequences for what I did, or whatever, but this is super extreme,” Mr. Nearman said.Ms. Smith Warner said she came to see the Dec. 21 siege as a kind of dress rehearsal for what happened in the nation’s Capitol a few weeks later, with the same types of grievances on display. While Republican legislators in Oregon had been largely silent about the December siege until now, she said, she applauded those who were now willing to take on the issue.“I don’t want to minimize that at least some of the Republicans here are doing the right thing,” Ms. Smith Warner said. “That is no small thing. I do think their base will consider that a betrayal.”The U.S. House voted in May to create an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, which left several people dead, injured law enforcement officers and had lawmakers fleeing for safety as a mob ransacked the complex. But that plan for a broader accounting of the day was stalled by Republicans in the Senate who appeared to fear the political consequences of an open-ended inquiry.In Oregon, House Speaker Tina Kotek announced that a bipartisan special committee would convene this week to consider whether Mr. Nearman should be expelled. Ms. Drazan, the Republican leader, said she believed that the matter should have been handled by a different committee but supported the idea of considering expulsion.If a resolution to expel goes to the full House, it would need 40 of the chamber’s 60 lawmakers to approve it. The chamber has 37 Democrats.Ms. Drazan said she did not see much of a parallel between the siege in Washington and the one in Salem, and said she preferred to keep her focus on events in Oregon rather than weighing in on how Republicans in Congress should handle the Jan. 6 events. She said she hoped Republican lawmakers would be as focused on doing the right thing in their own party as they have been on criticizing the opposing party.“I am just exhausted by national politics,” Ms. Drazan said. “They just need to get their act together. They need to start to serve the greater good.”Ms. Drazan noted that when Republican Party leadership in Oregon passed a resolution that embraced the unfounded conspiracy theory that the Jan. 6 attack was a left-wing “false flag” plot to frame Mr. Trump’s supporters, her caucus in the Legislature disavowed the resolution, declaring that there was no evidence of a false flag effort and that the election was over.“We have, I hope, a clear-minded view of what is public service and what is not,” Ms. Drazan said.Mr. Nearman was among those who signed the letter. More

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      Stacey Abrams to Begin Campaign in Support of For the People Act

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      Stacey Abrams, the former Georgia Democratic candidate for governor, and the voting organization she leads are beginning a monthlong advocacy campaign to rally young voters of color to support the For the People Act, an expansive federal elections bill.The effort, called Hot Call Summer, will be anchored in a texting campaign, in which the group aims to reach at least 10 million voters in battleground states that have either passed new laws with restrictions on voting or are advancing such bills. Ms. Abrams’s group, Fair Fight Action, will also host virtual events and fund a paid media campaign to support the push.“With voting rights under attack in 48 out of 50 state legislatures across the country, the moment has never been more urgent, and it will take all of us to ensure that Congress passes the voting rights protections our country and democracy desperately need,” Ms. Abrams said in an email to supporters that was obtained earlier by CBS News. She called on supporters in every state to “make sure that EVERY U.S. Senator is hearing from their constituents about the urgent need” to pass the legislation.The campaign kicks off just days after Senator Joe Manchin III, a moderate Democratic senator from West Virginia, announced that he would not support the federal voting legislation, making passage extremely unlikely in the evenly divided Senate.Republican-led states across the country are continuing to introduce and pass laws that would erect new barriers to voting. Republicans in Texas have vowed to pass a voting bill in a special session this summer, and voting bills are progressing through the Republican-controlled legislatures in New Hampshire and Michigan.Ms. Abrams has made voting rights one of her central platforms. In Georgia in 2018, she came within 55,000 votes of being elected the first Black governor in the United States, and within 18,000 votes of forcing a runoff with her Republican rival, Brian Kemp, in an election that drew almost four million ballots. When she ceded to Mr. Kemp, she maintained her allegations that he had used his position as Georgia’s secretary of state to engage in voter suppression.Ms. Abrams is seen as a likely Democratic candidate for governor in Georgia in 2022. She is scheduled to participate in three virtual town hall events, including one with Katie Hobbs, the Arizona secretary of state and candidate for governor, and Jason Frierson, the Nevada Assembly speaker. Both are Democrats.The Fair Fight campaign joins other national and state organizational efforts in trying to combat the new voting laws being passed by Republican-controlled legislatures. In Texas, the state Democratic Party announced a program aiming to use at least $13 million to register at least one million new voters.And later this month, a coalition of voting rights groups organized by Black Voters Matter will embark on a bus stop tour from New Orleans to Washington, D.C., whose name harks back to its inspiration, the integrated bus trips of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s: the “Freedom Ride for Voting Rights.” More

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      Vermont Governor Phil Scott Agrees to Expand Voting Rights

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      Gov. Phil Scott signed a bill on Monday requiring that all registered voters receive mail-in ballots. His decision contrasted with Republican-led efforts to restrict voting rights in several states.Gov. Phil Scott of Vermont signed legislation on Monday that requires all registered voters in the state to receive mail-in ballots, an expansion of voting rights that counters a movement among Republicans in other states to restrict them.Mr. Scott, a Republican, signed the bill nearly four weeks after the Vermont General Assembly approved the legislation, which also allows voters to fix, or “cure,” a ballot that was deemed defective if it was filled out or mailed incorrectly.In a statement on Monday, Mr. Scott said he had signed the bill “because I believe making sure voting is easy and accessible, and increasing voter participation, is important.”He added that he would push lawmakers to expand the provision beyond statewide general elections, “which already have the highest voter turnout.”“For greater consistency and to expand access further,” he said, “I am asking the General Assembly to extend the provisions of this bill to primary elections, local elections and school budget votes when they return to session in January.”Last year, during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, Vermont officials agreed to send out mail-in ballots to voters so they could cast their votes safely.The measure was extremely popular. More than 75 percent of registered voters cast ballots early or by mail, according to the office of Jim Condos, Vermont’s secretary of state. Voter turnout was high, with more than 73 percent of the state’s 506,000 registered voters casting ballots in November, according to the state’s election results.Among registered voters in Vermont, 68 percent wanted to keep the policy of giving every registered voter a mail-in ballot while 29 percent opposed it, according to a poll conducted by Lincoln Park Strategies, a survey group. Seventy-eight percent of residents also supported giving voters a chance to fix, or “cure,” ballots with small errors.Gov. Phil Scott’s decision to sign the Vermont bill bucked a trend of Republican leaders who have supported bills restricting voting rights.Wilson Ring/Associated PressVermont’s Senate approved the measure in March. The legislation passed in the General Assembly with bipartisan support, in a 119-to-30 vote, though some Republican lawmakers had resisted the push for mail-in ballots, arguing that they could allow for voter fraud.Independent studies and government reviews have found that voter fraud is extremely rare in all forms, including mail-in voting.“We should be proud of our brave state,” Mr. Condos, a Democrat, said in a statement last month. Though he did not name states where lawmakers have worked to restrict voting rights — Florida, Georgia and Texas among them — Mr. Condos contrasted those Republican-led efforts with the measure in Vermont, where the Republican governor had expressed support for a bipartisan bill.“While others are working to make it harder to vote, in Vermont we are working to remove barriers to the ballot box for all eligible voters, while strengthening the security and integrity of the voting process,” Mr. Condos said.Mr. Condos, who noted that mail-in ballots had been available to American voters since before the Civil War, said in his statement that ballots would be mailed only to active registered voters and would not be forwarded to people who had changed their addresses.Ballots must include a signed affidavit from voters identifying themselves, and each envelope will contain voter data such as a unique identification number and a bar code, Mr. Condos said.The law will give municipalities the option to send mail-in ballots for local races and allow voters to cast their ballots at drive-in polling places, said State Senator Cheryl Hooker, a Democrat, who was a sponsor of the Senate version of the bill.Becca Balint, the president pro tempore of the State Senate, said in a statement that the approval of the bill “stands in stark contrast to legislatures across the country who continue voter suppression efforts, targeting practices like mail-in voting that have correlated with higher turnout among people of color.”Ms. Balint, a Democrat, said Mr. Scott’s signature “represents bipartisan agreement that our democracy, and our state, are strengthened when we make elections more accessible to all.”Both chambers of Vermont’s General Assembly are controlled by Democrats, and Mr. Scott has said he voted for President Biden in the 2020 presidential election. After casting his ballot in November, Mr. Scott told reporters that it was the first time in his life that he had voted for a Democrat. Mr. Biden won 66 percent of the vote in Vermont.Mr. Scott’s decision to sign the bill bucked a trend of Republican leaders who have supported bills restricting voting rights. Kentucky, which has a Democratic governor but which former President Donald J. Trump won with 62 percent of the vote, is the only state with a Republican-controlled legislature that has significantly expanded voting rights.“Amid a scourge of anti-voter bills being proposed and signed into law in the states, it’s encouraging to see Vermont moving in the opposite direction,” Josh Silver, chief executive of RepresentUs, a bipartisan voting rights advocacy group, said in a statement.Mr. Trump’s refusal to admit that he lost and his monthslong campaign to delegitimize the results have gutted his supporters’ trust in the electoral system and led to baseless claims about the integrity of the election.In their public comments, lawmakers in at least 33 states have cited low public confidence in the electoral system to justify pushing for bills that restrict voting, according to a tally by The New York Times.States such as Arizona, Florida, Georgia and Iowa have already passed laws restricting the ability of voters to cast ballots. In Texas, Democrats stalled legislation that has been viewed by many voting rights groups as perhaps the harshest of all.Christine Hauser More

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      En Nicaragua se profundiza la represión y la democracia peligra

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      Durante la presidencia de Daniel Ortega, el país está a un paso de convertirse en un Estado de partido único. Las acusaciones de lavado de dinero contra su principal rival agudizan las preocupaciones.MANAGUA, Nicaragua — Los candidatos de la oposición han sido detenidos. Las protestas se han prohibido. Y los partidos políticos han sido descalificados.A meses de postular a la reelección, el presidente de Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, deja al país a un paso de convertirse en un Estado de partido único, al tomar medidas drásticas contra la oposición a un grado que no se ha visto desde la brutal represión de las protestas antigubernamentales de 2018, dicen los expertos.Las medidas agresivas de Ortega son un inesperado desafío para la gestión de Biden, que ha hecho del fortalecimiento a las democracias centroamericanas un pilar de su política exterior en la región.La mano dura de Ortega alcanzó un punto de inflexión el miércoles, luego de que su gobierno acusó a Cristiana Chamorro, una de las principales candidatas de oposición, de lavado de dinero y “falsedad ideológica” y la puso bajo arresto domiciliario horas después de anunciar sus planes de postular a la presidencia en las elecciones del 7 de noviembre. Otro candidato, Arturo Cruz, fue detenido el sábado por la policía por supuestamente “conspirar contra la sociedad nicaragüense”.La policía ha confinado a sus hogares a otros tres aspirantes presidenciales, que no han sido acusados formalmente de ningún cargo, lo que en la práctica impide que realicen campañas electorales.“Ortega está a punto de acabar con toda la competencia política en el país”, comentó Eliseo Núñez, un analista político y activista opositor nicaragüense. “Estamos muy cerca de llamar a esto de una dictadura”.La velocidad con que Nicaragua se ha precipitado hacia el autoritarismo ha tomado por sorpresa incluso a muchos de los oponentes de Ortega.Ortega, otrora líder de la junta revolucionaria de Nicaragua, ha desmantelado gradualmente las instituciones democráticas del país y sofocado la disidencia desde que regresó al poder en 2007 tras ganar unas elecciones democráticas. Más de 320 personas, en su mayoría manifestantes, murieron en protestas contra su gobierno en 2018, lo que la convierte en la peor ola de violencia política en América Latina en tres décadas.Las protestas ayudaron a sumir a uno de los países más pobres de la región en una recesión económica prolongada y condujeron a la imposición de sanciones estadounidenses contra los principales funcionarios de Ortega, incluida su esposa, Rosario Murillo, quien es la vicepresidenta y su portavoz.Ortega, intentando aliviar la presión económica e internacional, inició un diálogo con la oposición tras las protestas y estableció un plazo con la Organización de Estados Americanos el año pasado para lograr que el sistema electoral nicaragüense sea más justo.Pero al acercarse el plazo para la reforma, Ortega viró radicalmente hacia la represión. Ha nombrado a sus partidarios al consejo supremo electoral. Introdujo una serie de leyes que permiten a sus funcionarios detener o descalificar a cualquier ciudadano que haya expresado críticas al presidente, incluidos periodistas y políticos.“Ortega hizo todo lo contrario de lo que se esperaba”, observó Carlos Tünnerman, un ex alto funcionario del gobierno revolucionario de Ortega en los años ochenta. “Ha demostrado que está listo para hacer cualquier cosa para mantenerse en el poder”.La medida más audaz del gobierno hasta ahora ha sido el arresto sorpresivo de Cristiana Chamorro, heredera de una de las familias más ricas e influyentes de Nicaragua y cuya madre derrotó a Ortega en las elecciones de 1990. Hasta hace poco, Chamorro dirigía una fundación que capacitaba a periodistas independientes de Nicaragua con fondos recibidos parcialmente de Estados Unidos, lo que llevó al gobierno a acusarla de lavado de dinero y subversión.Cristiana Chamorro, al centro, candidata líder de la oposición, en Managua la semana pasada.Inti Ocon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesEn la actualidad solo un grupo creíble de la oposición tiene la posibilidad legal de participar en las elecciones de noviembre y representa la última esperanza para los opositores de Ortega. La agrupación, llamada Ciudadanos por la Libertad, está en el proceso de elegir a su candidato presidencial, quien se convertiría de hecho en estandarte de una oposición por lo general indisciplinada.Los analistas políticos indican que un candidato serio de Ciudadanos por la Libertad tendría buenas oportunidades de movilizar al grueso de los votantes nicaragüenses que no apoyan al gobierno y presentar una amenaza electoral de importancia al partido gobernante.Ortega parece no estar dispuesto a permitirlo. El viernes, la junta electoral, aliada del gobierno, hizo una amenaza velada de prohibir a cualquier candidato que no cumpla con las nuevas leyes que criminalizan la disidencia política.Los líderes opositores comentaron que la nueva directriz permite que los funcionarios electorales tengan el poder de suspender a cualquier candidato que represente una amenaza seria para Ortega o el candidato de su elección para que en la práctica no enfrente oposición.“Están claramente abiertos a dar ese último paso”, dijo Félix Maradiaga, uno de los finalistas en la carrera por la nominación de Ciudadanos por la Libertad a candidato presidencial.El mismo Maradiaga ha estado periódicamente en arresto domiciliario desde noviembre sin que se le hayan presentado cargos.La vocera de Ortega, Murillo, no respondió a un pedido de comentarios sobre las detenciones de los candidatos de la oposición.El rápido deterioro de las protecciones democráticas de Nicaragua ha presentado un desafío para la gestión de Biden, que ya estaba teniendo dificultades para detener el creciente autoritarismo en Centroamérica.Funcionarios y congresistas estadounidenses respondieron a la detención de Chamorro con amenazas de imponer nuevas sanciones contra Ortega.“Definitivamente estamos viendo qué acciones vamos a tomar para responder” a la represión política, dijo el sábado a la Voice of America el principal asesor de la Casa Blanca para América Latina, Juan González.La fuerte dependencia de Nicaragua de las exportaciones preferentes a Estados Unidos y los créditos de prestamistas internacionales financiados por Estados Unidos significa que las sanciones son una seria amenaza económica para Ortega, dijo Tiziano Breda, analista centroamericano de International Crisis Group.Pero la introducción de sanciones de importancia podrían conducir a la ya contraída economía de Nicaragua a una crisis, impulsando un nuevo éxodo de migrantes de la región hacia Estados Unidos.“Ortega ya ha presidido una economía de guerra; está demostrando que está dispuesto a repetir la historia”, comentó Breda. “La pregunta es: ¿Estados Unidos está dispuesto a afrontar las consecuencias de sus acciones?”Yubelka Mendoza More

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      Kathryn Garcia Doesn’t Want to Be Anyone’s No. 2

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      Kathryn Garcia Doesn’t Want to Be Anyone’s No. 2Ms. Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner, was regarded as New York City’s problem solver. Now she faces her own challenge: persuading voters to elect a newcomer to politics.Kathryn Garcia, the former sanitation commissioner, is seeking to become the first woman to be elected mayor of New York City.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesThe New York City mayoral race is one of the most consequential political contests in a generation, with immense challenges awaiting the winner. This is the seventh in a series of profiles of the major candidates.June 7, 2021Even for a New York City mayoral candidate who seemed like a long shot, the event early last month had a desperate quality to it.Kathryn Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner, had agreed to a “pie-off” charity appearance with Paperboy Love Prince, an artist also running for mayor. Before they threw pies in each other’s faces, they had a dance-off, and she joked on Twitter that she would soon be “having a word with my staff.”A couple of days later, Ms. Garcia began airing her first television campaign ad. It, too, might have been described as being somewhat out of the box — but she actually stands inside the box, a giant red cube labeled “in case of emergency break glass.” She dons a pair of safety glasses and a leather jacket, and we see the glass shatter.The messages seemed clear: Sometimes you have to throw some pies and break some glass to draw attention and — to paraphrase a profane campaign slogan of hers — to get stuff done.For most of the mayoral race, Ms. Garcia, 51, had seemed hampered by a lack of resources and name recognition. Her fellow Democrats praised her experience in city government, where she held leadership positions at the city’s sanitation, environmental and public housing agencies.Yet at the time of the pie-off, Ms. Garcia was regarded so benignly that Andrew Yang parried critiques of his own government inexperience with promises to hire Ms. Garcia if elected. According to Ms. Garcia, Eric Adams, a former state senator now serving as Brooklyn borough president, had privately said he would seek to hire her, too. A spokesman for Mr. Adams declined to comment.Their gambit, Ms. Garcia said, was sexist. It may also have proven counterproductive: Voters began to focus on her qualifications. Editorial board endorsements came from The New York Times and The Daily News. Donations rolled in. Supporters started a super PAC to bolster her campaign.A late surge by Ms. Garcia has elevated her candidacy for the Democratic nomination.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesWith two weeks left before the primary, which is all but certain to determine the next mayor in this heavily Democratic city, some of the race’s limited polling puts Ms. Garcia in the top three, alongside Mr. Yang and Mr. Adams. A fourth candidate, Maya Wiley, could be buoyed by recent endorsements from left-leaning Democrats, including Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman.If Ms. Garcia becomes mayor, she says she will mandate curbside composting, a now-voluntary program started in the Bloomberg administration that she expanded. She wants to fill a jail-free Rikers Island with renewable energy capacity, including solar panels, battery storage and electric vehicle charging stations.She says she would spend $630 million a year to provide free child care for young children in families making less than $70,000 a year — to be funded largely by finding cost savings elsewhere in government — and guarantee housing for every foster care child until they are 26 years old.She would be New York City’s first female mayor. But there are hurdles that she must surmount first.She is by many accounts an even-keeled colleague who is cool under pressure. But she lacks the performative, charismatic qualities that so often animate politicians, to the frustration of some of her supporters. And though her more than six years in the de Blasio administration were well regarded, they have still given opponents ammunition to tie her to a mayor who is unpopular with some portions of the primary electorate.As sanitation commissioner, Ms. Garcia redesigned the city’s snow plow routes to improve efficiency.Karsten Moran for The New York Times“Why is ability not wholly the conversation?” she asked recently. “Shouldn’t that be what we’re looking for in our next mayor? That you can actually do the job, that you know how to do the job, that there’s some track record that says you would be effective at this?”Adventures after babysittingWhen Bruce and Ann McIver picked up their first child, Kathryn, from the adoption agency, she was just days old, the biological child of two graduate students.They promptly moved into a four-story house on First Street in Brooklyn, just a few blocks from Prospect Park. With its roots planted in Park Slope, the family grew to include five children — Black and white, biological and adopted, including one longtime ward of the foster system.Ms. Garcia was what her father calls an easy child. She saved her money. She attended the elite Stuyvesant High School. Her younger brother, Matt, described her as a “planner” and “very rigid.” She kept her bedroom neat, adorning its walls with the lyrics to Prince’s “When Doves Cry” and an advertisement for Soloflex, a workout device whose marketing campaign featured a man’s chiseled abs.The family recalled that her most extreme act of youthful rebellion occurred when she was a teenager and desperate to see Prince during his Purple Rain tour at Nassau Coliseum. She and a friend lined up overnight in Manhattan to buy tickets, only for their fathers to show up and drive them home. (They ended up seeing the show anyway.)Mr. McIver, a Montana native, served as Mayor Edward I. Koch’s chief labor negotiator. His wife, Ann McIver, was an English professor at Medgar Evers College who became executive director of the Morningside Area Alliance, a Manhattan nonprofit.Growing up, Ms. Garcia babysat for the children of Robert W. Linn, who would become Mr. de Blasio’s chief labor negotiator, and Emily Lloyd, who would go on to run the city’s Department of Environmental Protection.That connection would eventually pay off. Ms. Lloyd recruited Ms. Garcia to work as an unpaid intern at the Department of Sanitation after she graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Years later, Ms. Lloyd would appoint Ms. Garcia as her chief of staff at the Department of Environmental Protection. And it was Ms. Lloyd who later suggested to Anthony Shorris — Mr. de Blasio’s first deputy mayor — that he hire Ms. Garcia as sanitation commissioner.During her stint in the Department of Environmental Protection, Ms. Garcia often responded to crises, including the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesAlong the way, Ms. Garcia worked for the Department of Finance and for Appleseed, a consulting firm where she conducted economic analyses for clients like Columbia University.She began to build a reputation as a reliable leader amid crisis. At the Department of Environmental Protection, where she eventually became chief operating officer, Ms. Garcia helped restart the city’s pumping stations after Hurricane Sandy and brought crews adept with chain saws down from the city’s upstate watershed to clear fallen trees.As sanitation commissioner, Ms. Garcia redesigned the city’s snow plow routes to improve efficiency and to avoid the type of winter catastrophe that has given mayors headaches, and occasionally cost them their jobs.The McIver children are still close. On a recent Sunday afternoon, the family gathered for bagels at Ms. Garcia’s sisters’ house in Brooklyn.Ms. Garcia, with her brother, Matt McIver, and sister Melanie McIver, grew up in Brooklyn and now lives not far from her family’s home.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesThe sisters milled about, as did their brother, Matt, their mother, Ann, and Ms. Garcia’s nieces, Lily and Penelope. There were also two dogs and a garter snake named Checkers.Lily, who is 6, went to the breakfast table to slice a bagel. Ms. Garcia leapt off the couch to intervene.“I’ve done it before,” Lily protested.Running clear of Bill de BlasioMs. Garcia is running as a moderate in the Democratic primary, much like Mr. Yang and Mr. Adams, who lead most polls. She rejects the defund the police movement, but would seek to require new officers to live in the five boroughs to better integrate the police force with the communities they serve, and would raise the recruitment age from 21 to 25.She has also proposed creating 50,000 units of what she calls “deeply affordable” housing, while legalizing more basement and single-room occupancy apartments. She supports allowing more charter schools to open and creating more dedicated bus lanes.But above all, she is running on her reputation for competence, one she honed while working for Mr. de Blasio.After the mayor in 2019 signed on to a controversial deal ceding some authority over the New York City Housing Authority to the federal government, the interim chair, Stanley Brezenoff, quit. Mr. de Blasio asked Ms. Garcia to step in until a new chair could be found.“They needed somebody credible, somebody with a demonstrable track record, someone who wouldn’t be immediately overwhelmed by the problems and the challenges of the task at hand,” Mr. Brezenoff said. “So she went from a palace where she reigned supreme and took this on. That’s my definition virtually of being a good soldier in the interests of the public and the city.”Ms. Garcia spent about four months leading the housing authority. Victor Bach, the senior housing policy analyst for the Community Service Society of New York, said he was “impressed with her skills as an administrator, particularly as a pinch-hitter NYCHA chair, transiting from sanitation to a strange new NYCHA universe.”But Daniel Barber, the head of the citywide council of tenant representatives, faulted her for not doing enough to effect change.“Although Kathryn Garcia was the commissioner of sanitation, NYCHA was still faced with major garbage issues,” said Mr. Barber, who has endorsed Raymond J. McGuire for mayor. “You can still see them today.”Mr. de Blasio also gave Ms. Garcia the task of coordinating city efforts to reduce childhood lead exposure. And when the coronavirus pandemic threw one million New Yorkers out of work, he asked her to create an emergency food network. At its peak, it distributed 1.5 million meals a day across the five boroughs.Ms. Garcia’s distribution system was not without flaws, which her opponents have recently seized upon to cast doubt on her management skills.But Joel Berg, the chief executive of Hunger Free America, who has worked to fight hunger for decades, marveled that Ms. Garcia’s team had managed to set up a program in a matter of weeks that would normally have taken the government years.“Some of my colleagues were quibbling some of the meals weren’t perfect, some of the deliveries got botched, there wasn’t perfect sourcing of organic fruits from local farmers,” Mr. Berg said. “I get all that. But what they did in a short period of time was pretty darn amazing.”Ms. Garcia began her career in government as an unpaid intern at the city’s department of sanitation. Decades later, she became its commissioner.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesMs. Garcia’s central brief in the de Blasio administration was the normally unglamorous work of managing New York City’s trash and its snow. It is typically one of the more thankless jobs in government, one that draws media attention only when the commissioner fails. But Ms. Garcia managed to thrive there and earn widespread praise.Antonio Reynoso, the city councilman whose Sanitation Committee had oversight of the Sanitation Department, described Ms. Garcia as “absolutely amazing.”.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;}With Mr. Reynoso, Ms. Garcia helped pass a waste equity bill that aimed to more fairly distribute private waste transfer stations around the city. The two also helped spearhead the reform of the notoriously dangerous commercial carting industry.The city is now establishing a zoned system, and private carting companies will have to compete to handle the private trash in those zones. The initiative is expected to reduce truck traffic in New York City by 18 million miles a year.Ms. Garcia won over the department’s rank and file. Four unions representing sanitation workers and supervisors in the public and private sectors, as well as one association representing sanitation chiefs, have endorsed her candidacy.“I honestly feel she is the person to run the city right now,” said Harry Nespoli, the president of the Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Association, which represents the bulk of the department’s workers. “I’ve seen her work, I’ve worked with her, I’ve seen her turn around and take on issues that other people wouldn’t take on, and she gave it everything she had.”Jimmy Oddo, the Staten Island borough president and a Republican, said he had several friends running in the mayor’s race, but that a “big part” of him — the frustrated 30-year government employee, as he put it — was “probably rooting for Kathryn the hardest.”Mr. de Blasio thought so highly of Ms. Garcia that he asked her to be his deputy mayor for operations, she confirmed. But her accomplishments in his administration are also being used by her opponents on the campaign trail.Ms. Garcia seems aware of the potential de Blasio effect. She turned down the deputy mayor offer, and when she ultimately resigned from the administration in advance of her run for mayor, she criticized Mr. de Blasio for making cuts to the Sanitation Department during the pandemic, causing trash to pile up on city streets.Mayor Bill de Blasio, who chose Ms. Garcia as sanitation commissioner in 2014, put her in charge of creating an emergency food network during the pandemic.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesShe has recently broadened her criticism of Mr. de Blasio, saying that he could be too much of a micromanager, with no apparent interest in asking his commissioners what he could do to help them achieve policy goals. She has said Mr. de Blasio’s new $100 billion budget, by creating new programs even as the city is facing budget gaps, reflected “poor decision-making,” and she has promised to recast the costly signature mental health initiative, Thrive — created by the mayor’s wife, Chirlane McCray — to focus more on people with the most severe mental health challenges.At the second official Democratic debate on Wednesday, seven of the eight candidates said they did not want Mr. de Blasio’s endorsement. The one exception was Mr. Yang.The next morning, a reporter asked Mr. de Blasio to comment on the efforts by two of his former aides — Ms. Garcia and Ms. Wiley, who served as his counsel — to distance themselves from him while running for mayor.“It just proves they’re politicians now,” he said.A practitioner, not a practiced politicoIf Ms. Garcia does reach City Hall, she is unlikely to forget her roots and what got her there. She still talks to her father every day — she from the campaign trail; he from the Hell’s Kitchen apartment building that he said Mr. Yang lived in before moving into another building nearby.Her two children are grown; her son lives nearby. She travels between her Park Slope home and the Staten Island home of her boyfriend, Andy Metz, who manages residential construction projects.Until she got divorced in 2016, Ms. Garcia was married to Jerry Garcia, a banker of Puerto Rican descent. Her surname may help her with Latino voters, who are expected to make up about 20 percent of primary voters.Ms. Garcia will not have a “first gentleman” if she makes it to Gracie Mansion. And her boyfriend, she said, will not live with her.“We don’t live together now,” she said. “I don’t think that’s going to change.”Ms. Garcia described most of her rivals as politicians, a characterization that she argued did not apply to herself.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesLast week, Ms. Garcia sat at her kitchen table in the blue Park Slope rowhouse where she and her ex-husband raised their family, not far from where she grew up. She had just gotten back from a meeting with Jewish leaders in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and was about to do an Instagram interview with the “Broad City” star Ilana Glazer. By that evening, she would be in Rockaway Beach in Queens, meeting voters.She was doing all of the things that a politician should do to win office. But still, she refused to assume the mantle of “politician.”“The usual person who runs is a politician, and I would actually put many of the people who are running in that category,” Ms. Garcia said. “And that is clearly not me.”If voters do in fact swing like pendulums — with every cycle turning away from the outgoing mayor toward what seems like a foil — it is possible that New Yorkers hungry for the perception of competence at a time of crisis will propel Ms. Garcia to victory.It is also possible that Ms. Garcia will benefit from the city’s new ranked-choice voting system, which allows voters to rank up to five candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the first-choice vote, the last-place finisher is eliminated. Voters who picked the eliminated candidate as their first choice will have their second-choice votes counted instead. The process continues until there is a winner.A recent poll commissioned by the conservative Manhattan Institute showed Ms. Garcia’s percentage of the vote rising as Dianne Morales, Mr. McGuire and Scott Stringer were eliminated in the mock ranked-choice tabulations.Ms. Garcia is circumspect about when she decided to run. But one of her earlier employers, Hugh O’Neill, the Appleseed president, said he remembered the first time he heard the idea floated.In 2016, Ms. Garcia did a presentation for the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog organization. Several people were impressed and approached Mr. O’Neill to ask if he thought she might consider running for mayor.He discussed the idea with Ms. Lloyd and then a couple of times with Ms. Garcia herself.“She made clear that she thought that she could do it, but she didn’t think that was where her future was,” he said. “And then, she called me, probably late last summer, and said, ‘I think I’m running for mayor.’ I said, ‘I’m glad to hear it.’” More

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      German Conservatives Appear to Lead in Last State Election Before National Vote

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      The contest in an eastern state, a stronghold of the Alternative for Germany, had been closely watched for signs of the far-right party’s appeal.BERLIN — Voters in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt appeared in a Sunday vote to support a return of the ruling conservatives, which made strong gains in a contest that had been closely watched for signs of a far-right party’s strength months ahead of a national election.Initial partial returns suggested that the conservative Christian Democratic Union were poised to break a losing streak in state ballots and expand their past margins over the nationalist Alternative for Germany, or AfD.Although Saxony-Anhalt is one of the country’s smallest states, with only 1.8 million people eligible to cast ballots, many Germans were looking to Sunday’s vote for indications about the national election for a new Parliament on Sept. 26.The outcome on Sunday could bolster the campaign of Armin Laschet, the current leader of the Christian Democrats, who is hoping to replace Angela Merkel. She is stepping down after 16 years in office as chancellor.Mr. Laschet, 60, the governor of North Rhine-Westphalia, has struggled to gain traction across the country, especially in the states of the former East Germany, and the strong showing for his party in the last regional election before the national ballot could give his contest a boost.“Today is a clear win for the Christian Democrats,” said Volker Bouffier, the governor of the western state of Hesse and a senior member of the conservative party. “But the fight is still at the beginning, the fight for the democratic center.”Despite the conservatives’ apparent ability to attract more support, the early partial returns suggested that AfD remained firmly the second most popular party in the state, a position it won five years ago when it received nearly a quarter of votes in the Saxony-Anhalt state election, shocking the country and propelling the party from the far-right nationalist fringe onto the national stage.The following year, the AfD won more than 12 percent in the national election, becoming the largest opposition party in the national Parliament, with 88 seats.A polling place at an art history museum in Magdeburg, the capital of Saxony-Anhalt, on Sunday.John Macdougall/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSince then, Alternative for Germany has struggled to contend with a more extremist wing that has pulled the party branch in Saxony-Anhalt even further to the right, capturing the attention of the country’s domestic intelligence service. The state’s leaders in the party, along with those from the branches in Brandenburg and Thuringia, are under official scrutiny for their anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim statements. Whether the AfD at the national level will also be placed under observation is on hold, pending the outcome of a legal challenge.While much about the Saxony-Anhalt contest is unique to the region, heavily focused on local issues like schools and economic restructuring, a majority of voters told pollsters with infratest.dimap on Sunday they were satisfied with the work of their governor, Reiner Haseloff, a member of the Christian Democrats who sought to clearly distance his party from the AfD.“I am thankful that our image remains, we have a reputation of democracy here in Saxony-Anhalt that we upheld tonight,” Mr. Haseloff said after initial projections had shown his party the clear winner of the evening.Mr. Haseloff has been a strong champion of the states in eastern Germany, home to many regions that are still struggling with the fallout from economic restructuring more than 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.The persistent lack of jobs and economic infrastructure in those states, and a feeling that traditional parties do not take their concerns seriously, were other key factors that led many voters to shift their support to the AfD five years ago. That result forced Mr. Haseloff to form a coalition government across a wide political spectrum, including the center-left Social Democrats as well as the environmentalist Greens, in an effort to keep the far-right in the opposition.On Sunday, the Social Democrats suffered one of their worst showings in a state election, while the Greens were able to gain marginal support in the region, where they have traditionally struggled to attract voters.The other winner of the state ballot, along with the conservatives, appeared to be the pro-business Free Democratic Party, which voters returned to the statehouse for the first time in a decade. More

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      Despite It All, López Obrador Has My Vote

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      MEXICO CITY — There seem to be just two types of people in Mexico: those who hate their president and those who love him.Even Andrés Manuel López Obrador himself seems to be fascinated by the division he inspires, fueling the polarization by casting Mexicans as either for the “Fourth Transformation” — the set of administrative, economic and social reforms that he promotes — or against it, with no room for nuance. Every morning the president turns his daily news conferences into a battlefield, singling out adversaries and laying the groundwork for the next 24 hours of verbal attacks.But this polarization is not new. Mexico stopped being one society a long time ago, splitting into two countries, so to speak, that struggle to coexist where they overlap. Both sides are genuinely convinced that their approach for ​​Mexico is the one that best suits the country. And they are both correct, except that they are talking about two different countries.In this Sunday’s midterm elections, these competing visions will face off in what is also a kind of plebiscite three years into the López Obrador administration. Although his Morena party appears to lead in the polls, it’s still unclear whether he can achieve a qualified majority in the legislative branch, which would allow him to modify the Constitution without negotiating with the opposition.Some believe that granting even more power to a president they consider authoritarian would endanger Mexican democracy. His supporters, for their part, are convinced that controlling Congress is necessary to undo the years of economic policies that have prevented poor Mexicans from prospering.Although I disagree with Mr. López Obrador’s personalist leadership style and some of his authoritarian actions, I believe his political aims are a legitimate attempt to afford greater representation to the Mexicans who have been left behind, many of them living in underdeveloped rural areas. More than three decades of an economic model that increased inequality has led to the fragmented and unequal Mexican society that we see today. Given that the opposition has thus far been unable to offer an alternative to this model, I am convinced that Mr. López Obrador is our only viable option.According to the National Institute of Statistics, 56 percent of Mexicans work in the informal sector and lack social security, and not by choice. Mr. López Obrador has enacted social programs that have benefited more than 20 million Mexicans, although it’s not enough for the estimated 52 million who live in poverty.So it’s no surprise that he has significant support among much of the population. That support is even easier to understand when you consider one of the milestones of contemporary Mexico: In 1992, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, betting that privatizing the economy and relying on market forces would modernize and grow the country.But something went awry in the calculations. Over the past 30 years, Mexico’s G.D.P. has grown at an average annual rate of only 2.2 percent, and there are enormous internal inequalities. The 10 richest people have the same wealth as the poorest half of the country, according to a 2018 Oxfam report.Mr. Salinas was unable or unwilling to rein in the elites who benefited from a system of protected monopolies, kickbacks and extraordinary profit margins derived from corruption and inefficiency.Mexico has also modernized its electoral system and built democratic institutions to promote competition, transparency and the balance of power. To the many Mexicans who saw that these supposedly democratic and transparent norms were applied selectively, the changes did not amount to much. Again, modernization seemed to pan out for some Mexicans, but had little effect for those who couldn’t take advantage of it — a majority of the population in need. For many, “democracy” is nothing but a word wielded in elections and in the discourse of leaders who have made themselves rich at the expense of the treasury. According to Latinobarómetro, a regional polling organization, just 15.7 percent of Mexicans said they were satisfied with their country’s form of democracy, making Mexico one of the countries in Latin America with the lowest levels of confidence in government.In 2018, when Mr. López Obrador ran for the presidency for a third time, the indignation and rage of those left behind had reached a boiling point. The signs of discontent were visible: historically low approval of government performance and communities that were willing to take justice into their own hands. Mr. López Obrador offered a political pathway to dissipate this tension and won the election with more than 50 percent of the vote.Since then he has radically increased the minimum wage; established about $33 billion in annual direct transfers and handouts to disadvantaged groups; and begun ambitious projects, like the Mayan train and the Dos Bocas refinery, in regions traditionally overlooked by central governments. Mr. López Obrador’s administration’s financial policy is practically neoliberal, with its aversion to indebtedness; inflation control; austerity and balance in public spending; and rejection of private sector expropriations. During the pandemic, he has been harshly criticized across the political spectrum for his refusal to expand fiscal spending to counteract its disproportionate impact on people, especially those who did not benefit from direct Covid relief.Many describe Mr. López Obrador’s style of governance and his social and economic projects as populist in nature. In attempts to fend off criticism, he’s gone as far as attacking the independent press and anti-corruption groups. The small portion of the population that prospered these past decades has good reason to be irritated and concerned.But in short, Mr. López Obrador is a less radical politician than he’s accused of being and is more prudent with his management of government than he’s given credit for.It’s understandable how the 61 percent of the population that backs him, people belonging to groups that have the most reason to be dissatisfied with the system, assumes that the president is on their side. Mr. López Obrador is not a threat to Mexico, as his adversaries claim. The real threat is the social discontent that made him president.A failure to resolve this issue puts everyone at risk. The two Mexicos must come together. Right now, despite it all, only Mr. López Obrador is in a position to make that possible for his fellow citizens. On Sunday we will know how many of them concur.Jorge Zepeda Patterson (@jorgezepedap) is a Mexican economist and sociologist. He founded the digital daily SinEmbargo and is the author of “Los amos de México,” among other books. This essay was translated from the Spanish by Erin Goodman.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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      Elecciones en México y Perú: qué está en juego

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      El TimesElecciones del 6 de junio: México y Perú van a las urnasLabores previas a la elección del 6 de junio en el Instituto Estatal Electoral de Chihuahua en Ciudad Juárez, MéxicoJose Luis Gonzalez/ReutersLas dos jornadas electorales han sido percibidas como referendos sobre el manejo de la pandemia y un modelo económico que parece incapaz de mitigar la desigualdad.Las elecciones de hoy, domingo 6 de junio, serán cruciales para millones de latinoamericanos que acudirán a las urnas en México y Perú. América Latina es una de las regiones más afectadas por la pandemia de COVID-19: alrededor de una tercera parte de las muertes causadas por el virus en el mundo se han registrado en países latinoamericanos, a pesar de que solo el 8 por ciento de la población mundial vive ahí. El impacto regional del virus al sur del río Bravo es notable si se considera que, mientras Estados Unidos se prepara para volver a la normalidad pospandémica, países como Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica y Uruguay atraviesan su peor brote.Mexicanos y peruanos no son los únicos que han votado desde que inició la pandemia. En total, entre 2020 y 2022, se celebran 9 comicios presidenciales a lo largo de 25 meses en América Latina.Ecuador eligió en abril a un exbanquero conservador como su presidente después de una campaña que fue crucial para el movimiento indígena. En noviembre, Honduras y Nicaragua tendrán elecciones presidenciales.Además, este año, los chilenos aprobaron en un plebiscito reescribir su Constitución y Argentina irá a las urnas en octubre para las legislativas de medio término.¿Qué está en juego en las elecciones de hoy? Aquí tenemos las claves. México a elecciones de medio términoLa votación será una prueba de la popularidad del presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador, quien busca consolidar la mayoría que hoy tiene su partido en el Congreso para avanzar en su proyecto político en los tres años restantes de su sexenio. Para alcanzar una supermayoría en la Cámara baja (334 escaños) el partido de López Obrador, Morena, ha formado coaliciones con el Partido Verde y el Partido del Trabajo.La jornada del domingo será el ejercicio electoral más grande de la historia: 93 millones de mexicanos están convocados a las urnas para decidir sobre unos 20.000 cargos, entre ellos los 500 asientos de la Cámara de Diputados, 15 gubernaturas y miles de puestos locales.López Obrador, quien gobierna el país desde 2018, ha emprendido lo que llama “la cuarta transformación” del país con la promesa de combatir la corrupción y la violencia y redistribuir la riqueza entre los más vulnerables. La austeridad es parte clave de su mandato.Los críticos del presidente han señalado que hasta ahora no ha cumplido con sus promesas electorales y señalan que, en materia de migración, cedió a las demandas del expresidente Donald Trump. Sin embargo, López Obrador llega la mitad de su mandato con altos índices de popularidad.México ha sufrido los embates del coronavirus sin cerrar fronteras ni suspender actividades como muchos de sus vecinos con un manejo muy cuestionado de la emergencia sanitaria. El brote ha infectado a 2,3 millones de mexicanos y ha cobrado la vida de más de 221.695 personas.Los resultados comenzarán a darse a conocer la tarde del domingo y el Instituto Nacional Electoral hará un anuncio hacia las 11 p. m., hora del centro de México, en cadena nacional. Perú en segunda vueltaLos peruanos elegirán a su próximo presidente en un balotaje entre Pedro Castillo, un exmaestro rural y dirigente sindical que postula con un partido de extrema izquierda, y Keiko Fujimori, heredera del legado del exmandatario encarcelado Alberto Fujimori y ella misma acusada por crimen organizado. Ninguno de los dos era el favorito en primera vuelta, cuando se presentaron 18 candidatos.La votación en segunda vuelta se ha convertido en una suerte de referéndum sobre el modelo económico del país, que en los últimos 20 años ha logrado un crecimiento ejemplar en la región pero no ha conseguido eliminar la desigualdad. El Congreso, definido en la primera vuelta, estará dominado por Perú Libre (37 escaños de 130), el partido de Castillo; Fuerza Popular, el partido de Fujimori, tendrá 24 congresistas en la nueva legislatura.Perú ha tenido cuatro presidentes en el último quinquenio: Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, el último mandatario electo en contienda regular, renunció en 2018 después de varios intentos del Congreso por destituirlo; su vicepresidente y sucesor, Martín Vizcarra, quien gozaba de aprobación incluso en los primeros meses de la pandemia, tuvo el mismo destino. La turbulencia política del último quinquenio ha estado marcada por escándalos de corrupción y un creciente descontento popular con la clase gobernante. Tres expresidentes de Perú han estado investigados por casos de corrupción y uno más, Alan García, se suicidó cuando las autoridades estaban a punto de arrestarlo. A pesar de las rápidas medidas para contener el avance del coronavirus, el país ha sido uno de los más afectados por la pandemia a nivel mundial. Recientemente las autoridades sanitarias reconocieron que la cantidad de fallecimientos por COVID-19 era de más de 180.764, casi el triple de lo reflejado en el registro oficial.Los resultados empezarán a darse a conocer en el sitio del Jurado Nacional de Elecciones conforme vayan cerrando las mesas de votación la tarde del domingo. More