Subterms
In the summer of 1988, Iran’s supreme leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, ordered the secret executions of thousands of political prisoners. Iran then denied reports of the slaughter, calling them “nothing but propaganda” based on “forgeries.” It also ruthlessly suppressed efforts by the families of the disappeared to find out what had happened to their relatives, including the location of their burial sites. More
The leaders of Slovenia, Hungary and Poland, who rode to power on waves of anti-elitism anger, face rising opposition over their pandemic responses and heavy-handed policies.LJUBLJANA, Slovenia — A right-wing populist wave in Eastern Europe, lifted by Donald J. Trump’s surprise victory in 2016, has not crashed as a result of his defeat last November. But it has collided with a serious obstacle: Its leaders are not very popular.After winning elections by railing against widely disliked elites, right-wing populists on Europe’s formerly communist eastern flank, it turns out, are themselves not much liked. That is due in large part to unpopular coronavirus lockdowns, and, like other leaders no matter their political complexion, their stumbling responses to the health crisis. But they are also under pressure from growing fatigue with their divisive tactics.In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban is being countered by an uncharacteristically united opposition. In Poland, the deeply conservative government has made an abrupt shift to the left in economic policy to win back support. And in Slovenia, the hard-right governing party of the Trump-loving prime minister is slumping disastrously in the polls.Slovenia’s leader, Janez Jansa, who made international headlines by congratulating Mr. Trump on his “victory” in November and is a self-declared scourge of liberal, or what he calls communist, elites, is perhaps the most at risk of the region’s unpopular populists.Propelled by nationalist promises to bar asylum seekers from the Middle East and “ensure the survival of the Slovenian nation,” Mr. Jansa’s Slovenian Democratic Party won the most votes in a 2018 election. Last year, a new coalition government led by the party had an approval rating of 65 percent.Prime Minister Janez Jansa of Slovenia, left, and Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary in Kidricevo, Slovenia, last year.Jure Makovec/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThis has since plunged to 26 percent and Mr. Jansa is so unpopular that allies are jumping ship. Street protests against him have attracted as many as tens of thousands of people, huge turnouts in a normally placid Alpine nation with a population of just two million.Mr. Jansa has staggered on, narrowly surviving a no-confidence vote in Parliament and a recent impeachment attempt by opposition legislators and defectors from his coalition.But he has been so weakened “he does not have the power to do anything” other than curse foes on Twitter, said Ziga Turk, a university professor and cabinet minister in an earlier government headed by Mr. Jansa, who quit the governing party in 2019.An admirer of Hungary’s Mr. Orban, Mr. Jansa has sought to bring the news media to heel, as nationalist governments in Hungary and Poland have largely succeeded in doing, at least with television.But the only television station that consistently supports him, a bombastic and partly Hungarian-funded outfit called Nova24TV, has so few viewers — less than one percent of the television audience on most days — that it does not even figure in ratings charts.Slavoj Zizek, a celebrity philosopher and self-declared “moderately conservative Marxist” — one of the few Slovenians well-known outside the country, along with Melania Trump — said it was too early to write off leaders like Mr. Jansa, Mr. Orban and Jaroslaw Kaczynski of Poland, whose three countries he described as a “new axis of evil.”Nationalist populists, he said, have rarely won popularity contests. Their most important asset, he said, has been the disarray of their opponents, many of whom the philosopher sees as too focused on “excessive moralism” and issues that do not interest most voters instead of addressing economic concerns.“The impotence of the left is terrifying,” Mr. Zizek said.Slavoj Zizek, a Slovenian philosopher, says it is too early to write off the leaders of Slovenia, Hungary and Poland.Manca Juvan for The New York TimesThat nationalist populism remains a force is demonstrated by Marine Le Pen, the French far-right leader. Her party fared poorly in regional elections over the weekend but opinion polls indicate she could still be a strong contender in France’s presidential election next year. She has done this by softening her image as a populist firebrand, ditching overt race-baiting and her previous and very unpopular opposition to the European Union and its common currency, the euro.Having never held high office, Ms. Le Pen has also avoided the pitfalls encountered by populists in East and Central Europe who have been running governments during the pandemic.Hungary, Europe’s self-proclaimed standard-bearer of “illiberal democracy” under Mr. Orban, has had the world’s highest per capita death rate from Covid-19 after Peru.Poland and Slovenia have fared better but their right-wing governing parties, Law and Justice and Mr. Jansa’s Slovenian Democratic Party, have both faced public anger over their handling of the pandemic.The biggest danger to leaders like Mr. Jansa and Mr. Orban, however, are signs that their quarrelsome opponents are finally getting their act together. In Hungary, a diverse and previously feuding array of opposition parties has united to compete against Mr. Orban’s ruling Fidesz party in elections next year. If they stick together, according to opinion polls, they could well win.In Slovenia, Mr. Jansa has rallied a loyal base of around 25 percent of the electorate but has been “even more successful at mobilizing his many opponents,” said Luka Lisjak Gabrijelcic, a Slovenian historian and a disenchanted former supporter. “His base supports him but lots of people really hate him.”This includes the speaker of Parliament, Igor Zorcic, who recently bailed from Mr. Jansa’s coalition. “I do not want my country to follow the model from Hungary,” he said.Mr. Gabrijelcic said he quit Mr. Jansa’s party because it “turned too nasty,” moving away from what he had viewed as a healthy response to stale center-left orthodoxy to become a haven for paranoiacs and nationalist hatemongers.Marine Le Pen, the French far-right leader whose party fared poorly in regional elections last weekend, in May. Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesAcross the region, he added, “The whole wave has lost its momentum.”Mr. Trump’s defeat has added to its malaise, along with the recent toppling of Israel’s longtime leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, whose pugnacious tactics have long been admired by nationalist leaders in Europe, despite the anti-Semitism that infects parts of their base.Mr. Trump’s presidency was never the trigger for Europe’s populist surge, whose leaders had been around and winning votes for years before the New York real estate developer announced his candidacy.But Mr. Trump did give cover and confidence to like-minded politicians in Europe, justifying their verbal excesses and placing their struggles in small, inward-looking countries into what seemed an irresistible global movement.The danger now that Mr. Trump has gone, said Ivan Krastev, an expert on East and Central Europe at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, is that the once “confident populism” of leaders like Mr. Jansa and Mr. Orban morphs into a more dangerous “apocalyptic populism” of the kind that has gripped segments of the right in the United States.But America’s political convulsions, he added, are less relevant to Eastern Europe than the fall of Mr. Netanyahu in Israel, a country that he described as the “true dream of European nationalists” — an “ethnic democracy” with a strong economy, capable military and an ability to resist outside pressure. The “negative coalition against Netanyahu,” he said, deeply shocked Europe’s right-wing populist leaders “because Israel was their model.”Mr. Turk, the former Slovenian minister, said liberals had exaggerated the menace posed by Europe’s nationalist tilt but that the polarization is very real. “The hatred is even more extreme than in the United States,” he lamented.Eager to present an image of calm respectability for Europe’s cantankerous illiberal movement, Mr. Orban in April hosted a meeting in Budapest of like-minded leaders committed to creating a “European renaissance based on Christian values.”Only two people showed up: Matteo Salvini, a fading far-right star in Italy who crashed out of government in 2019, and Poland’s beleaguered prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki.Intended to signal the strength of Europe’s right-wing populist insurgency, the Budapest conclave “was more a desperate step to hide that they are in decline,” said Peter Kreko, the director of Political Capital, a Budapest research group.Faced with the prospect of losing next year’s election, Mr. Orban has focused on revving up his base with issues like L.G.B.T.Q. rights and migration, just as the Law and Justice party did in Poland last year during its successful presidential election campaign.A gay pride parade in Warsaw in June. Poland’s government has taken aim at L.G.B.T.Q. rights in the past, and Hungary’s leader seems to be following suit.Wojtek Radwanski/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn Poland, the Law and Justice party has since taken another tack, apparently deciding that it needs more than divisive cultural and historical issues to win future elections.In May it embraced measures traditionally associated with the left like higher taxes on the rich and lower levies on the less well-off, and support for home buyers. That came after its popularity ratings fell from around 55 percent last summer to just over 30 percent in May, due in part to the pandemic but also because of anger, particularly in large towns, over the tightening of already strict laws against abortion.When it comes to alienating voters, however, nobody rivals Mr. Jansa of Slovenia, who has made scant efforts to reach beyond his most loyal supporters, casting critics as communists and stirring up enmities that date back to World War II.Damir Crncec, the former head of Slovenia’s intelligence agency and once a vocal supporter, said he was mystified by Mr. Jansa’s penchant for unpopularity. “Everyone here is looking for a rationale: How can you win in politics if you are constantly fighting with everyone?” he asked. More
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed plunged Ethiopia into a war in the Tigray region that spawned atrocities and famine. On Monday, his country goes to the polls.ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — As war raged in northern Ethiopia, and the region barreled toward its worst famine in decades, a senior American envoy flew to the Ethiopian capital last month in the hope of persuading Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to pull his country out of a destructive spiral that many fear is tearing it apart.Mr. Abiy, though, wanted to go for a drive.Taking the wheel, the Ethiopian leader took his American guest, the Biden administration’s Horn of Africa envoy, Jeffrey D. Feltman, on an impromptu four-hour tour of Addis Ababa, American officials said. The prime minister drove him past smart new city parks and a refurbished central plaza and even crashed a wedding where the two men posed for photos with the bride and groom.Mr. Abiy’s attempt to change the channel, showcasing economic progress while parts of his country burned, was just the latest sign of a troubled trajectory that has baffled international observers who wonder how they got him so wrong.Not long ago Mr. Abiy, who faces Ethiopian voters on Monday in long-delayed parliamentary elections, was a shining hope for country and continent. After coming to power in 2018 he embarked on a whirlwind of ambitious reforms: freeing political prisoners, welcoming exiles home from abroad and, most impressively, striking a landmark peace deal with Eritrea, Ethiopia’s old foe, in a matter of months.A light rail and rapid transit train, the first in sub-Saharan Africa, traveling past skyscrapers under construction in Addis Ababa in 2019. Mr. Abiy is pushing his vision of a modernized, economically vibrant Ethiopia.Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York TimesA worker with the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia explaining ballots last week in Addis Ababa before Monday’s general election.Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York TimesThe West, eager for a glittering success story in Africa, was wowed, and within 18 months Mr. Abiy, a one-time intelligence officer, had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.But in just nine months Mr. Abiy’s halo has been brutally shattered. The civil war that erupted in the northern region of Tigray in November has become a byword for atrocities against Ethiopian citizens.Mr. Abiy’s forces have been accused of massacres, sexual assault and ethnic cleansing. Last week a senior United Nations official declared that Tigray was in the throes of a famine — the world’s worst since 250,000 people died in Somalia a decade ago, he said.Elsewhere in Ethiopia, ethnic violence has killed hundreds and forced two million people to flee their homes. A smoldering border dispute with Sudan has flared into a major military standoff.Even the election on Monday, once billed as the country’s first free vote and a chance to turn the page on decades of autocratic rule, has only highlighted its divisions and fueled grim warnings that Ethiopia’s very future is in doubt.“These elections are a distraction,” said Abadir M. Ibrahim, an adjunct law professor at Addis Ababa University. “The state is on a cliff edge, and it’s not clear if it can pull back. We just need to get past this vote so we can focus on averting a calamity.”The prime minister’s office did not respond to questions and an interview request.An October 2019 street scene in Badme, the disputed town over which the border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea was fought from 1998 to 2000. Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York TimesAn Afar militiaman on the salt flats of the Danakil Depression in 2019. In the past month, 400,000 people have been forced from their homes in the Amhara and Afar regions.Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York TimesMr. Abiy’s Prosperity Party, formed in 2019 from the rump of a former governing coalition, is widely expected to win the election easily. But there will be no voting in 102 of Ethiopia’s 547 constituencies because of war, civil unrest and logistical failures.Senior opposition leaders are in jail and their parties are boycotting the vote in Oromia, a sprawling region of about 40 million people that is more populous than many African countries.Mr. Abiy has put a brave face on his nation’s problems, repeatedly downplaying the Tigray conflict as a “law and order operation” and pushing his vision for a modernized, economically vibrant Ethiopia. The United States, which gave Ethiopia $1 billion in aid last year, is pressuring him to shift focus immediately.After being chauffeured around Addis Ababa by Mr. Abiy in May, Mr. Feltman wrote a detailed analysis of his trip for President Biden and other leaders in Washington, even mentioning a sudden jolt by the vehicle that sent coffee spilling on the envoy’s shirt.Weeks later, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken imposed visa bans on unnamed Ethiopian officials.Other foreigners have left Ethiopia concerned that ethnic cleansing was underway. Pekka Haavisto, a European Union envoy who visited in February, told the European Parliament last week that Ethiopian leaders had told him “they are going to destroy the Tigrayans, that they are going to wipe out the Tigrayans for 100 years.”Ethiopia’s foreign ministry dismissed Mr. Haavisto’s comments as “ludicrous” and a “hallucination of sorts.”Global condemnation of Mr. Abiy, 44, most recently at last week’s Group of 7 summit, represents a dizzying fall for a young leader who until recently was globally celebrated.The whirl of reforms he instituted after being appointed prime minister in 2018 were a sharp rebuke to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, a party of rebels turned rulers who had dominated Ethiopia since 1991 in an authoritarian system that achieved impressive economic growth at the cost of basic civil rights.After coming to power in 2018, Mr. Abiy freed political prisoners and welcomed exiles home.Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York TimesJawar Mohammed, a media baron, is one of Ethiopia’s most prominent opposition figures.Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York TimesMr. Abiy promised a new way. He allowed once-banned opposition parties, appointed women to half the positions in his cabinet and struck the peace with Eritrea that earned him a Nobel Prize.But in moving swiftly, Mr. Abiy also unleashed pent-up frustrations among ethnic groups that had been marginalized from power for decades — most notably his own group, the Oromo, who account for one-third of Ethiopia’s 110 million people. When mass protests erupted, he reverted to the old playbook: arrests, repression and police brutality.At the same time, tensions escalated with the T.P.L.F., which resented Mr. Abiy’s swaggering reforms. The party leadership retreated to Tigray where, last September, it defied Mr. Abiy by proceeding with regional elections that had been postponed across the country because of the pandemic.By early last November, word reached Washington that war was looming in Tigray. Senator Chris Coons, who has a longstanding interest in Africa, phoned Mr. Abiy to warn about the perils of resorting to military force.Mr. Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, said he reminded the Ethiopian leader that the American Civil War and World War I had started with promises of swift military victory, only to drag on for years and cost millions of lives.Mr. Abiy was undeterred. “He was confident it would be over in six weeks,” Mr. Coons said. Days later, on the evening of the American presidential election, fighting erupted in Tigray.Mr. Abiy has given few interviews. But people who have dealt with him describe a man brimming with self-confidence, even “messianic” — a description encouraged by Mr. Abiy’s own accounts that his ascent to power was preordained. When he was 7, Mr. Abiy told The New York Times in 2018, his mother whispered into his ear that he was “unique” and predicted that he would “end up in the palace.”Watching a television newscast showing Mr. Abiy shortly after he won the Nobel Peace Prize, at a roadside restaurant in the northern Afar region in 2019.Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York TimesRiot police officers, in a show of force, marching Saturday in a parade in Addis Ababa.Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York TimesA former adviser said that a strong Christian faith also guides Mr. Abiy. He is a Pentecostal Christian, a faith that has soared in popularity in Ethiopia, and is a staunch believer in the “prosperity gospel” — a theology that regards material success as God’s reward — said the former adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals. It is not a coincidence, the adviser added, that the party founded by Mr. Abiy in 2019 is called the Prosperity Party.Mr. Abiy’s evangelical faith has attracted influential supporters in Washington, including Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, who told the Senate in 2018 how he first met Mr. Abiy at a prayer meeting where “he told the story of his journey and faith in Jesus.”Last month, Mr. Inhofe traveled to Ethiopia to show his support for Mr. Abiy against the American sanctions.Another crucial relationship for Mr. Abiy is with the dictatorial leader of Eritrea, Isaias Afwerki. Eritrean troops who flooded into Tigray to support Mr. Abiy’s campaign have been accused by the United Nations and rights groups of the worst atrocities of the conflict. Now they are a major factor in the region’s famine.Eritrean soldiers “using starvation as a weapon of war” are blocking aid shipments headed for the most vulnerable parts of Tigray, Mark Lowcock, the top U.N. humanitarian official, told the Security Council last week.The Eritrean issue is Mr. Abiy’s largest international liability, and some analysts describe him as being manipulated by Mr. Isaias, a veteran fighter with a reputation for ruthless strategic maneuvering. By other accounts, Mr. Abiy has little choice — were the Eritreans to leave suddenly, he could lose control of Tigray entirely.The election is likely to highlight the mounting challenges in the rest of Ethiopia. In the past month alone, 400,000 people have been forced from their homes in the Amhara and Afar regions, Mr. Lowcock said. The military has taken control in several parts of Oromia, where an armed rebellion has erupted.Weighing sheet metal at a recycling depot in Addis Ababa. Ethiopia is grappling with daunting economic and social challenges.Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York TimesDowntime at a coffee kiosk in a market in Addis Ababa. Washington said last month that it was cutting security and economic assistance to Ethiopia.Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York TimesMr. Coons, sent by Mr. Biden to reason with Mr. Abiy in February, warned the Ethiopian leader that the explosion of ethnic hatred could shatter the country, much as it did the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s.Mr. Abiy responded that Ethiopia is “a great nation with a great history,” Mr. Coons said.Mr. Abiy’s transformation from Nobel Peace Prize laureate to wartime leader has prompted quiet soul-searching among some of his allies. The glitter of the Nobel Prize, and a burning desire for a success story in Africa, blinded many Western countries to his evident faults, said Judd Devermont, a former U.S. national intelligence officer for Africa, now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.With limited interest in Africa, the West too readily categorizes the continent’s leaders as “good” or “bad” with little room for nuance, he added.“We have to acknowledge that we helped to contribute to Abiy’s view of himself,” he said. “We papered over these challenges very early. We gave him a blank check. When it went wrong, we initially turned a blind eye. And now it may be too late.”An urban park where letters spell “Addis Ababa” in Amharic.Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York Times More
The party of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan won a snap parliamentary election in which rivals had talked of renegotiating his unpopular settlement with Azerbaijan.MOSCOW — The party of Armenia’s prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, won a snap election over the weekend that also signaled at least grudging acceptance by Armenians of a peace settlement negotiated last fall with Azerbaijan.Forced on Armenia by battlefield losses and negotiated by Mr. Pashinyan, the settlement remains deeply unpopular. It ended a six-week war over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic-Armenian area inside Azerbaijan, but at a steep cost for the Armenian side. The deal ceded territory that included centuries-old monasteries that are a touchstone for Armenian national identity.In the immediate wake of the deal in November, nationalist protesters stormed Mr. Pashinyan’s office and tore his nameplate from the door. It seemed unclear whether he could remain in power to enforce the tentative peace in the South Caucasus, a region where Turkey and Russia compete for influence.But the election results announced on Monday showed Armenian voters apparently willing to accept Mr. Pashinyan’s agreement, and with it a cleareyed view of their country’s difficult security challenges.Election officials said Mr. Pashinyan’s party, Civil Contract, had won 53.9 percent of the vote. Mr. Pashinyan celebrated the win as a “mandate of steel” from voters. In a video address, he said it would “restore social and national consolidation” after the war.A bloc of parties headed by a former president, Robert Kocharyan, came in second with 21 percent of the vote. Mr. Kocharyan said on Monday that the results were tainted by fraud.Mr. Kocharyan and other opposition candidates had criticized the peace settlement and suggested they might renegotiate the Russian-brokered deal through more forceful diplomacy.But this line of criticism, based largely on wishful thinking that Azerbaijan, Turkey and Russia might accept changes, failed to resonate with voters, said Richard Giragosian, director of the Regional Studies Center, a research group in Yerevan.Mr. Kocharyan and other opposition candidates had not suggested abrogating the agreement and did not directly criticize Russia’s role in the negotiations or the deployment of peacekeeping troops to Nagorno-Karabakh.The reluctance to criticize Russia’s role also highlighted Moscow’s growing sway in Armenian politics. No candidates ran in open opposition to Russia’s military presence in the region.“The net outcome of the war for Armenia means that Armenia is in the Russian orbit ever more firmly,” Mr. Giragosian said. “Armenian politicians across the board are pro-Russian.”Other factors in Armenian politics also helped Mr. Pashinyan: The opposition was divided by infighting and Mr. Pashinyan’s domestic policies of fighting corruption and focusing on road building and rural development remain popular, opinion polls have shown. The surveys suggested Armenians were more focused on economic issues than on the lost territories.In the fighting last fall, Azerbaijan captured districts it had lost in a conflict during the breakup of the Soviet Union three decades ago. Turkey’s role was pivotal, supplying drones and other assistance, and tipping the scales against Armenia.Turkish intervention also stirred worry of a wider war in the South Caucasus region that might draw in Turkey and Russia, because Moscow has a defense pact with Armenia.The settlement ended the fighting but also brought a greater Russian military presence to the South Caucasus, a region of mountains and multiple ethnic groups that has been an intersection of Turkish and Russian influence for centuries. It left Russian peacekeepers in de facto control of Nagorno-Karabakh, facing Azerbaijan’s Turkish-backed troops over a shaky line of control where the fighting ended. More
The government announced his victory on Saturday, a day after a vote that many Iranians skipped, viewing it as rigged.TEHRAN — Iran’s ultraconservative judiciary chief, Ebrahim Raisi, has been elected president after a vote that many Iranians skipped, seeing it as rigged in his favor. The Interior Ministry announced the final results on Saturday, saying Mr. Raisi had won with nearly 18 million of 28.9 million ballots cast in the voting a day earlier. Turnout was 48.8 percent — a significant decline from the last presidential election, in 2017. Two rival candidates had conceded hours earlier, and President Hassan Rouhani congratulated Mr. Raisi on his victory, the semiofficial Mehr news agency reported.Huge swaths of moderate and liberal-leaning Iranians sat out the election, saying that the campaign had been engineered to put Mr. Raisi in office or that voting would make little difference. He had been expected to win handily despite late attempts by the more moderate reformist camp to consolidate support behind their main candidate — Abdolnasser Hemmati, a former central bank governor.The Interior Ministry said Mr. Hemmati came in third with around 2.4 million votes, after the second-place finisher, Mohsen Rezaee, a former commander in chief of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards Corps who won around 3.4 million votes.There were also about 3.7 million “white” ballots, or ballots cast without any candidate’s name written in. Some Iranians said they turned in white ballots as a way of participating in the election while protesting the lack of candidates who represented their views.Voters lining up to cast their ballots in Tehran on Friday.Arash Khamooshi for The New York TimesMr. Raisi, 60, is a hard-line cleric favored by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and has been seen as his possible successor. He has a record of grave human rights abuses, including accusations of playing a role in the mass execution of political opponents in 1988, and is currently under United States sanctions.His background appears unlikely to hinder the renewed negotiations between the United States and Iran over restoring a 2015 agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs in exchange for lifting American economic sanctions. Mr. Raisi has said he will remain committed to the deal and do all he can to remove sanctions.Key policies such as the nuclear deal are decided by the supreme leader, who has the last word on all important matters of state. However, Mr. Raisi’s conservative views will make it more difficult for the United States to reach additional deals with Iran and extract concessions on critical issues such as the country’s missile program, its backing of proxy militias around the Middle East and human rights.To his supporters, Mr. Raisi’s close identification with the supreme leader, and by extension with the Islamic Revolution that brought Iran’s clerical leaders to power in 1979, is part of his appeal. Campaign posters showed Mr. Raisi’s face alongside those of Mr. Khamenei and his predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, or Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the Iranian commander whose death in an American airstrike last year prompted an outpouring of grief and anger among Iranians.Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, voted in Tehran on Friday.Arash Khamooshi for The New York TimesMr. Raisi’s supporters also cited his résumé as a staunch conservative, his promises to combat corruption, which many Iranians blame as much for the country’s deep economic misery as American sanctions, and what they said was his commitment to leveling inequality among Iranians.Voter turnout was low despite exhortations from the supreme leader to participate and an often strident get-out-the-vote campaign: One banner brandished an image of General Suleimani’s blood-specked severed hand, still bearing his trademark deep-red ring, urging Iranians to vote “for his sake.” Another showed a bombed-out street in Syria, warning that Iran ran the risk of turning into that war-ravaged country if voters stayed home.Voting was framed as not so much a civic duty as a show of faith in the Islamic Revolution, in part because the government has long relied on high voter turnout to buttress its legitimacy.Though never a democracy in the Western sense, Iran has in the past allowed candidates representing different factions and policy positions to run for office in a government whose direction and major policies were set by the unelected clerical leadership. During election seasons, the country buzzed with debates, competing rallies and political arguments.But since protests broke out in 2009 over charges that the presidential election that year was rigged, the authorities have gradually winnowed down the confines of electoral freedom, leaving almost no choice this year. Many prominent candidates were disqualified last month by Iran’s Guardian Council, which vets all candidates, leaving Mr. Raisi the clear front-runner and disheartening relative moderates and liberals.A voter looking at the list of the candidates on Friday. Many prominent candidates were disqualified last month by Iran’s Guardian Council.Arash Khamooshi for The New York TimesAnalysts said that the supreme leader’s support for Mr. Raisi could give him more power to promote change than the departing president, Hassan Rouhani. Mr. Rouhani is a pragmatic centrist who ended up antagonizing the supreme leader and disappointing voters who had hoped he could open Iran’s economy to the world by striking a lasting deal with the West.Mr. Rouhani did seal a deal to lift sanctions in 2015, but ran headlong into President Donald J. Trump, who pulled the United States out of the nuclear agreement and reimposed sanctions in 2018.The prospects for a renewed nuclear agreement could improve with Mr. Raisi’s victory. Mr. Khamenei appeared to be stalling the current talks as the election approached. But American diplomats and Iranian analysts said that there could be movement in the weeks between Mr. Rouhani’s departure and Mr. Raisi’s ascension. A deal finalized then could leave Mr. Rouhani with the blame for any unpopular concessions and allow Mr. Raisi to claim credit for any economic improvements once sanctions are lifted. More
Candidates to be New York City’s next chief financial officer are straining for attention from the public during a crucial moment.One candidate, Brad Lander, landed a potent one-two political punch: the coveted endorsement of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a successful campaign ad using the time-honored strategy of deploying one’s child.Another candidate, Zach Iscol, has support from Hillary Clinton, who is a mentor to him, and is the best friend of her daughter, Chelsea.A third candidate, Corey Johnson, had his own measure of star power, as a former front-runner in this year’s critical race for mayor.None of that has helped elevate the race for comptroller of New York City beyond the din of news and noise that surrounds the mayor’s contest, even with the June 22 primary just days away.As New York emerges from the pandemic, the role of comptroller is especially crucial. Whoever succeeds the current comptroller, Scott M. Stringer, will have a role in making sure at least $14 billion in expected federal stimulus assistance over the next few fiscal years is properly spent, while auditing a $99 billion budget that faces significant gaps in the coming years. Also at stake is the management of roughly $250 billion in pension fund money that covers 620,000 people.But it has not been easy for the candidates to gain attention.A recent debate had to compete with a hastily scheduled mayoral debate, all but guaranteeing a limited audience. The second and final debate was taped this week and will air at a less-than-ideal time: Sunday morning.“That’s prime time for church,” said Brian Benjamin, a state senator from Harlem who is running for comptroller. “No one will be watching.”Mr. Johnson, the City Council speaker and a late entrant in the comptroller’s race, is the current front-runner, according to available polling. He was a leading candidate for mayor but dropped out, citing mental health issues.Trailing close behind are Mr. Lander, a progressive councilman from Brooklyn who has also won endorsements from Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, a former CNBC anchor who ran unsuccessfully against Ms. Ocasio-Cortez last year.The race seems relatively wide open; a recent NY1/Ipsos poll found that 44 percent of likely voters were still undecided about their first choice for comptroller — a potentially worrisome development this year when voters will be allowed to rank up to five choices.The NY1/Ipsos poll had Mr. Johnson at 18 percent and Mr. Lander and Ms. Caruso-Cabrera tied at 9 percent.Other candidates in the race include David Weprin, a state assemblyman from Queens, who polled at 7 percent; Kevin Parker, a state senator from Brooklyn who polled at 6 percent; and Mr. Benjamin, who polled at 5 percent. Mr. Iscol, a nonprofit entrepreneur and former Marine who also dropped out of the mayor’s race to enter the comptroller’s race, registered at 1 percent.The limited attention is no fault of the candidates, who have spent millions of dollars on advertisements and have been crisscrossing the five boroughs at all hours to seek out voters.Mr. Johnson was spotted this week in front of the Fairway supermarket on the Upper West Side campaigning until midnight. Mr. Lander participated in a bike ride around City Hall with delivery workers fighting for better wages and working conditions.Brad Lander, left, has been endorsed by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.Victor J. Blue for The New York TimesMr. Lander said he had felt interest in the campaign surging as the city moved toward a full reopening. He received the endorsement of The New York Times editorial board and has collected the most support from progressive elected officials.“Voters will come up and say, ‘I’ve seen your ad,’” Mr. Lander said. “That’s an opportunity to say, ‘This is a critical moment for our city; let’s talk about how the government can work better for all of us.’”Ms. Caruso-Cabrera, who is the daughter of Cuban and Italian immigrants, has focused intensely on Latino voters. She released an ad that she narrates in Spanish.Ms. Caruso-Cabrera has portrayed Mr. Lander and Mr. Johnson as government insiders, allowing the budget to grow under Mayor Bill de Blasio.“We need a fresh set of eyes,” Ms. Caruso-Cabrera said. “We need someone who is independent and who doesn’t want to be the mayor.”Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, a former CNBC anchor, unsuccessfully challenged Ms. Ocasio-Cortez last year.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesMr. Weprin, who received the endorsement of the city’s police unions and The Daily News, is leaning on his finance experience in the public and private sectors.Mr. Benjamin said he was leaning on his experience as someone with a Harvard M.B.A. and experience as a money manager at Morgan Stanley. His campaign has focused largely on consolidating support in the Black community, which has been difficult given the candidacy of Mr. Parker, who, like Mr. Benjamin, is Black.“The people who are going to vote in this election will pay more attention, and that helps someone like me, who is the qualifications candidate versus the name-recognition candidate,” Mr. Benjamin said.The reference seemed to be a swipe at Mr. Johnson, who, as the race’s most recognizable candidate and its leader, has been the frequent subject of attacks.During the first official debate this month, Mr. Lander accused Mr. Johnson of having been absent from leading the budget process. Ms. Caruso-Cabrera said he had not done enough to keep the budget from growing under Mr. de Blasio.Mr. Weprin questioned whether Mr. Johnson, a high school graduate who recently enrolled at the School of General Studies at Columbia University, was qualified for the job.“Corey Johnson only has a high school diploma,” Mr. Weprin said. “I was on Wall Street for over 25 years, and you can’t get a job on Wall Street without getting a college degree.”Mr. Johnson dismissed the criticism as the desperate tactic of candidates who are trailing in the last days of a race.“After negotiating three on-time, balanced, $90 billion budgets, I know this city’s finances better than anyone in this race,” Mr. Johnson said.Yet as he stood in front of the Fairway on Friday evening, several voters were more interested in Mr. Johnson’s choice for mayor than in his candidacy for comptroller.“What does the comptroller do?” Mar Dominguez, 60, said to Mr. Johnson, asking for a quick refresher. Ms. Dominguez, a hospitality worker, said the election season had been simply overwhelming. “Everyone’s harassing me. There’s too much mail, and too many people are calling my phone. This morning, they were ringing my doorbell,” she said. More
Analysis
In arguing why he should be elected, Mr. Adams has leaned heavily on his life story: Growing up poor in Brooklyn and Queens, being abused by police as a teenager and joining the Police Department, and speaking out against racism within its ranks. “They wish they had my bio,” Mr. Adams often says of his rival candidates.
Analysis
Mr. Adams co-founded a group called 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care to highlight racism in the New York Police Department. Mr. Adams was once a frequent and high-profile critic of incidents of police brutality, including the fatal shooting of Amadou Diallo in 1999.
Analysis
In 2013, Mr. Adams, then a state senator, testified that he was at a meeting with Gov. David Paterson and Raymond Kelly, the police commissioner, when Mr. Kelly said Black and Latino men were the focus of stop and frisk because “he wanted to instill fear in them.” Mr. Adams’s testimony helped a federal judge rule that the Police Department was using stop and frisk in an unconstitutional way.
Analysis
Mr. Adams said he has the background needed to hold officers accountable. He says he would give civilian review panels the power to choose their precinct commanders and strengthen officers’ de-escalation training while speeding up the release of body-worn camera images and disciplinary decisions.
Analysis
Mr. Adams often speaks about how a poor education system leads people, specifically Black boys, to be forced into making bad choices and getting swept up in the criminal justice system.
Analysis
Mr. Adams has had to answer questions about his primary residence and his relationship with donors to his campaign. Rival campaigns have questioned whether he lives in the home he owns in Brooklyn, or in the co-op he owns in New Jersey. Mr. Adams invited reporters over for a tour of the apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant that he says is his primary residence.
Analysis
Mr. Adams often talks about how poverty made his youth precarious. His mother worked multiple jobs, including as a house cleaner, and neighbors would sometimes leave food and clothes outside his door. Mr. Adams worked as a squeegee man on Jamaica Avenue in Queens when he was 17 to help support his family.
Analysis
Mr. Adams says he was shot at while he was in the Police Department and speaking out against racism. He says his son had just been born and that led him to become more private about his personal life. He says he never told some of his colleagues in the Police Department that he had a son.
Analysis
Mayor Bill de Blasio is believed to favor Mr. Adams and has been working behind the scenes to get others to support him. Mr. Adams said that he, like Mr. de Blasio, wants to end inequality in the city, but that he would use different methods to accomplish that goal.
Analysis
Mr. Adams’s son Jordan, 26, is working on a master’s degree in screenwriting at Brooklyn College. He made an appearance when questions arose about Mr. Adams’s residency, standing beside him outside the rowhouse that Mr. Adams owns. Jordan also appeared in a campaign ad with his father.
Analysis
Mr. Adams is fond of saying that “public safety is the prerequisite to prosperity.” He has spoken about the need for balance between public safety and police reform. But some police reform advocates believe he is too focused on policing as a cure-all.
Analysis
Mr. Adams is a vegan who says that changing his lifestyle helped him overcome Type 2 diabetes. He says the disease was causing him to lose his sight before he switched to a plant-based diet. If elected, Mr. Adams has said he will make sure the city’s public school children are being served the healthiest foods.
Analysis
Mr. Adams is considered a moderate Democrat who would be more business-friendly than Mr. de Blasio. Mr. Adams has spoken out against the “defund the police” movement and the police officer’s union advised their members that he was one of three candidates they would suggest casting a vote for.
Saturday, May 22
Rally of Harlem Men for Eric Adams
Frederick Douglass Circle in Harlem
You know my team from time to time, brothers and sisters, they move with me throughout the city. And people will be at gatherings. And people will stop, and they’ll say to my team: ‘Let me tell you my Eric Adams story.’
And they’ll go back to the 80s, and back to the 90s, and then talk about the time when their child may have left home and Eric will pay the fare to bring them back from sex trafficking in other states. They tell you about the time we would sit in living rooms and talk to young men who were on the way to crime and we put them on a pathway to college. They talk about 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement each month, helping people on the lower level and using our skills and ability. They talk about the ‘what to do when stopped by police’ program that we put in place. I mean, the legacy is just so rich, of so many things that we did as an organization.
I was so proud to find the people who lived in the crevices of our communities and stated that we can do better, we can get better and we can be better. And so it mystifies me, with all those who are running, who have all the full understanding of who I am, what I am and what I’ve been doing, they want you to redefine my history. Are you kidding me?
Listen, you can critique me on a lot of things, but the audacity of some people to say he has not been the leading voice on stop and frisk. Where have you been? If you don’t know my history on that issue, then something is wrong with you.
The audacity of people to state: ‘Well, he has never been strong on police issues.’ What! Can someone mail an alarm clock to those folks who are sleeping? You gotta come better than that.
And let me tell you something else, brothers, let me tell you something else. And I want to drop this on you because you have to understand this. America has a history of criminalizing Black men.
The next 30 days, you are going to see the attacks on me that you could never imagine. These are going to be the hardest 30 days of my life, you hear me?
Harder than being arrested and beat by police. Harder than being under surveillance by the Police Department. Harder than being a person that had to carry a garbage bag full of clothing to school every day because we thought we were going to be thrown out. Harder than not having the opportunities to go to the best schools. Harder than being shot at. Harder than all those things. The next 30 days, I want you to watch what happens.
There are people in the city of power that are saying Eric Adams could never be the mayor of the city of New York, because he’s going to end inequalities, he’s going to keep our city safe and he’s going to stop us believing we have to live like we’re living in our communities.
It’s no secret that 65 percent of Black children never reach proficiencies in the city, and everyone is comfortable with that. Trust me, if 65 percent of any other group was not reaching proficiency in school, there’d be riots in the street.
They wrote off our children. They gave up on us. They allowed folks to normalize the conditions that we’re living in. My son won’t grow up in a city that I grew up in. You should not have to have, right here in Harlem, the gun violence that’s pervasive, and doing routines, when you hear gunshots or a car backfire, you have to tell your children to learn how to duck down. Don’t need to live like this, people. And I’m saying that that’s why I’m running for mayor. I’m running for mayor because I’m qualified to do this job. My entire life has prepared me for the moment. Now why is that, Eric?
What is the most pressing, pressing issue in the city? Police reform and public safety. Who has the better résumé? What about health care, and how Covid virus has decimated our community?
Who is reforming the health care system, first personally reforming my own health care for my body? Eric Adams.
Who went to school with a learning disability, taught myself and went from a D student to a dean’s list student? Eric Adams.
Who’s going to stop 30 percent of our babies in jail that are dyslexic? Fifty-five percent have a learning disability. Eighty percent don’t have a high school diploma or equivalency diploma. Who understands that better than any candidate that’s running? Eric Adams.
Who knows how to attract businesses to the city and ensure that they come and pay fair, decent wages so we can build up our middle class and not decimate our middle class? Eric Adams.
I check the box. So vote on the box for Eric Adams. Folks went from rolling their eyes to focusing their eyes. Trust me, when I started out, they said: ‘Well, listen, man, we’re not trying to hear you, Eric.’ And then all of a sudden, they started saying ‘Wait a minute, listen to this guy.’
Listen to him when he’s talking about the dysfunctionality of our agencies and the wasting of taxpayers’ dollars. Listen to him, how he’s saying, why is the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene fighting childhood obesity, diabetes and asthma, but the Department of Education, they’re feeding our children foods that cause diabetes, childhood obesity and asthma?
Why do we have a Department of Buildings in conflict with small business services? Small business services are trying to open restaurants every day and the Department of Buildings is doing just the opposite, doing everything they could possibly do to keep a restaurant closed. So we can’t hire a dishwasher, a cook, a waiter?
Why do we have these conflicts in the city? You know why? People are making money off the dysfunctionality of this city. And I know the hustle. It was right here in Harlem, where I heard the words that resonate today. We have been bamboozled, we have been hoodwinked and we have been sold out.
We’re going to turn that around. That’s what we’re running for.
And so they say well, what are you? Are you a moderate? Are you this? Are you that? No, I’m a New Yorker. And New Yorkers are complex. Don’t put me in a box. That box has put us where we are now. I’m not going to go outside the box, I’m going to destroy the box.
New city, new attitude, new mindset, build this city up, ending inequalities, creating a safe city where we raise healthy children and families and tear down those walls that prevented us all of these years from seeing what this city is made of. We are made up of the best stuff on Earth. We are New Yorkers. Let’s win this race. More
Turnout appeared low on Friday, with many voters saying they would not cast ballots in an election that they feel has been manipulated in favor of a hard-line conservative candidate.TEHRAN — The line outside the Tehran polling station was short and sedate on Friday morning, nothing like the energized down-the-block crowd that usually turns out for presidential elections in Iran.But when Abdolnaser Hemmati, the moderate in the race, showed up to vote, the sidewalk outside the polling station, set up at the Hosseinieh Ershad religious institute, suddenly crackled to life.“Your views are useless for this country,” one heckler shouted at Mr. Hemmati, the former governor of Iran’s central bank, holding up his phone to immortalize the moment.“You’re the hope of our nation,” a woman yelled to the candidate, trying to drown out the heckler.Iran’s presidential race has been marked, more than anything else, by a lack of interest: Many voters said they would not bother to cast ballots in an election that they feel has been manipulated in favor of the hard-line conservative candidate, Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s judiciary chief, who is close to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s judiciary chief and a presidential candidate, greeted the news media after voting in Tehran on Friday. Many voters expect him to win.Arash Khamooshi for The New York TimesEven if they had more choice in the matter, previous elections all ended the same way no matter the winner, many Tehran residents said — with prices and rents shooting up, employment falling and pessimism taking hold.The lines of voters at several polling sites across the capital on Friday were much shorter than in previous presidential election years, though the ongoing coronavirus pandemic also likely affected turnout. The Iranian news media reported that as of 5 p.m. voter participation was at 23 percent. Results are expected on Saturday.Beneath that listless surface, however, is a country churning with rage and hope, bitterness and faith.Some of those who leaned liberal could not quite bear to shut themselves out of the vote, even as their friends or relatives boycotted it to protest the system.“We didn’t vote because of Hemmati himself,” said Milad, 34, a bank employee who came to the Hosseinieh Ershad polling station to vote for Mr. Hemmati. Many voters refused to give full names out of fear of speaking openly about politics. “We voted because we wanted to show the other side that there is still a voice of opposition in Iran. A weak voice of opposition is better than no voice at all.”Voters on each side agreed, broadly speaking, on the biggest issues facing the country: corruption, economic mismanagement and the U.S. sanctions that are intensifying Iran’s economic misery.But if the moderate opposition was divided over whether to vote, the conservatives who showed up to cast ballots were united behind Mr. Raisi and, more important, the Islamic government his candidacy had come to stand for. (Mr. Raisi’s campaign posters often feature him alongside Ayatollah Khamenei and Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the Iranian commander whose death in a U.S. airstrike last year brought crowds of mourners onto the streets.)Supporters of Mr. Raisi held a rally in Tehran on Wednesday.Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times“Despite all the shortages and shortcomings, we love our nation, and we will defend it to the last drop of blood,” said Marziyeh Gorji, 34, who works in a government office and said she had voted for Mr. Raisi because of his ties to revolutionary figures and his experience. “The people are upset, I understand that. But not voting is not the solution.”She motioned to her 5-year-old twin sons, who wore buttons featuring General Suleimani’s face. “I will raise them to be like General Suleimani,” she said.At Lorzadeh mosque in south Tehran, a poor and religiously conservative neighborhood, Muhammad Ehsani, 61, a retired government employee, said his ballot was an expression of faith in the ideals of the Islamic revolution that brought Iran’s current leadership to power.Being a citizen was like riding a bus, he said. If things were not going well — as every voter agreed they were not — the problem was with the driver, not with the bus.“What should we do?” he said. “It’s not logical to sit at home and not get on. It’s logical to get another company, another driver.”Draped across the entrance of the mosque was a banner with a picture of General Suleimani next to the words, “The Islamic Republic is considered a shrine. Those who are voting are defending the shrine.”The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, arriving to cast a ballot on Friday in Tehran.Arash Khamooshi for The New York TimesThe morning’s voting was marred by widespread reports of electronic voting systems malfunctioning and going offline from polling stations across Iran, according to Tasnim news agency, which is affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. As polls opened Friday morning, voters showed up to hear that they could not vote, and multiple polling stations had to delay their opening by more than an hour, Tasnim reported.“This is an epidemic of ballot boxes malfunctioning now,” said Kian Abdollahi, Tasnim’s editor in chief, during a live election report on Clubhouse, the audio-only social media app. “This is unacceptable given concerns about low election turnout.”Tehran’s governor confirmed that there were technical problems with electronic voting systems at 79 polling stations across the capital.It was not immediately clear what had caused the problems.Outside the Hosseinieh Ershad polling station, Shabna, 40, a government employee who works in information technology and also gave just one name, was alternately throwing her fist in the air as she chanted “I support Hemmati” and tugging her colorful head scarf, which was slipping amid all the excitement, back into place.“We want to stop this engineered election,” she said, explaining that she believed Mr. Hemmati, as an economist, was best qualified to turn the economy around. A minute later, she was locked in an argument with a Hemmati critic.The lines of voters at several polling sites across the capital on Friday were much shorter than in previous presidential elections, though the pandemic also likely affected turnout.Arash Khamooshi for The New York TimesBut most voters interviewed on Friday did not seem to have such strong views about any particular candidate. They were there to vote because they always had, or because they believed in the system.Efat Rahmati, 54, a nurse, said it was strange that the Iranian authorities had excluded so many candidates from the race, a fact that many Iranians said had paved the way for Mr. Raisi to win. But she had still decided to vote, partly out of a personal liking for Mr. Raisi, and partly because the authorities “have more knowledge than me about this issue,” she said. “I think Raisi was better than the rest anyway.”Farnaz Fassihi contributed reporting from New York. More
