Politics and Government

Subterms

    More stories

    • 88 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      Isabel Díaz Ayuso Wins Madrid's Regional Election

      by

      Isabel Díaz Ayuso, a conservative politician dubbed a “Trumpista” by her opponents, won the Madrid regional election by a landslide after she refused to shut down the capital’s bars and shops.MADRID — She is a conservative who campaigned on a slogan that came down to one word: Freedom. She offered herself as a champion of small business and scoffed at national coronavirus restrictions.Her critics called her a “Trumpista.” But Isabel Díaz Ayuso is now a rising force in Spanish politics. Voters rewarded the right-wing leader of the Madrid region with a landslide victory on Tuesday after she defied the central government by keeping the capital’s bars and shops open throughout much of the pandemic.She suggested that her victory showed that pandemic fatigue and economic distress had left Spaniards unwilling to endure more of the measures favored by the left-wing national government led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.“Madrid is freedom — and they don’t understand our way of living,” she told her supporters about her left-wing opponents who suffered a crushing loss in the vote.Ms. Ayuso’s Popular Party more than doubled its number of seats in Madrid’s regional assembly, trouncing other parties, including Mr. Sánchez’s Socialists. Her party fell just short of an absolute majority but will hold onto power with support from the far-right Vox party.She is the most talked-about politician in Spain right now. But with nationwide elections not planned for another two years, analysts are divided over whether she could make the leap to the national political stage, or would even want to.Even so, Ms. Ayuso’s victory, could signal that a shift to the right is underway more broadly as the country struggles to emerge from the ravages of the pandemic.Ms. Ayuso, 42, stuck to a simple and clear message that connected with voters who have endured more than a year of pandemic, said Lluís Orriols, a professor of politics at the Carlos III University in Madrid.“Maintaining Madrid open and economically active was something visible to all, while demonstrating that lockdown measures really help keep people healthy is something harder to do,” Mr. Orriols said.Madrid was the epicenter of Spain’s pandemic in the spring of 2020, when its hospitals overflowed with Covid-19 patients. But after the central government lifted a nationwide state of emergency last June, Ms. Ayuso ensured that the city was one of the most bustling in Europe, even when its Covid-19 infection rate crept back up after Easter.This week, Covid-19 patients are filling 44 percent of the beds in Madrid’s intensive care units, which is about double the national average.Ms. Ayuso’s handling of the pandemic provoked tensions even within her administration. After resigning last year as the head of Madrid’s regional health services, Dr. Yolanda Fuentes, recently attacked Ms. Ayuso’s campaign slogan on Twitter.“To understand that freedom means to do whatever you want during a pandemic, when intensive care units are above capacity and colleagues feel defeated, seems to me indecent, to say the least,” Dr. Fuentes said.A busy restaurant in Madrid in March. Despite the pandemic, eateries and shops remained open at the direction of Ms. Ayuso.Susana Vera/ReutersOutside the headquarters of the Popular Party on Tuesday evening, a crowd of supporters danced to the sound of a D.J. Several of them said they were celebrating Ms. Ayuso’s personal victory, rather than that of her party and its national leader, Pablo Casado.“She’s totally a pop icon and a mass phenomenon,” Mariola Vicario, a 25-year-old student, said of Ms. Ayuso. “I don’t consider Casado to have her strength.”In terms of handling the pandemic, Ms. Vicario said that Ms. Ayuso “took measures when needed, but what she did not do is let people starve to death” by keeping Madrid’s economy shut down as long as that of other cities.Madrid’s vote was a resounding defeat for left-wing parties, but it also showed that Ms. Ayuso can keep conservative votes that might have gone to Vox.Mr. Casado has sought to distance his party from Vox, notably last year when he refused to back a thwarted attempt by Vox to oust Prime Minister Sánchez in a parliamentary vote of no confidence.In contrast, Ms. Ayuso said during her campaign that the Popular Party differed on specific issues from Vox, but also suggested that the two had enough common ground to work together in Madrid if needed.Outside the Vox party headquarters in Madrid. The Popular Party’s lead over Vox in Madrid widened significantly compared with 2019.Manu Fernandez/Associated PressEven in the midst of the pandemic, turnout in Madrid reached a record 76 percent on Tuesday, 12 percentage points higher than in the 2019 vote. It was also significantly higher than most other elections recently in Europe, where voters have been reluctant to turn out amid the health concerns.In her closing campaign speech on May 2, which was a public holiday in Madrid that commemorates the city’s fight against the occupation of Napoleon’s troops, Ms. Ayuso made a thinly veiled comparison between the 1808 resistance against the French and her own stance against the central government during the pandemic.Ms. Ayuso, who studied journalism, was a second-tier politician when Mr. Casado unexpectedly handpicked her in early 2019 to be his party’s lead candidate ahead of an election in the Madrid region.She then took charge of the capital region, which the Popular Party has run since 1996, but was forced to govern with the support of a center-right party, Ciudadanos. Tensions between the partners mounted earlier this year, and Ms. Ayuso called a snap election.On Tuesday, Ciudadanos failed to pick up enough votes to even hold a single seat within Madrid’s regional assembly — votes that likely benefited Ms. Ayuso’s party instead.The election ended the political career of Pablo Iglesias, the founder of the far-left Unidas Podemos party. He had unexpectedly abandoned his post as deputy prime minister of Spain to run in the Madrid regional election.In a farewell address to his supporters, Mr. Iglesias said he was sorry to witness “the impressive success of the Trumpist right that Ayuso represents.” More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      U.K. Elections Likely to Favor Boris Johnson, and Scottish Separatists

      by

      The prime minister’s Conservative Party stands to gain at the polls on Thursday, despite ethical accusations against him. But growth in support for the Scottish Nationalist Party could create turmoil.LONDON — For an ordinary politician, heading into midterm elections on an unsavory plume of scandal over cellphone contacts with billionaires and a suspiciously funded apartment makeover might seem like the recipe for a thumping. But Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain is not an ordinary politician.As voters in the country go to the polls on Thursday for regional and local elections that have been swollen by races postponed from last year because of the pandemic, Mr. Johnson’s Conservative Party stands to make gains against a Labour Party that has struggled to make the ethical accusations against him stick.Far from humbling a wayward prime minister, the elections could extend a realignment in British politics that began in 2019 when the Conservative Party won a landslide general election victory. That would put the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, on the back foot and ratify Mr. Johnson’s status as a kind of political unicorn.“No politician in the democratic West can escape the consequences of political gravity forever, but Boris Johnson has shown a greater capacity to do it than most,” said Tony Travers, a professor of politics at the London School of Economics. “People see his behavior as evidence of his authenticity.”Yet there is peril as well as promise for Mr. Johnson in the elections, which will decide thousands of seats, including that of London’s mayor, and which the British press has perhaps inevitably nicknamed “Super Thursday.”In Scotland, the Scottish National Party could win a clear majority in Scotland’s Parliament that the nationalists would brandish as a powerful mandate to demand another referendum on independence from the United Kingdom after an earlier one was defeated in 2014.Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, left, with a supporter in Edinburgh last week.Pool photo by Russell CheyneIn that event, Mr. Johnson could emerge in a stronger position in Westminster only to find that he will spend the next few years scrambling to avert a breakup of the union. That could make the tempest over his WhatsApp texting and who paid for the wallpaper in his Downing Street apartment look quaint.“The test of the Johnson premiership is going to be the integrity of the union — not Covid, not Brexit, not Europe, not sleaze,” said Mujtaba Rahman, an analyst with the political risk consultancy Eurasia Group.Whether the Scottish National Party wins an outright majority or is forced to enter a coalition with the pro-independence Scottish Greens, pollsters said, was still unclear. But the numbers are less important than the direction, which is expected to be emphatically behind a new campaign for Scottish independence.In the English elections, the big prize is Hartlepool, a struggling northern port city and Labour bastion where a new poll suggests that the Conservatives could win a bellwether seat in a parliamentary by-election. The Tories could make further inroads in other Labour cities and towns in the industrial Midlands and North, where they picked off dozens of seats in 2019, running on Mr. Johnson’s promise to “Get Brexit Done.”The prime minister did get Brexit done, as of last January. Yet while the split with the European Union brought predicted chaos in shipments of British seafood and higher customs fees on European goods, its effects have been eclipsed by the pandemic — a twist that ended up working to the government’s benefit.Although the pandemic began as a negative story for Mr. Johnson, with a dilatory response to the first wave of infections that left Britain with the highest death toll in Europe, it turned around with the nation’s rapid rollout of vaccines.Customers at a London pub after England began lifting pandemic lockdown restrictions last month.Mary Turner for The New York TimesAs new cases, hospitalizations and deaths have plunged, voters have rediscovered their affection for Mr. Johnson. His poll numbers rebounded from their lows last fall and show little damage from the charges and countercharges about his conduct, even though those have riveted London’s political circles.More important, Mr. Johnson’s message of “leveling up” the economically blighted Midlands and North with the more prosperous south still seems to resonate with people, including many who traditionally voted for Labour. And the government’s free-spending response to the pandemic has pulled the Conservative Party even further from its roots as the party of fiscal austerity.“The party of Margaret Thatcher is becoming the party of a big state and higher taxes, which can quite easily become the party of economic nationalism and ‘Buy British,’” said Mr. Travers, the London School of Economics professor.For Mr. Starmer, the Labour leader, this shape shifting has been confounding. A disciplined former prosecutor who lacks Mr. Johnson’s raffish manner, he has found it difficult to attack the government on its pandemic response, particularly the vaccine rollout, which is the largest peacetime mobilization in British history.Instead, Mr. Starmer has grilled Mr. Johnson in Parliament weekly about who picked up the initial bill for the upgrade of his apartment and why he was texting the billionaire James Dyson about the tax status of his employees, when the two were discussing a plan for Mr. Dyson’s company to manufacture ventilators.But there is little evidence that voters are particularly surprised or concerned that Mr. Johnson does not play by the rules. As political commentators have taken to saying this week, the prime minister’s behavior is “priced in.”The Labour Party leader, Keir Starmer, has grilled the prime minister about ethical issues but has struggled to attack the government’s recent pandemic response.Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA, via ShutterstockThe same is not true of Scottish independence. Analysts say Mr. Johnson’s government is not prepared for the wall of pressure it will face if the Scottish National Party wins a majority. The last time the party achieved that, in 2011, Britain’s then-prime minister, David Cameron, yielded to demands for a referendum. In 2014, Scots voted against leaving Britain by 55 percent to 44 percent.Polls now put the split at roughly 50-50, after a stretch in which the pro-independence vote was solidly above 50 percent. Analysts attribute the slight softening of support to both the vaccine rollout, which showed the merits of staying in the union, as well as an ugly political dispute within Scottish nationalist ranks.Mr. Johnson holds a trump card of sorts. To be legally binding, an independence referendum would almost certainly have to gain the assent of the British government, so the prime minister can simply say no and hope the problem goes away. But that strategy can work for only so long before becoming untenable.“I don’t see any way in the world that Boris Johnson turns around the day after the election and says, ‘OK, you can have a referendum,’” said Nicola McEwen, a professor of politics at the University of Edinburgh.And yet the calls could only grow. “If they manage to peel off a single-party majority,” she said, “it does put pressure on the U.K. to answer the question, ‘If a democratic vote isn’t a mandate for independence, then what is?’” More

    • 113 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Giuliani’s Allies Want Trump to Pay His Legal Bills

      by

      As Rudolph Giuliani faces an escalating federal investigation and defamation suits, his advisers believe he should benefit from a $250 million Trump campaign war chest.As a federal investigation into Rudolph W. Giuliani escalates, his advisers have been pressing aides to former President Donald J. Trump to reach into a $250 million war chest to pay Mr. Giuliani for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election on Mr. Trump’s behalf.The pressure from Mr. Giuliani’s camp has intensified since F.B.I. agents executed search warrants at Mr. Giuliani’s home and office last week, according to people familiar with the discussions, and comes as Mr. Giuliani has hired new lawyers and is facing his own protracted — and costly — legal battles.Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have been examining communications between Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, and Ukrainian officials as he tried to unearth damaging information about President Biden before the election. The prosecutors are investigating whether Mr. Giuliani lobbied the Trump administration on behalf of Ukrainian officials who were helping him, a potential violation of federal law.Mr. Giuliani, who has not been charged, has denied any wrongdoing and denounced the searches as “corrupt.” The actions in Ukraine were part of Mr. Trump’s first impeachment trial.Separately, Mr. Giuliani is being sued for defamation by two voting machine companies, Dominion and Smartmatic, for his false claims that the companies were involved in a conspiracy to flip votes to Mr. Biden.Mr. Giuliani led the effort to subvert the results of the 2020 race in a series of battleground states, but he was not paid for the work, according to people close to both Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Trump. His supporters now want the Trump campaign to tap into the $250 million it raised in the weeks after the election to pay Mr. Giuliani and absorb costs he has incurred in the defamation suits.“I want to know what the GOP did with the quarter of $1 billion that they collected for the election legal fight,” Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner, wrote on Twitter on Sunday. Mr. Giuliani appointed Mr. Kerik when he was mayor of New York.Using expletives, Mr. Kerik added that “lawyers and law firms that didn’t do” much work were paid handsomely, while those who worked hard “got nothing.”Mr. Kerik has made similar complaints to some of Mr. Trump’s advisers privately, according to people familiar with the conversations, arguing that Mr. Giuliani has incurred legal expenses in his efforts to help Mr. Trump and that Mr. Giuliani’s name was used to raise money during the election fight.In a separate tweet, Mr. Kerik blamed the Republican National Committee chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel. R.N.C. officials said that the group did not make the same overt fund-raising appeals as the Trump campaign to challenge the election results.A lawyer for Mr. Giuliani, Robert J. Costello, has had conversations with a lawyer for Mr. Trump about whether any of the material that was seized by the F.B.I. should be protected from scrutiny because of attorney-client privilege. Mr. Costello has also raised the question of paying Mr. Giuliani, according to two people briefed on those discussions.Jason Miller, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, declined to comment. Mr. Giuliani could not be reached for comment.Mr. Giuliani had encouraged Mr. Trump to file challenges to the election, and the former president tasked Mr. Giuliani with leading the effort in November. But when Mr. Giuliani’s associate, Maria Ryan, sent an email to Trump campaign officials seeking $20,000 a day for his work, Mr. Trump balked, The New York Times has reported.Mr. Trump later told his advisers he did not want Mr. Giuliani to receive any payment, according to people close to the former president with direct knowledge of the discussions. Before Mr. Trump left the White House in January, he agreed to reimburse Mr. Giuliani for more than $200,000 in expenses but not to pay a fee.Some of Mr. Giuliani’s supporters have blamed Mr. Trump’s aides — and not the former president — for the standoff. However, people close to Mr. Trump said he has stridently refused to pay Mr. Giuliani.Federal investigators seized cellphones and computers from Mr. Giuliani’s Manhattan home and office on April 28. Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesMr. Giuliani’s advisers were also disappointed that he did not receive a federal pardon from Mr. Trump, despite facing the long-running federal investigation into his Ukrainian dealings, a person close to Mr. Giuliani said. After months of speculation that Mr. Trump might issue Mr. Giuliani a pre-emptive pardon, Mr. Giuliani said on his radio show in January that he did not need a pardon, because “I don’t commit crimes.”The efforts to overturn the election culminated in a rally of Mr. Trump’s supporters near the White House on Jan. 6. After marching to the Capitol, where the Electoral College results were being certified, hundreds of those supporters stormed the building, resulting in deaths and scores of injuries to Capitol Police officers and others. The events led to Mr. Trump’s second impeachment trial, and Mr. Trump told Mr. Giuliani in a private meeting that he could not represent him in the proceedings, people briefed on the meeting said.Asked about Mr. Kerik’s tweet during an interview with ABC News, Mr. Giuliani’s son, Andrew, said that his father’s fees should be covered by Trump’s campaign coffers.“I do think he should be indemnified,” the younger Mr. Giuliani said. “I think all those Americans that donated after Nov. 3, they were donating for the legal defense fund. My father ran the legal team at that point. So I think it’s very easy to make a very strong case for the fact that he and all the lawyers that worked on there should be indemnified.”He added, “I would find it highly irregular if the president’s lead counsel did not get indemnified.”A person close to Mr. Giuliani, who was granted anonymity because this person was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, made a related argument, saying the Trump campaign should be careful to ensure money in the war chest was spent in connection with the election effort because it was solicited from the public for that purpose.Although there are many differences between the two situations, for some of Mr. Trump’s advisers, the standoff with Mr. Giuliani has raised uncomfortable echoes of a similar dispute with another of Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyers, Michael D. Cohen.In 2019, Mr. Cohen said the Trump Organization, Mr. Trump’s family business, breached an agreement with him to cover his legal costs. In a lawsuit, Mr. Cohen said the company initially paid some of the bills after the F.B.I. searched his apartment and office in April 2018. But, he said in the lawsuit, company officials stopped the payments when they discovered around June 2018 that he was preparing to cooperate with federal investigators.Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty later that year to charges related to tax evasion, as well as a campaign finance charge related to his 2016 hush-money payment to a pornographic film star who had claimed to have had an affair with Mr. Trump. Mr. Cohen ended up testifying about Mr. Trump in Congress, and provided assistance to the investigation led by the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III into possible conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.After the F.B.I. searched Mr. Cohen’s home and office, he filed a civil action against the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, which Mr. Trump joined to prevent federal officials from gaining access to material that could be protected by attorney-client privilege between Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen.Mr. Giuliani’s lawyers are considering filing a similar action in his case, according to one of the people close to the former mayor. One lawyer advising Mr. Giuliani, Alan Dershowitz, told CNN that it would be appropriate for Mr. Trump to join such an effort. Mr. Dershowitz confirmed the comment to The Times.A new court filing made public on Tuesday showed the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan asked a federal judge last week to appoint a special master to conduct a review of potentially privileged materials seized from Mr. Giuliani. The prosecutors, writing to Judge J. Paul Oetken, said the F.B.I. had begun to extract materials from cellphones and computers seized from Mr. Giuliani, but that a review of those materials had not yet begun, the redacted court filing showed.Mr. Giuliani recently added four new lawyers to his team: Arthur L. Aidala, a former Brooklyn prosecutor and former Fox News commentator; Barry Kamins, a retired New York Supreme Court justice and law professor; the retired New York Appellate Division Justice John Leventhal; and Michael T. Jaccarino, a former Brooklyn prosecutor.William K. Rashbaum, Jonah E. Bromwich and Benjamin Weiser contributed reporting. More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Netanyahu Fails to Form New Israeli Government, Prolonging Deadlock

      by

      The prime minister’s opponents may now get a chance to oust him from power. But it is too soon to write off Benjamin Netanyahu, a political survivor.JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel failed to form a new government by the midnight Tuesday deadline, putting his political future in jeopardy as he stands trial on corruption charges and prolonging a political deadlock that has only worsened after four elections in two years.Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, may now give a rival, eclectic camp of anti-Netanyahu parties a chance to form a government, which could oust Mr. Netanyahu from power after 12 consecutive years in office.Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party is by far the largest on Israel’s fractured political scene, having won 30 seats in a general election in March. Despite that, he was not able to muster enough coalition partners to command a majority of at least 61 seats in the 120-member Parliament.His hopes for a right-wing and religious coalition ultimately fell short because his far-right allies refused to join a government supported by a small Islamist Arab party. The Arab party, Raam, was willing to back a Netanyahu administration in return for benefits for Israel’s Arab minority.Mr. Netanyahu also failed in a last-gasp effort to persuade a right-wing rival, Naftali Bennett, to join him in a power-sharing agreement that would have seen the pair take turns as prime minister.Mr. Bennett had dismissed the offer, saying that even with his support Mr. Netanyahu could not muster a majority.Three minutes before midnight, Likud issued a terse statement blaming Mr. Bennett for foiling Mr. Netanyahu’s chances by refusing to commit to a right-wing government, “which would certainly have led to the formation of a government joined by additional members of Parliament.”Mr. Rivlin may now ask one of Mr. Netanyahu’s rivals — representing a disparate group of parties ranging from the pro-settlement right to the secular left — to try to cobble together a governing coalition that would send the prime minister into the opposition. Or Mr. Rivlin could ask Parliament to put forward a candidate.He has three days to make that decision. His office said that he would restart the process on Wednesday morning by contacting each of the political parties represented in Parliament.Mr. Netanyahu would still remain in power as a caretaker prime minister until a new government is formed. If no one can form a government, Israel will be heading to a fifth election.But with his failure to build a majority coalition, Mr. Netanyahu may have lost his best chance of gaining some kind of legal immunity from criminal prosecution. Charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust, he has denied wrongdoing and insists the cases against him will collapse in court.A protest against Mr. Netanyahu outside his residence in Jerusalem last month. Sebastian Scheiner/Associated PressSome of his political allies had pledged to make moves or advance legislation that could put his trial on hold until he leaves office. A new Netanyahu government could also have appointed a more sympathetic attorney general to replace the current one, whose term is up early next year.The failure to create a new government could also prolong a political stalemate that has left Israel without a state budget for two consecutive years in the middle of a pandemic, and has delayed appointments to several key administrative and judicial posts.The largest party challenging Likud, and the runner-up in the election, is Yesh Atid, a centrist group that won 17 seats. But its leader, Yair Lapid, a former finance minister, does not have an easy path to forming a government either.The bloc opposing Mr. Netanyahu is made up of numerous other small parties with clashing agendas. The smaller right-wing parties in the bloc view Mr. Lapid as too left-wing to lead the government.Instead, discussions in Mr. Lapid’s bloc have centered around the possibility of Mr. Lapid sharing power with another candidate, such as Mr. Bennett, the leader of Yamina, a right-wing party that won just seven seats. Under such an agreement, Mr. Bennett might lead the country for a year, before handing the prime ministry to Mr. Lapid.Mr. Lapid’s party has championed taxpaying middle-class Israelis and called for limits on the autonomy afforded to Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community — many of whom are exempted from military service, and study religious texts instead of entering the work force. That has made him an enemy of the ultra-Orthodox parties that have long kept Mr. Netanyahu in power.Mr. Lapid pledged during the election campaign to put his ego aside and concede the premiership if that was what it took to unseat Mr. Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.Yair Lapid, center, the leader of the centrist Yesh Atid party, pledged during the election campaign to concede the premiership if that’s what it took to unseat Mr. Netanyahu.Amir Levy/Getty ImagesTo make up a majority, this bloc would also need to rely on the support of an Arab party, something they have been reluctant to do in the past. Even if they succeed in forming a government with the limited goal of steadying the country after a long period of political chaos, many analysts believe its heterogeneity would make it short lived.Mr. Bennett is also seeking a chance to try to form the next government. He has said that his preference is to build a right-wing coalition including Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud and the religious parties but, failing that, he would work to form a more diverse “unity” government including parties from the anti-Netanyahu bloc.If no government has been formed within the allotted time — 28 days for a lawmaker other than Mr. Netanyahu, or up to five weeks for a candidate nominated by Parliament — the assembly will automatically dissolve itself and Israelis will head back to the ballot box for the fifth time since the spring of 2019.Aside from the country’s usual tensions between secular and religious, right-wing and left-wing, and Jewish and Arab, Israelis have become increasingly divided about Mr. Netanyahu himself. Those on the ideological right are now split between pro- and anti-Netanyahu camps.Mr. Netanyahu had the solid support of only 52 lawmakers, from his own Likud, two loyal ultra-Orthodox parties and a far-right alliance. Three right-wing parties ultimately chose not to return him to government.In total, 13 parties entered Parliament, all but Likud and Yesh Atid with seats in the single digits.Any government that is formed is likely to be unstable and dependent on the demands and whims of small parties with disproportionate power.This latest failure to form a government is a severe blow to Mr. Netanyahu. He campaigned hard for the March election and had staked his fortunes on Israel’s successful vaccination drive, which had allowed the economy and cultural life to reopen just in time for the ballot.But commentators say it is still too early to write him off.He similarly failed to form a government after two elections in 2019. But when his rivals also failed to cement a coalition, he remained in place as a caretaker prime minister. An election in April 2020 produced an ill-fated unity government that collapsed after seven months of political and administrative paralysis.Some analysts say that Mr. Netanyahu, a political survivor, is happy to function as a caretaker prime minister, riding the wave of electoral turmoil from one transitional government to another, as long as he remains in office. And if the latest imbroglio ends in a fifth election, he is likely to run again. More

    • 100 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      Charlie Crist Challenges DeSantis in Florida Governor's Race

      by

      MIAMI — Representative Charlie Crist, Democrat of Florida, entered the race for governor on Tuesday, becoming the first challenger to Ron DeSantis, a Republican who raised his profile during the pandemic and is now one of the best-known governors in the country and a leading contender for his party’s presidential nomination in 2024.“Today, Florida has a governor that’s only focused on his future, not yours,” Mr. Crist said in a video posted on Twitter, ahead of a planned announcement later in the morning in his hometown of St. Petersburg.Mr. Crist has a long political history in Florida and is widely known throughout the state. He served as governor as a Republican from 2007 to 2011 before running unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate as an independent, losing to Marco Rubio. After switching parties, he later lost a Democratic bid for governor in 2014 against the incumbent, Rick Scott.But Mr. Crist’s experience is unlikely to deter other Democratic candidates. His clout has been diminished by years of electoral failures and by a party that is increasingly open to a wider range of more diverse public figures to be its standard bearers. Two women, Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried and Representative Val Demings of Orlando, are considering their own Democratic runs for the governor’s mansion. In advance of Mr. Crist’s announcement, Mr. DeSantis held an official event Monday in St. Petersburg, touting the wins he racked up during the annual legislative session that concluded last week — a session that he and Republicans in control of the Legislature used to champion policies that will appeal to Florida’s increasingly conservative electorate. More

    • 125 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Bee Nguyen, Georgia Democrat, Enters Race for Secretary of State

      by

      Ms. Nguyen, the daughter of Vietnamese refugees, is the first major Democrat to announce a bid for the seat held by Brad Raffensperger, the Republican who defied former President Donald Trump.ATLANTA — Next year’s secretary of state election in Georgia was already shaping up to be a tense and dramatic fight: the incumbent, Brad Raffensperger — who enraged former President Donald J. Trump for refusing to overturn the state’s election results — is facing a primary challenge from a Trump-endorsed fellow Republican, Representative Jody Hice.On Tuesday morning, the race got even more interesting with the entry of the first major Democratic candidate, State Representative Bee Nguyen, the daughter of Vietnamese refugees who has helped lead the fight against Republican-backed bills that restrict voting rights in the state.“Republicans have done everything in their power to silence the voices of voters who chose an America that works for all of us, and not just some of us,” she said in her announcement video. “But we will not allow anyone to stand in the way of our right to a free and fair democracy.” In an interview this week, Ms. Nguyen, 39, said that Mr. Raffensperger deserved credit for standing up to Mr. Trump and rejecting his false claims of voter fraud after the November election. But she also noted that since then, Mr. Raffensperger had largely supported the voting rights law passed by the Legislature in March and continued to consider himself a Trump supporter after the former president promulgated his falsehoods about the Georgia election.“I’ve been at the forefront of battling against voter suppression laws in Georgia,” Ms. Nguyen said. “Watching everything unfold in 2020 with the erosion of our Democracy, I recognized how critically important it was to defend our right to vote.”She added, “I believe Georgians deserve better, and can do better.”Mr. Trump lost Georgia by around 12,000 votes. After the election, he made personal entreaties to both Mr. Raffensperger and Gov. Brian Kemp, asking the two Republicans to intervene and help overturn the results. When they declined, Mr. Trump vowed revenge.In late March, the former president endorsed Mr. Hice, a pastor and former radio talk-show host from Georgia’s 10th Congressional District. “Unlike the current Georgia Secretary of State, Jody leads out front with integrity,” Mr. Trump said in a statement.It’s not the only race in Georgia that Mr. Trump is hoping to influence in an attempt to exact retribution against those he deems disloyal. In January, Mr. Trump vowed to campaign against Mr. Kemp as he sought re-election. Since then, former State Representative Vernon Jones, a former Democrat and a vocal Trump supporter, has entered the race, but Mr. Trump has not endorsed him.On Monday, however, the Georgia political world took notice when State Senator Burt Jones, a Republican, tweeted a photo of himself and Mr. Trump meeting at Mr. Trump’s Florida home. Mr. Jones, who did not return calls for comment Monday, hails from a wealthy family and could put his own funds into a statewide race. But if he is interested in higher office, he has a number of choices beyond governor, including possibly jumping into next year’s contest for the U.S. Senate seat held by the Democrat Raphael Warnock.Ms. Nguyen, a supporter of abortion rights and critic of what she has called Georgia’s “lax” gun laws, could struggle to connect with more conservative voters beyond her liberal district in metropolitan Atlanta. She first won the seat in December 2017 in a special election to replace another Democrat, Stacey Abrams, the former state House minority leader who left her position to make her ultimately unsuccessful challenge to Mr. Kemp in 2018.Ms. Abrams, who is African-American, may be gearing up to run against Mr. Kemp again next year, and if Ms. Nguyen can land a spot on the general election ballot, it will reflect the changing demographics that helped Democrats like President Biden score upset wins in Georgia in recent months.In March, Ms. Nguyen was among a group of Asian-American Georgia lawmakers who forcefully denounced the mass shootings at Atlanta-area massage parlors in which eight people were killed, including six women of Asian descent.Georgia’s secretary of state race, normally a low-profile affair, will be watched particularly closely next year given the razor-thin margins of the state’s recent elections, and its growing reputation as a key battleground in the presidential election.Mr. Raffensperger finds himself in a frustrating position. A statewide poll in January found that he had the highest approval rating of any Republican officeholder in the state, the likely result of the bipartisan respect he earned for standing up to Mr. Trump. But Mr. Hice has a good chance of overpowering Mr. Raffensperger in a G.O.P. primary, given rank-and-file Republicans’ loyalty to the former president.Two other Republicans, David Belle Isle, a former mayor of the city of Alpharetta, a suburb of Atlanta, and T.J. Hudson, a former probate judge, are also running.Daniel Victor More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Netanyahu Offers Rival a Year in Office, in Last-Minute Bid for Government

      by

      With a deadline fast approaching, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is still pushing to form a new coalition.JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said on Monday that he would be willing to hand over leadership for one year to a longtime right-wing rival, Naftali Bennett, in a last-ditch effort to cobble together a new government.Mr. Netanyahu, who has spent the last 12 years in office and is now standing trial on corruption charges, announced the offer just ahead of a deadline to form a government, in the wake of Israel’s fourth inconclusive election in two years.The arrangement, part of a rotation agreement, would be a highly unusual one since Mr. Bennett, who served briefly as defense minister in a previous government, leads a small, pro-settlement party, Yamina, that holds just seven seats in the 120-seat Parliament.Mr. Netanyahu wrote about the offer in a post on Facebook less than 36 hours before his time to form a new government runs out at midnight on Tuesday. Mr. Bennett appeared to dismiss the offer as political spin in his initial response.The last election in March has left Mr. Netanyahu weakened and, so far, unable to muster a coalition that would command a parliamentary majority.Mr. Netanyahu’s conservative Likud party won the most seats of any party in the election, securing 30 seats in the 120-seat Parliament, but had been endorsed for the premiership by only 52 lawmakers from Likud, two loyal ultra-Orthodox parties and a far-right alliance called Religious Zionism.Even with Mr. Bennett’s Yamina on board, Mr. Netanyahu would still be two seats short of the 61 needed to form a majority government.Still, the support of Mr. Bennett’s party could be key, and he has been negotiating both with the Netanyahu-led bloc and with an opposition bloc made up of parties from across the spectrum that are determined to unseat Mr. Netanyahu. That group also had no easy path to power.A banner for Naftali Bennett and his Yamina party in Jerusalem ahead of last month’s elections.Ahmad Gharabli/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Netanyahu said Mr. Bennett had demanded to serve for one year in a rotating premiership while negotiating with both sides, playing each against the other.“It’s not exactly a routine demand from the person who heads a party with seven seats,” Mr. Netanyahu said of Mr. Bennett’s stipulation. “But the consideration that guides me is what is at stake now — the good of the country: A right-wing government and not a left-wing government.” Mr. Bennett subsequently denied having made the demand.If Mr. Bennett were to take up Mr. Netanyahu’s offer, it is unclear how much power Mr. Bennett would actually wield given the imbalance between their respective parties.Mr. Bennett has said he would prefer to sit in a coherent right-wing government but noted that he was waiting for Mr. Netanyahu to show he had a majority. His immediate response to Mr. Netanyahu’s offer was dismissive.“I have just heard Netanyahu’s proposal, and I have to say it is unclear to me,” Mr. Bennett said. “I did not demand the premiership from Netanyahu, but rather I asked for a government. And that, to my regret, he does not have.”In order to form a government, Mr. Netanyahu needs the direct or passive support of Raam, a small Islamist party whose Hebrew acronym stands for the United Arab List, which holds four seats in Parliament. But most of the Religious Zionism party has so far ruled out relying on the support of the Arab party, which they say supports terrorism.Mr. Netanyahu’s only other option is to attract defectors from the opposition bloc. Mr. Netanyahu said that if Mr. Bennett and his Yamina party joined forces to form a solid bloc of 59 seats, others would come.Mr. Bennett and Mr. Netanyahu during a meeting of the Israeli Parliament last year.Sebastian Scheiner/Associated PressThe latest power-sharing proposal could offer Israel a way out of its prolonged political deadlock. But even with Mr. Netanyahu in the background, it could highlight the cracks in his carefully curated image of indispensability.Mr. Netanyahu has presented himself as the only candidate qualified and experienced enough to secure Israel’s future in a volatile region, at a time when the Biden administration is pursuing negotiations aimed at restoring the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran despite Israeli objections.But questions of trust and stability would hang over any new government with Mr. Bennett at least nominally at the helm, after a similar agreement lasted just months.Mr. Netanyahu’s last government was also based on a rotation agreement with his main coalition partner, Benny Gantz, the leader of the centrist Blue and White party. The two joined forces in a unity government after last year’s election draw.Mr. Netanyahu held the office of prime minister first, with the agreement that Mr. Gantz would take over in November 2021. But after only seven months, Mr. Netanyahu created a budget crisis that led to new elections, before Mr. Gantz could get close to heading the government.What many Israelis are hoping for now is an end to the gridlock that paralyzed the government for years. The political morass left Israel without a state budget for two consecutive years in the middle of a pandemic and has delayed appointments to several key administrative and judicial posts.Aside from the country’s usual tensions between secular and religious, right-wing and left-wing, and Jewish and Arab, the main division had increasingly focused on Mr. Netanyahu himself. Even the ideological right has been split between pro- and anti-Netanyahu camps, largely over the leader’s fitness for the office of prime minister amid his legal troubles.Mr. Netanyahu is expected to appear in court regularly now that the evidentiary stage of his trial on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, which he denies, has begun. More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Sexual Harassment Allegations Roil N.Y.C. Mayor’s Race: 5 Takeaways

      by

      Scott Stringer, the city comptroller, has faced criticism for his aggressive defense against accusations from a former campaign worker.For much of the New York City mayor’s race, Andrew Yang has been a dominating presence, leading in limited early polling and siphoning attention from his rivals.That largely remained true last week, but an unexpected story line — the sexual assault allegations lodged against Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller — gave the race another focal point.A former campaign worker, Jean Kim, said Mr. Stringer sexually abused her during his 2001 campaign for public advocate. At least four mayoral candidates have called on Mr. Stringer to drop out of the race.On Friday, Mr. Stringer lost several major endorsements from left-leaning politicians and political organizations, which has thrown his campaign into turmoil, and altered the dynamics of the contest — one of the city’s most consequential mayoral elections in a generation. More leaders withdrew their support over the weekend, including Representative Adriano Espaillat, a key Latino ally.Here is what you need to know:Stringer accused of “smear campaign”Jean Kim said that she had expected Mr. Stringer’s attempt to discredit her, characterizing the strategy as “lie, attack and retaliate.”Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesMr. Stringer has vociferously denied Ms. Kim’s accusations, saying that they once had a consensual relationship over the course of a few months. He vowed to “fight for the truth because these allegations are false.” Part of that effort seems to be rooted in discrediting Ms. Kim, and portraying her as politically motivated.Soon after Ms. Kim went public with her accusation, Mr. Stringer said that his relationship with Ms. Kim was friendly until 2013, when she wanted a job on his campaign for comptroller and did not get one. On Friday, his campaign accused her of “working for Mr. Yang.”Ms. Kim pushed back strongly.“I do not work and have never worked for the Andrew Yang campaign,” Ms. Kim said in a statement. “I’ve never met him, and I have not decided who my choice is for mayor of New York City.”The Stringer campaign said Ms. Kim had filed petitions to help Mr. Yang get on the ballot. Ms. Kim said she was circulating the petitions for her friend, Esther Yang, who is running as a district leader in Manhattan and is aligned with Mr. Yang.Ms. Kim, a lobbyist who has worked in politics for years, said she believed it might be time for the city to elect its first female mayor. She said that she came forward because of the “gnawing feeling in my gut every time I saw him touting his support for women” and was not surprised by Mr. Stringer’s efforts to discredit her.“It is exactly what I expected him to do,” she said. “Lie, attack and retaliate.”Maya Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio and one of three female mayoral candidates calling on Mr. Stringer to drop out, said on Twitter that Mr. Stringer had started a “smear campaign” against Ms. Kim and called it “disgusting.”A city councilwoman calls Stringer “vengeful”The sexual assault allegations opened another line of criticism against Mr. Stringer, as several local leaders said that his aggressive response toward Ms. Kim’s claims was part of a broader pattern.Helen Rosenthal, a city councilwoman on the Upper West Side, said she had been “on the receiving end of his crude and vengeful actions.”Ms. Rosenthal, who is supporting Ms. Wiley in the mayor’s race, said that when she and Mr. Stringer were on opposing political sides, he threatened not to work with groups that supported Ms. Rosenthal.Others including Ben Kallos, a city councilman from the Upper East Side who is running for Manhattan borough president, and Marti Speranza Wong, the leader of a group, Amplify Her, that seeks to elect women, shared stories of bullying behavior by Mr. Stringer.At the same time, a group of women including Betsy Gotbaum, the city’s former public advocate, and Ruth Messinger, a former Manhattan borough president who unsuccessfully ran for mayor in 1997, urged caution when considering the allegations.Their statement, released through the Stringer campaign, said: “Believing women means accepting the allegation and investigating it thoroughly and objectively.”Adams wins transit union endorsementMr. Yang, the former presidential hopeful, has done well in the race despite not landing major endorsements; he had hoped to change that by getting the backing of the powerful union that represents subway and bus workers.Mr. Yang had met in March with John Samuelsen, a top leader of the Transport Workers Union of America, who had expressed support for Mr. Yang’s views on automation.“There is a technological revolution coming across all transport sectors, with a huge potential negative impact on public transit workers and service delivery,” Mr. Samuelsen said at the time. “Andrew Yang speaks powerfully in defense of workers, and understands that people come before profits.”But the union ultimately backed Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, whom officials have known for much longer. Mr. Adams has been a voice for subway riders and workers as the system fell into crisis in recent years.“He’s stood with us in many battles and has always been there for us,” said Tony Utano, the president of the local transit union. “He’s earned this endorsement and richly deserves it.”Mr. Yang did win the support last week of leading Hasidic sects in the Borough Park neighborhood in Brooklyn. Mr. Yang has been courting Orthodox Jewish voters and has defended the yeshiva education system, which has faced criticism over not providing a basic secular education.Donovan criticizes male candidates’ response to Stringer allegationsAfter Mr. Stringer was accused of sexual assault by Ms. Kim, the three top-tier female candidates for mayor quickly called for Mr. Stringer to either withdraw from the mayor’s race, resign as city comptroller or both.They were joined by Shaun Donovan, the former federal housing secretary, but not by the three other leading male candidates.Mr. Yang, Mr. Adams and Raymond J. McGuire, a former Wall Street executive, all said that they believed Ms. Kim but stopped short of calling for Mr. Stringer to withdraw from political life.Mr. Donovan said that his views lined up with Ms. Wiley, who believes that a man cannot tell a woman if a relationship is consensual, as Mr. Stringer has claimed. But because Mr. Stringer was Ms. Kim’s boss, the relationship could never have been consensual, Mr. Donovan said..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-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.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-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 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:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“One of the fundamental issues in the #MeToo movement is the use of power by men to take advantage of women, sexually and otherwise,” Mr. Donovan said. “Men have to speak out against that if it will change. It shouldn’t be just women.”Sasha Ahuja, Mr. Yang’s co-campaign manager, said he believed Ms. Kim and that there should be “a thorough investigation as soon as possible.” Mr. Adams’s campaign pointed to his remarks earlier in the week when he said that Mr. Stringer should do some “soul searching and make the appropriate decisions on how to move forward.”Basil Smikle, Mr. McGuire’s campaign manager, called Mr. Donovan’s comments a sign of privilege and said rushing to judgment before due process is not a good idea.“For a guy whose entire campaign consists of him talking about his Black friends from work, Shaun Donovan is showing himself to be totally ignorant of what it’s like to be Black in America,” said Mr. Smikle, who is Black.McGuire’s fund-raising efforts indirectly help his rivalsRay McGuire has raised $7.4 million, triggering a boost in the city’s spending cap for his rivals participating in the matching funds program.James Estrin/The New York TimesMr. McGuire, who has support from numerous Wall Street types, has done so well in fund-raising that the New York City Campaign Finance Board was forced to raise the spending cap for all mayoral candidates participating in the city’s public financing system.Under the system, small dollar donations from New Yorkers are matched at a rate of up to $8 for every $1 contributed.Mr. McGuire is not participating in the matching program, which had allowed candidates to spend up to $7.3 million in the primary.Under campaign finance rules, if a candidate, like Mr. McGuire, who is not participating in public financing, raises or spends more than half of the $7.3 million cap, the spending cap for participating clients is raised by half.Mr. McGuire, who entered the race in October, has now raised $7.4 million — triggering an automatic raise in the spending cap to $10.9 million.With super PACs supporting individual candidates proliferating for the first time in the race for mayor, the increased spending cap is likely to help Mr. Adams, Mr. Stringer and Mr. Yang.Mr. Adams has raised a total of $8.9 million and has $7.9 million on hand, according to the most recent campaign finance filings. Mr. Stringer had raised $8.7 million and has $7.4 million on hand. Mr. Yang has raised $6 million and has $5 million on hand.Super PACs supporting Mr. McGuire and Mr. Donovan’s campaigns have each raised more than $4 million. Mr. Donovan’s father contributed $4 million to the super PAC supporting his son. And there are at least two PACs expected to support Mr. Yang’s campaign.Mayoral candidates participating in the matching program can receive a maximum of $6.5 million in public money for the primary.Evan Thies, a spokesman for Mr. Adams, said that “having more to spend is helpful” and that Mr. Adams will be able to “meet the new limit.” More