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      Nikki Haley’s Pro-Israel Record Could Shape Her ’24 Bid

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      In January 2017, Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, received a phone call from Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and Donald Trump’s newly appointed ambassador to the United Nations.Ms. Haley wanted to apologize.A month earlier, the U.N. Security Council had passed a resolution condemning Israel for building settlements in the West Bank. The Obama administration, by abstaining from the vote, had allowed the measure to pass, a parting rebuke to Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s increasingly right-wing prime minister.In her first phone call to a fellow ambassador, Ms. Haley wanted to be clear that things would be different.“She guaranteed that it would not happen as long as she was serving as ambassador,” Mr. Danon recalled recently, “that she would get our back and support us.”That promise would set the tone for much of Ms. Haley’s time at the U.N. Over her nearly two-year tenure, she transformed herself from a foreign policy novice to a blunt-talking stateswoman, making the defense of Israel her defining cause.Ms. Haley blocked a Palestinian envoy’s appointment and took credit for forcing the withdrawal of a report that described the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians as “apartheid.” She walked out of a Security Council meeting during a Palestinian official’s speech and criticized the U.N.’s Palestinian refugee aid program, which she has since said “uses American money to feed Palestinian hatred of the Jewish state.”She was an enthusiastic face of the Trump administration’s diplomatic largess toward Israel, and described herself as turning back the tide of “Israel-bashing” at the world body.Denizens of the U.N.’s New York headquarters began joking that Israel now had two ambassadors.American ambassadors have generally stood with Israel at the U.N., but observers of Ms. Haley’s time there saw something new in her often confrontational advocacy for the Trump administration’s no-questions support for Mr. Netanyahu’s government.Critics have noted the political convenience of her approach — which ingratiated her with Mr. Trump’s inner circle and cemented relationships with major Republican donors and evangelical leaders — as well as its made-for-television tenor.“I wear heels,” she told the audience at an American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in 2017. “It’s not for a fashion statement. It’s because if I see something wrong, we’re going to kick them every single time.” A clip of the statement appeared in a video teasing her presidential campaign early this year.“There was always a clear distinction between her relatively pragmatic approach to most issues and an incredibly performative, purist approach to diplomacy regarding Israel,” said Richard Gowan, the U.N. director of the International Crisis Group.As Israel plunges into a new war in the Gaza Strip, after a stunning wave of attacks by Hamas fighters, this chapter of Ms. Haley’s career has taken on a sudden importance.Ms. Haley, one of the few candidates with a foreign policy record to run on, has cast herself as an unwavering Israel hawk whose views are grounded in experience. Last weekend, Ms. Haley urged Mr. Netanyahu to “finish” Hamas. During an appearance on “Meet the Press,” she recalled her 2017 visit to Hamas-dug tunnels near the Gaza border.When Mr. Trump criticized Mr. Netanyahu — who angered him by recognizing Joseph R. Biden’s victory in 2020 — Ms. Haley used the moment to reinforce her case against her former boss.“To go and criticize the head of a country who just saw massive bloodshed — no, that’s not what we need in a president,” she said at a news conference in Concord, N.H., on Friday.Ms. Haley, who declined to comment for this article, has seen a recent uptick in polling, although she continues to run far behind Mr. Trump. As a new conflict pushes world affairs to the foreground of the campaign, this may be her best chance to emerge as the leading Republican alternative to the former president.“This was always political capital that she was banking while she was at the U.N.,” Mr. Gowan said. “And it may pay off for her now.”A Keen Eye for Set Pieces“I wear heels,” Ms. Haley told an audience of staunch Israel supporters at the meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in 2017. “It’s not for a fashion statement. It’s because if I see something wrong we’re going to kick them every single time.”Pete Marovich/European Pressphoto AgencyIn interviews, close observers of Ms. Haley’s work — veterans of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, the Trump White House and State Department, United Nations officials, and foreign policy lobbyists and experts — described it in similar terms.They recalled a diplomat who quickly became a more pragmatic negotiator than her own accounts of her tenure, which tend to focus on her confrontations, suggested. They also remembered her as a politician: someone who understood the United Nations post as a stopover on a trajectory toward bigger things.Ms. Haley was not enamored with the minutiae of diplomacy. She requested that staff cut down background papers to a single page of talking points, written in “eighth-grade English.” In her first address to her new employees, the ambassador told them she wanted to create a humane and efficient office culture, insisting that nobody’s work should keep them at the office after 6 p.m. — a tall order for an institution where meetings often ran into the evening, and diplomatic crises at unusual hours were practically a daily event.Ms. Haley also had a keen eye for what one former mission staff member described as “set pieces”: the confrontations and dramatic gestures that would gain attention.The first such moment for Ms. Haley arrived only days into her tenure. In early February 2017, António Guterres, the U.N. secretary general, was preparing to name Salam Fayyad, the former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, as the U.N.’s special envoy to Libya. Mr. Fayyad was a well-regarded reformer who had been seen as a key Palestinian partner for both the United States and Israel. Mr. Guterres had received informal signoffs from the Security Council members. His office had prepared a news release.But half an hour before the deadline for objections, Ms. Haley informed him that she considered Mr. Fayyad unacceptable.“We thought that this must be a mistake,” said Jeffrey Feltman, an American diplomat who at the time was Mr. Guterres’s under secretary general for political affairs. The appointment had been vetted, and State Department officials had vouched for Mr. Fayyad, he said. The decision had been Ms. Haley’s, her staff has since said, though Mr. Trump approved it. In a statement at the time, she argued that appointing a Palestinian to a significant U.N. position would be tantamount to recognizing Palestinian statehood. “The United States does not currently recognize a Palestinian state or support the signal this appointment would send within the United Nations,” she said.“Essentially, she punished Salam Fayyad for his nationality, at the same time she was criticizing the U.N. for punishing Israelis for their nationality,” Mr. Feltman said. “It seemed to me to be quite hypocritical.”Speaking before an audience of Israel supporters at the AIPAC conference the following month, Ms. Haley cast the move more provocatively, taking credit for having Mr. Fayyad “booted out” of the U.N. post, and portraying the decision as a response to a culture of “Israel-bashing” at the organization. She announced that unless things changed, “there are no freebies for the Palestinian Authority anymore.”The Trump Translator at the U.N.Ms. Haley made herself the public face at the U.N. of the administration’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.Al Drago for The New York TimesBefore arriving at the U.N., Ms. Haley had a scant record on Israel policy. She has described her support for the country as “a matter of faith” — raised Sikh, she later converted to Christianity — and compared her own cultural background as the child of Indian immigrants to that of Israelis’. “We’re aggressive, we’re stubborn and we don’t back down from a fight,” she said in 2017.Her main claim was that as the governor of South Carolina, she signed a bill in 2015 banning the state from doing business with companies that boycotted or divested from Israel.Such laws — South Carolina’s was the second, after Illinois — had that year become a focus of pro-Israel political donors, including Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas casino magnate and backer of the Republican Jewish Coalition, who wielded enormous influence in the G.O.P. and in Israel before his death in 2021.Ms. Haley’s campaign said the she did not discuss the issue with Mr. Adelson at the time. In 2016, Mr. Adelson contributed $250,000 to Ms. Haley’s political action committee — a quarter of the contributions it received that year — and hosted her in his luxury box at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.Arriving at the United Nations six months later, Ms. Haley quickly became the face of Mr. Trump’s Middle East policy, which reflected the long-held aims of pro-Israel hard-liners as well as conservative evangelicals, who ascribe great theological importance to the rise of a modern Jewish state in the Holy Land.“There’s been a historic tension between Zionism and a belief that the United States had an obligation to be an honest broker between Israel and the Palestinians,” said Ralph Reed, the chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition. “Under Trump, we moved on, and now the G.O.P. tilts unapologetically pro-Israel.”Ms. Haley leaned into her role at the U.N. as the public defender of the administration’s pullout from the Iran nuclear deal, its support for expanding West Bank settlements and its decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.After the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution condemning the embassy move, Ms. Haley hosted a reception at the U.S. Mission, refusing to invite the 21 countries — including longtime American allies like Britain, France, Germany and Japan — who voted for the measure.“The United States will remember this day,” she warned.Some who watched her work up close detected less absolutism in her views, and her diplomacy, than she presented at the General Assembly and in interviews.Nickolay Mladenov, the U.N.’s special coordinator for the Middle East peace process at the time, recalled traveling in Israel to the Gaza border with Ms. Haley. “I think that trip really opened her eyes to the fact that there are two competing narratives, two competing realities in this situation,” he said. “Whatever the public speeches she made,” he added, “when we sat down to talk, she would say, ‘OK, what can we do about this?’”Palestinian supporters, however, saw a rhetorical escalation, even by the standards of a resolutely pro-Israel Republican Party.“You look at some of her statements and actions, it was comically over the top — not just willingness to support Israel, but a willingness to hurt Palestinians,” said Yousef Munayyer, who directs the Palestine/Israel Program at the Arab Center Washington D.C.Her public performances served her well in the often vicious internal politics of the administration. Amid a divide between foreign policy traditionalists — the long-résuméd appointees often cast as the “adults in the room” — and the coterie of Trump confidants who largely drove his Middle East policy, Ms. Haley aligned herself with the latter group.Her Israel advocacy gave her common cause with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, who had been tasked with the Middle East policy portfolio. When Mr. Kushner and others began drafting the White House’s Middle East peace plan, Ms. Haley was one of only a handful of policymakers allowed to see it and offer comments, said Jason Greenblatt, Mr. Trump’s special envoy for Middle East peace.“I thought she was one of my most important allies,” he said.Spending Political CapitalMs. Haley’s tenure was watched closely by influential evangelicals. David Brody, an anchor at the Christian Broadcasting Network, said “God is using Nikki Haley for such a time as this,” in his coverage of Ms. Haley’s 2017 visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem.Gali Tibbon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMs. Haley’s work also won accolades from evangelicals and Jewish Republican donors, key constituencies for any aspiring Republican president. Her U.N. tenure was covered closely by the Christian Broadcasting Network, the evangelical-oriented media company.“Clearly God is using Nikki Haley for such a time as this,” the network’s anchor, David Brody, said in a June 2017 segment, over footage of Ms. Haley praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.In 2018, Christians United for Israel, the influential Christian Zionist organization led by the televangelist John C. Hagee, presented Ms. Haley with the organization’s Defender of Israel award. As she neared the end of her speech, someone in the crowd yelled: “Haley 2024!”But early polling has shown that Mr. Haley is struggling to peel away evangelical voters from Mr. Trump. Although Mr. Hagee offered a prayer at her campaign launch event, he has not endorsed her.“Most evangelicals certainly appreciate Nikki Haley’s pro-Israel stance,” said Robert Jeffress, the influential pastor of the First Baptist Dallas megachurch. “But evangelicals also realize that her pro-Israel policy while she was U.N. ambassador was a reflection of Donald Trump’s pro-Israel position.”Among prominent Jewish Republican donors, she has more vocal allies. Toward the end of Ms. Haley’s time at the U.N., Fred Zeidman, a Texas businessman, made her a promise. “I told her if she ever wanted to run for president of the United States, I was going to be with her from Day 1,” recalled Mr. Zeidman, who served as Jewish outreach director for the presidential campaigns of Mitt Romney, John McCain and George W. Bush.In March, Mr. Zeidman and two like-minded donors, Phil Rosen and Cheryl Halpern, wrote to the members of the Republican Jewish Coalition urging them to back Haley, citing her U.N. record.But a majority of the group’s benefactors have not yet contributed to any candidate. “They don’t see any reason to actively give when you’ve got nine people out there,” Mr. Zeidman said.Mr. Zeidman and other Haley supporters hope that Republicans seeking an alternative to Mr. Trump will coalesce behind her candidacy. But despite Ms. Haley’s recent signs of momentum, the gulf between her and Mr. Trump remains daunting.“If she would’ve run in Israel,” Mr. Danon, the former Israeli ambassador, said, “I’m sure it would’ve been much easier for her.”

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      Has Support for Ukraine Peaked? Some Fear So.

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      The war in the Middle East, anxiety about the commitment of the U.S., and divisions in Europe are worrying Kyiv that aid from the West may wane.Clearly anxious, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine went in person this week to see NATO defense ministers in Brussels, worried that the war between Israel and Hamas will divert attention — and needed weapons — from Ukraine’s long and bloody struggle against the Russian invasion.American and NATO officials moved to reassure Mr. Zelensky, pledging another $2 billion in immediate military aid. But even before the war in the Mideast began last week, there was a strong sense in Europe, watching Washington, that the world had reached “peak Ukraine” — that support for Kyiv’s fight against Russia’s invasion would never again be as high as it was a few months ago.The new run for the White House by former President Donald J. Trump is shaking confidence that Washington will continue large-scale support for Ukraine. But the concern, Europeans say, is larger than Mr. Trump and extends to much of his Republican Party, which has made cutting support for Ukraine a litmus test of conservative credibility.Even in Europe, Ukraine is an increasingly divisive issue. Voters in Slovakia handed a victory to Robert Fico, a former prime minister sympathetic to Russia. A vicious election campaign in Poland, one of Ukraine’s staunchest allies, has emphasized strains with Kyiv. A far right opposed to aiding Ukraine’s war effort has surged in Germany, where Chancellor Olaf Scholz is struggling to win voters over to his call for a stronger military.“I’m pessimistic,” said Yelyzaveta Yasko, a Ukrainian member of Parliament who is on the foreign affairs committee. “There are many questions now — weapons production, security infrastructure, economic aid, the future of NATO,” she said, but noted that answers to those questions had a timeline of at least five years.President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, right, talking with Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on Wednesday at a NATO meeting in Brussels.Olivier Matthys/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“We have been fighting for 600 days,” she added, “and I don’t see the leadership and planning that is required to take real action — not just statements — in support of Ukraine.”Even more depressing, Ms. Yasko said at a recent security forum in Warsaw, is the way domestic politics are “instrumentalizing Ukraine.”“Opinion polls show the people still support Ukraine,” she said, “but politicians start to use Ukraine as a topic to fight each other, and Ukraine becomes a victim.”“I’m worried,” she continued. “I don’t like the way my country is used as a tool.”The previous bipartisan support for Ukraine in the United States no longer seems to hold. “There’s less pushback against the anti-Ukrainian stuff already out there,” said Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the former president of Estonia, mentioning the Republican right wing and influential voices like Elon Musk. “It’s dangerous.”Should Washington cut its aid to Ukraine, deciding that it is not worth the cost, top European officials, including the European Union’s head of foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell Fontelles, openly acknowledge that Europe cannot fill the gap.He was in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, when Congress excluded support from Ukraine in its temporary budget deal. “That was certainly not expected, and certainly not good news,” Mr. Borrell told a summit meeting of E.U. leaders this month in Spain.European Union’s head of foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell Fontelles, right, with Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, this month in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital.Ukraine Ministry of Foreign Affairs, via EPA, via Shutterstock“Europe cannot replace the United States,” he said, even as it proposes more aid. “Certainly, we can do more, but the United States is something indispensable for the support to Ukraine.” That same day, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said that without Western aid, Ukraine could not survive more than a week.European leaders have pledged to send more air-defense systems to Ukraine to help fend off a possible new Russian air campaign targeting energy infrastructure as winter looms. Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands said on Friday that his country would send additional Patriot missiles, which have proved effective in defending the skies over Kyiv, according to Mr. Zelensky’s office.At the same time, European vows to supply one million artillery shells to Ukraine by March are falling short, with countries supplying only 250,000 shells from stocks — a little more than one month of Ukraine’s current rate of fire — and factories still gearing up for more production.Adm. Rob Bauer, who is the chairman of the NATO Military Committee, said in Warsaw that Europe’s military industry had geared up too slowly and still needed to pick up the pace.“We started to give away from half-full or lower warehouses in Europe” to aid Ukraine, he said, “and therefore the bottom of the barrel is now visible.”Even before the outbreak of hostilities in the Middle East, a senior NATO official said that the mood about Ukraine was gloomy. Still, the official said that the Europeans were spending more on the military and that he expected Congress to continue aid to Ukraine, even if not the $43 billion authorized previously.Malcolm Chalmers, the deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based defense research institution, said a key issue now is Ukrainian will and resources in what has become a war of attrition. “It’s not really about us anymore, it’s about them,” he said. “The issue is Ukrainian resilience.”Ukrainians will quietly admit to difficulties with morale as the war grinds on, but they see no option other than to continue the fight, whatever happens in the West.Soldiers with the 128th Brigade repairing a broken down Carnation, a self-propelled artillery piece, before taking it back to the front line in September in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine.Lynsey Addario for The New York TimesBut some say that they are fearful that President Biden, facing what could be a difficult re-election campaign against Mr. Trump, will try to push Kyiv to get into negotiations for a cease-fire with Russia by next summer, to show that he is committed to peace.That worry is likely to be exaggerated, American officials suggest, given Mr. Biden’s continuing strong support for Ukraine, which is echoed in American opinion polls. But there remains confusion about any end goal that does not foresee Ukraine pushing all Russian troops out of sovereign Ukraine, or any clear path to negotiations with a Russia that shows no interest in talking.As Gabrielius Landsbergis, the foreign minister of Lithuania, said at the Warsaw security forum, the mantra “as long as it takes” fails to define “it,” let alone “long.” For him, “it” should mean driving the invading Russians out of all of Ukraine, including Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014.In private, at least, other European officials consider that highly unlikely.Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister and foreign minister, suggested that NATO’s 75th anniversary summit meeting next summer in Washington will be tense because of Ukraine, as it will come at the height of the American presidential campaign. Any invitation for Ukraine to join NATO is likely to help Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican candidate, Mr. Bildt said.But while many worry about the possibility of declining American support for Ukraine, the potential for backsliding is not limited to the United States, as the costs of the war are more deeply felt in Europe.In its campaign in Poland, for elections this weekend, the governing Law and Justice Party has complained angrily that Ukrainian grain exports are flooding the Polish market, damaging the farmers who are a key element of the party’s support and underlining the implications for Polish agriculture should Ukraine join the European Union.Mr. Zelensky responded that “it is alarming to see how some in Europe, some of our friends in Europe, play out solidarity in a political theater — making a thriller from the grain.”Grain stored in Leszczany, Poland, in April.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York TimesThe Polish government, fighting for votes with parties farther to the right, then said it would cease military aid to Ukraine, even though it has already provided an enormous amount early in the war.Anti-Russian sentiment is a given in Poland, but the animosity toward Germany, an E.U. and NATO ally, was striking, too, said Slawomir Debski, the director the of Polish Institute of International Affairs.He described the campaign as “very dirty,” with wild accusations playing on strong anti-German, anti-Russian, anti-European Union sentiments, combined with growing tensions with Ukraine.It was all a sharp contrast to Poland’s embrace of Ukrainian refugees and important early provision of tanks, fighter jets and ammunition just last year.“I warned many people, including the Americans, that this government is being accused of doing too much for Ukraine, so be careful,” Mr. Debski said.Michal Baranowski, a Pole who is the managing director for the German Marshall Fund East, said he was “disheartened because Polish political leaders know we need to stay the course in Ukraine, but they are letting emotions and politics get the better of them.”Polish division, however political, does not stay in Poland, Mr. Baranowski warned. “The effect of this on the United States and the Republican Party is terrible,” he said.Constant Méheut More

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      Scenting Power, U.K. Business Flocks to the Labour Party

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      The governing Conservative Party was long seen as entrepreneurs’ natural ally and lobbyists’ most important target. With an election on the horizon, that’s changing.It was impossible to miss: a large green, yellow and blue off-road vehicle parked in a prime spot in the exhibition hall at the Labour Party’s annual conference. The car belonged to Ineos, one of the world’s largest chemical companies, and its outsize presence, among dozens of businesses and organizations, marked the company’s first time attending the gathering.Andrew Gardner, who runs Ineos’s huge refinery complex in Grangemouth, Scotland, was standing by the vehicle on Tuesday afternoon, grabbing time with passing Labour lawmakers to discuss the company’s goals.He had never attended a Labour conference before, and skipped the governing Conservative Party’s the previous week, but said he had come to this one, in the northern English city of Liverpool, because Labour was expected to form the next government. His colleague Richard Longden, Ineos’s head of communications, chimed in, describing “a vibe here of a party that’s changed, and one that’s looking forward to the future. And business needs to be speaking to them and needs to be seen.”“Which is exactly why we’re here,” Mr. Gardner added.In Britain, the Conservative Party has traditionally been seen as the party of business and the guardians of free enterprise. Now, under the centrist leadership of Keir Starmer, Labour is taking over that mantle. As the party inches closer to power, with a general election expected next year, it is engaged in a mutually beneficial love-in with the corporate sector.At the four-day conference this week, attended by 18,500 people, British executives and lobbyists representing industries from finance and technology to construction and defense crammed into bars, corridors and meeting rooms as Labour made its pitch to be “the undisputed party of business,” in the words of Jonathan Reynolds, a lawmaker who speaks for Labour on the issue.The record attendance was boosted by companies showing up for the first time, decamping from their more familiar habitat of Conservative Party gatherings, including Ineos, whose CEO and founder is the billionaire Brexit supporter Jim Ratcliffe.Ineos’s refinery complex in Grangemouth, Scotland. The company, whose founder is a billionaire Brexit supporter, had a strong presence at Labour’s conference.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesMr. Gardner said that Labour was already saying 80 percent of what he wanted to hear in terms of decarbonizing large-scale industry, as the company invests in reducing its carbon emissions. (That off-road vehicle was hydrogen-powered.) But he was there to push for the last portion, which was to lobby Labour not to end natural gas exploration in the North Sea too soon.That message was “slowly percolating,” he said. And there was some evidence that Ineos was being heard: Rachel Reeves, who would become Britain’s first female chancellor if Labour win next year, mentioned Grangemouth in her speech to party members.The party brought together about 200 executives on Monday at a forum within the conference to meet would-be cabinet ministers.“What we are experiencing is a party who tell us that, if elected, they want to be business-friendly government, that they want to work with the private sector in partnership,” said Chris Hayward, who speaks on policy questions for the City of London, Britain’s historic financial district.At a reception on Tuesday evening held by Labour Business, a forum to engage with the commercial sector, the mood was almost euphoric. As guests sipped wine and ate canapés, the group’s chairman, Hamish Sandison, said that not only had the tide turned in terms of Labour’s relationship with business, it had “become a tsunami.”That enthusiasm partly reflects strained relations with the governing Conservatives, particularly over Britain’s exit from the European Union, which many big corporations opposed.Boris Johnson, a former prime minister, famously dismissed the concerns of businesses over Brexit in crude terms. His short-lived successor, Liz Truss, caused markets chaos with her plans for unfunded tax cuts. And although her successor, Rishi Sunak, restored some calm, he has recently upset many businesses by abruptly changing targets on some net zero plans and canceling part of a high-speed train network.Labour has been on a journey, too. Its previous leader, Jeremy Corbyn, promised nationalization of key industries and big increases in public spending funded by higher taxes. That agenda has been unceremoniously junked by Mr. Starmer, who became leader in 2020 and moved to purge his predecessor.Labour’s shift attracted some surprising names, like JCB Hydrogen, an energy firm, which handed out tote bags to party members. Its chairman, Anthony Bamford, was a prominent supporter of Brexit and, during the last general election in 2019, hosted a campaign event for Mr. Johnson.Outside the Labour conference on Tuesday. It had 18,500 people in attendance.Jon Super/Associated PressWhat draws many businesses to Labour is the prospect of a more stable policy environment, which could be cemented by the party’s plans for a long-term industrial strategy — an idea that runs counter to Mr. Sunak’s free-market instincts.Carl Ennis, the head of Siemens in Britain and Ireland, was also at the Labour conference for the first time. He was there to lobby for an “overarching” and long-term approach, which was something that the Conservatives were struggling to provide, he said. “My job is to make the U.K. an attractive place for Siemens to invest its money in,” he said, adding that Labour’s industrial strategy appealed to him.In every meeting room, businesses had the same central plea: Give us consistency. And the Labour party was receptive, said Shevaun Haviland, the director general of the British Chambers of Commerce. “We feel very positive that the party’s listening to what we have to say and what our members have to say,” she said.Ben Wilson, vice president of public policy for Mastercard, said that his experience of engaging with the party was “indicative of how open Labour is to business,” saying that he and other executives had the opportunity to discuss policies that could form part of the platform of the “next government.”All this has revived memories of the 1990s when, in the years before Tony Blair became prime minister, the party wooed business over lunches and dinners in what was nicknamed the “prawn cocktail offensive.” This time much of the interaction has been over breakfast with Ms. Reeves, nicknamed the “scrambled eggs and smoked salmon offensive.”“Ever since I became shadow chancellor I’ve had this aim to reach out to business,” Ms. Reeves, a former economist at the Bank of England, said at a small event on the sidelines of the conference. “A lot of the businesses that I’ve met over the last two and a half years would have seen, in some of the announcements this week, their fingerprints on our policies.”While some on the left of the party were unnerved by the dominant presence of business and its influence on future policy, other supporters suggested it was the inevitable result of Labour’s double-digit poll lead.“Businesses are here in numbers,” said Stephen Kinsella, a former antitrust lawyer and Labour donor. “There are a lot of people who want to back a winner, think they have spotted a winner and realize they need to get to know the people who are going to be in government.” More

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      Growing Wariness of Aid to Ukraine Hangs Over Polish Election

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      Last year, Poland was one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters. But pressure from the right to focus more on domestic problems is pushing that support to the center stage of Sunday’s election.The radical right-wing candidate running for Parliament in Poland’s deep south wants to slash taxes, regulations on business and welfare benefits. Most striking, however, is his vow to remove a small Ukrainian flag that was hoisted last year on a town hall balcony as a gesture of solidarity with Poland’s eastern neighbor.He wants it taken down, not because he supports Russia, he says, but because Poland should focus on helping its own people, not cheering for Ukraine.In a country where millions of citizens rallied last year to help fleeing Ukrainians, and where the government threw itself into providing weapons for use against Russia’s invading army, complaints about the burden imposed by the war used to be confined to a tiny fringe. A general election set for Sunday, however, is pushing them toward center stage.That is due in large part to the vocal carping about Ukraine from candidates like Ryszard Wilk, the owner of a small photography business in the southern Polish town of Nowy Sacz. He is the electoral standard-bearer in the region for Konfederacja, or Confederation, an unruly alliance of economic libertarians, anti-vaxxers, anti-immigration zealots and belligerent nationalists that is now unusually united in opposition to aiding Ukraine.“We have already given them too much,” Mr. Wilk said in an interview early this week. He was traveling during a campaign swing through his mountainous and deeply conservative home region, a longtime bastion of support for Poland’s right-wing governing party, Law and Justice.Candidates from the Konfederacja list in the upcoming parliamentary elections meeting with potential voters at a volunteer fire department station in Limanowa, Poland.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York Times“We don’t want Ukraine to lose the war, but the burden on Poland and its taxpayers is too high,” Mr. Wilk added. “Poland should be helping Poles.”The growing reservation in Poland comes at a critical time for Ukraine, which is struggling in its counteroffensive against Russia and scrambling to stem an erosion of support from Western allies. Sunday’s vote in Poland comes after an election two weeks ago in neighboring Slovakia that was won by a Russia-friendly populist party that wants to halt sending arms to Ukraine.Long dismissed by liberals as a collection of extremist cranks, Konfederacja has jumped on the question of how much Poland should help Ukraine as a potential vote-winner, channeling what opinion surveys show to be modest but growing currents of anti-Ukrainian sentiment.Konfederacja is still less a party than a jumble of niche and often contradictory causes — from small-state libertarianism to big-state nationalism — but “they are all anti-Ukrainian, though for different reasons,” said Przemyslaw Witkowski, an expert on Poland’s far-right who teaches at Collegium Civitas, a private university in Warsaw.“Anti-Ukraine feeling and sympathy for Russia is one of the few elements that glues them all together,” he added.Konfederacja has no chance of winning on Sunday and opinion polls indicate that its public support, which surged to 15 percent over the summer, slipped after Law and Justice started echoing some of its views, particularly on Ukraine. By threatening to outflank the governing party, itself a deeply conservative force, on the far right in a tight election, Konfederacja helped prod the Polish government into curbing its previously unbridled enthusiasm for backing Ukraine.The Ukrainian flag hanging from the town hall in Nowy Sacz, Poland. A radical right-wing candidate for Parliament wants the flag taken down.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York TimesThe result has been a sharp souring in recent weeks in relations between Warsaw and Kyiv, particularly over Ukrainian grain imports. The issue triggered an ill-tempered tiff last month when Poland’s government, led by Law and Justice, banned the import of grain from Ukraine in an effort to protect Polish farmers — and avoid defections in its vital rural base.President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine exacerbated tensions by insinuating in a speech at the United Nations that Poland, by blocking grain deliveries, had aligned itself with Russia. And last month, Ukraine filed a complaint against Poland with the World Trade Organization over grain.Infuriated by what it saw as Mr. Zelensky’s ingratitude, Poland denounced the Ukrainian president’s remark as “astonishing” and “unfair.” It also briefly suggested it was halting the delivery of weapons but, after an uproar, said arms would continue to flow.Fearful of losing its grip on Ukraine-skeptic voters to Law and Justice, Konfederacja leaders in Warsaw drew up a bill totaling 101 billion Polish zloty (around $24 billion) to cover all the money they said Ukraine owed Poland for military and other aid like assistance to the millions of Ukrainians who fled the war.Ryszard Wilk, center, the electoral standard-bearer for Konfederacja in southern Poland during a pre-election barbecue party for supporters in Zakopane, Poland.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York TimesIn Nowy Sacz — the capital of an electoral district encompassing farmland and resort towns — Mr. Wilk sent a letter to the local mayor demanding, unsuccessfully, the removal of a Ukrainian flag from the town hall and an end to welfare payments to refugees from Ukraine.“We see no reason to pay benefits to foreigners, we see no reason for Ukrainians to receive Polish pensions,” Mr. Wilk wrote. “We see no reason for hanging the flag of a country that is declaring a trade war on us and complaining to the W.T.O.”Sunday’s election, which opinion polls indicate will be a tight race between Law and Justice and its strongest rival, Civic Coalition, a grouping of center-right and liberal forces, is unlikely to put Poland on the same openly anti-Ukrainian path as Hungary or Slovakia.But the fight for votes has introduced a level of discord that has already comforted the Kremlin’s hopes that Western solidarity with Ukraine is fraying, even in Poland, where hostility to Russia runs very deep.And if, as opinion polls suggest is likely, neither of the top two parties wins enough seats to form a new government on its own, Konfederacja could become a potential kingmaker, though it insists it won’t join either of the front-runners in a coalition government.A billboard promoting candidates from Konfederacja in the upcoming parliamentary election hangs on an apartment building in Nowy Sacz, Poland.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York TimesIts Five Point election manifesto promises lower taxes, simplified regulations for entrepreneurs, cheaper housing for everyone and “zero social benefits for Ukrainians.” The program replaces an earlier agenda put forward by one of its national leaders, Slawomir Mentzen, in 2019: “We do not want: Jews, homosexuals, abortion, taxes and the European Union.”Mr. Wilk, who heads the party’s list of candidates in the south, said the earlier program was meant as a joke and did not reflect Konfederacja’s current direction. “We are definitely a right-wing party, but mostly on economics, not this other stuff,” he said.Surveys of public opinion suggest that bashing Ukraine is not something most Poles want, but that it resonates among some voters as the war drags on.Eighty-five percent of Poles, according to a study released this summer by the University of Warsaw, want to help Ukraine in its war with Russia, but the share of respondents with a strong preference in favor of Ukraine fell to 40 percent in June from 62 percent in January. And the study found that “for the first time, we are dealing with a situation when the majority of Poles (55 percent) are against additional aid.”An outdoor barbecue organized last Sunday by Konfederacja for voters in the mountain resort town of Zakopane drew only a handful of people, though it was cold and rainy. Those who did attend, all men, were fully behind the party’s stance on Ukraine.Wojciech Tylka, a Konfederacja supporter, with his son, listen to candidates in the parliamentary elections during a barbecue event organised in Zakopane, Poland.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York Times“I will never tolerate the Ukrainian flag flying here in Poland,” said Wojciech Tylka, a professional musician who brought his three children along to hear Mr. Wilk and fellow candidates rail against taxation, social benefits and Ukraine’s drain on Polish resources. “Only the Polish flag should fly.”“If Ukrainians don’t like this, they should go home,” Mr. Tylka added.Disgusted by politicians of all stripes, Mr. Tylka said he had not voted in an election for more than 15 years, but that he would definitely vote for Konfederacja on Sunday.Desperate to hang on to conservative voters in the region, Law and Justice sent one of its best-known known national figures, Ryszard Terlecki, to lead its list of candidates in the district.Appearing Monday at a raucous pre-election debate at a university in Nowy Sacz with Mr. Wilk and four other opposition candidates, Mr. Terlecki said that Law and Justice would continue to help Ukraine “but must also take Polish interests into account.” He defended the government’s ban on the import of Ukrainian grain.Józef Klimowski, a shepherd whose flock of sheep blocked access to a recent campaign event for Mr. Wilk, said he didn’t care about politics but would vote for Law and Justice because it had found sponsors for his favorite local ice hockey team.After the debate, Artur Czernecki, a local Law and Justice politician, said he understood why Mr. Wilk has made an issue of Ukraine and its flag on Nowy Sacz’s town hall: “Every party is looking for ways to stand out,” he said. But, as deputy speaker of the City Council, Mr. Czernecki added that he would not allow the flag issue to be put to a vote, at least not until the election is over.“I just hope that after the election everything will calm down,” he said.Election posters hanging on an abandoned building in Nowy Sacz, Poland. The country’s parliamentary elections are set for Sunday.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York TimesAnatol Magdziarz in Warsaw contributed reporting More

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      Hard-Line Republican Leads Race to Succeed Louisiana’s Democratic Governor

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      Should Jeff Landry, the state attorney general and front-runner, win, he will likely drive Louisiana further right on issues such as crime and L.G.B.T.Q. rights.Jeff Landry, the hard-line conservative leading the race for governor of Louisiana, surveyed the crowd packed into a small restaurant in Monroe, where his staff had covered the tables and a lone Halloween skeleton in his blue-and-yellow campaign merchandise.“How would y’all like to finish this in October?” Mr. Landry, the state attorney general, said, teasing the possibility of his winning the state’s all-party primary outright this Saturday and foreclosing the need for a runoff election next month.He did not offer specifics about any issues. He did not mention any of his opponents, whom he has largely refused to debate. But his undisputed status as the race’s front-runner has suggested that for much of Louisiana, there has been little need for him to do any of that.Mr. Landry has parlayed his aggressive litigation against the Biden administration and Gov. John Bel Edwards, a conservative Democrat who is term-limited, into a huge war chest, a slew of early Republican endorsements and what appears to be a comfortable lead in a crowded primary field.Also on the ballot in Saturday’s “jungle primary” are two Democrats, four independents and seven other Republicans, none of whom have had the same visibility in recent years as Mr. Landry has had as a headline-making statewide office holder.Should he win and cement Republican dominance of Louisiana government — Republicans already have a supermajority in the state House and Senate, and former President Donald J. Trump won about 60 percent of the state vote in both 2016 and 2020 — there is little question that Mr. Landry will drive the state further to the right on issues such as crime, the environment and L.G.B.T.Q. rights.“You can’t just be for the white collar — you’ve got to be for the blue collar, the no collar, the no shirt,” Shawn Wilson, a Democratic candidate, center, told union workers in Gonzales, La. “You’ve got to be for everybody.”Emily Kask for The New York Times“I think the key to leadership is solving problems, creating coalitions, bringing people together,” said Stephen Waguespack, a Republican candidate. “In modern politics, that’s hard to sell.”Emily Kask for The New York TimesThe sea change in leadership would come at a moment when Louisiana is losing population while most of its Southern neighbors boom, with employers and families worried about growing brain drain, intensifying natural disasters and soaring insurance rates.Mr. Landry’s dominance of the field has dampened the state’s typically raucous politics, leaving the remaining candidates to essentially jockey for second place in the primary on Saturday. If nobody wins more than 50 percent of the vote, which most election watchers expect, the top two candidates will face off in a runoff on Nov. 18.Mr. Edwards, the only Democratic governor left in the Deep South, twice bucked the state’s conservative bent in elections and has retained support over his two terms. At times, he has managed to head off conservative social measures that have easily become law in nearby states run by Republicans, though he has supported stringent limits on abortion access and gun rights.The race to replace him underscores how Louisiana’s particular brand of populist, personality-driven local politics has increasingly given way to a focus on nationalized issues that split along urban and rural lines. It has also left candidates struggling to energize voters disillusioned by bitter national divisions and weary of inflation, grueling heat and the lasting toll of the coronavirus pandemic.Open to all candidates regardless of political leaning, the primary field includes Shawn Wilson, a Democrat and former state transportation secretary, and Hunter Lundy, an evangelical independent and former trial lawyer. It also includes three prominent Republicans: Sharon Hewitt, a state senator; Stephen Waguespack, a former aide to Gov. Bobby Jindal and business lobbyist, and John Schroder, the state treasurer.Hunter Lundy, left, an independent and former trial attorney, at a campaign event on Tuesday.Emily Kask for The New York Times“What we try to say is, if you want Louisiana to be different, then you have to elect a different kind of leader,” said Sharon Hewitt, a state senator, in an interview in Slidell, La. Emily Kask for The New York Times“I’m in it for the people — I’m not in it for any political party,” said Mr. Lundy, speaking to a reporter as he drove to spend time eating lamb and boudin, a Cajun sausage, with farmers in Elton, west of New Orleans. It is unclear, however, whether enough voters will accept his deep Christian nationalism or his medical skepticism.As the leading Democratic candidate, Mr. Wilson is favored to make the runoff, with multiple polls showing him in second place. Should he defy the polls, he would be the first Black candidate elected statewide in 150 years.He has emphasized his long experience working with both parties, particularly in the transportation department.“The leadership that I can provide can tamp down the extremism that only satisfies a very small portion of our state, either on the far, far left or the far, far right,” Mr. Wilson said in an interview. “That’s where the sweet spot of government is supposed to be — satisfying the masses.”At an event hosted by the Louisiana AFL-CIO in Gonzales, west of New Orleans, concerns about Mr. Landry’s views resonated with several union workers gathered to hear Mr. Wilson speak.“The next four years could be the rest of our lives,” said Sean Clouatre, 48, a Democrat and a local alderman in the Village of French Settlement. “Because of the policies they could pass and implement — it’s always harder to take them out than it is to implement them.”Mr. Landry’s fellow Republicans in the race have struggled to carve out a distinct identity.“We expected the race to be a little bit more on policy and issues,” Ms. Hewitt said. Stories of her time spent navigating the male-dominated oil and energy industries — including showering in a bathing suit on an oil rig because of a lack of doors — have resonated with some women on the campaign trail, she said.Ms. Hewitt was among those who was irked early on by the state party’s unusually speedy endorsement of Mr. Landry. Their frustration was later exacerbated by his hefty fund-raising hauls and unwillingness to participate in most candidate forums.John Schroder, the state treasurer, in the first televised debate of the Louisiana governor’s race in September.Pool photo by Sophia GermerSupporters of Mr. Landry in Monroe.Emily Kask for The New York Times“I’m trying to say you can be a conservative, but at the same time be wanting to bring people together,” said Mr. Waguespack, who has highlighted his time as the chief executive of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, rather than his years as a top aide to Governor Jindal, who quickly became unpopular as he made a failed run for president.He added, “Bringing people together is a good thing, not a weakness.”As attorney general, Mr. Landry has honed a confrontational approach, at one point suing a reporter for requesting public records related to a sexual harassment investigation into one of his aides. After a court hearing on Louisiana’s abortion law, one of the strictest in the nation, Mr. Landry said that critics could leave the state.That combative spirit has earned him support from staunch Republicans, who cheered his willingness to challenge both Mr. Edwards and the Biden administration over coronavirus vaccine mandates. He also won support for his sweeping promises to address crime and prioritize parents’ rights in education, as well as for other positions that have motivated the Republican base.“Jeff was actually fighting for us,” Kim Cutforth, a 64-year-old retiree, said of Mr. Landry’s opposition to pandemic mandates, as she waited for him to appear at a Baton Rouge restaurant on Thursday. “I loved him for it.”The other Republican candidates, she added, should “just go — let Jeff be the governor.”At his stop in Monroe, in the state’s north, he brushed off criticism that many of his stances could be too extreme for the state.Noting that Louisiana’s population has suffered one of the biggest declines in the nation, he added, “we have a structural problem here in the state, and I believe on those issues I am the most qualified person.” More

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      What to Know About the New Zealand Election

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      Voters head to the polls this weekend in an election that is likely to show a rightward and populist shift in the country’s politics.New Zealanders are exhausted. Their pocketbooks are threadbare, the dog years of the pandemic have dragged on, and there is a strong sense that the country has never been further off track.And so, when they head to the polls on Saturday, polls show, most will vote to punish the governing center-left Labour Party, which under Jacinda Ardern won a historic majority just three years ago.“There’s a real vibe around of tiredness, frustration,” said Bernard Hickey, an economic commentator. When New Zealanders last went to the polls, they were celebrating their coronavirus wins. From 2021, he said, “it was all downhill.”The opposition center-right National Party is therefore expected to form the next government with some smaller parties, despite what critics describe as a lack of vision for many of the country’s more vexatious issues.Still, New Zealand’s proportional voting system could deliver last-minute twists, and New Zealand First, a small and populist party known for opposing immigration and supporting retirees, may once again become kingmaker, as it did in 2017.Here’s how the campaign has played out, and what to watch for in Saturday’s results.Who are the main candidates?The incumbent leader is Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, who took over from Ms. Ardern early this year and who has spent the penultimate week of the campaign stuck in a hotel room with Covid. Their Labour Party has been in power since 2017.Ms. Ardern’s legacy hangs heavy over New Zealand, where many now ignore her world-leading pandemic response, Mr. Hickey said.“She was a prime minister, who, however you look at it, managed a crisis fairly well,” he said. “And now she’s one of the most reviled politicians in the country, and she can’t walk down the street without protection.”Ms. Ardern, who is pursuing a fellowship at Harvard University, has mostly stayed out of the race. But the “transformational change” that she campaigned on in 2017 has failed to materialize, and many New Zealanders blame her and her party for the difficulties they face, such as inflation or higher mortgage payments.Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, the incumbent leader, took over from Jacinda Ardern in January. He represents the center-left Labour Party.Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesThe main challenger is the National Party’s Christopher Luxon, a former chief executive of Air New Zealand, the country’s national airline, who was elected to Parliament for the first time in 2020.Though Mr. Luxon leads Mr. Hipkins as potential voters’ preferred prime minister, he has mostly failed to energize voters, who see him as bland or corporate.“People are saying that they feel there’s not much difference between the two Chrises,” said Grant Duncan, an independent political scientist and commentator.What are pollsters predicting?With voters scurrying to smaller parties, the National Party was expected to garner 34 percent of the vote, according to a Guardian Essential poll released this week, to Labour’s 30 percent.Mr. Luxon is likely to lead the next government with support from Act, a right-wing libertarian party, and from New Zealand First, which helped catapult Ms. Ardern into the prime minister’s office in 2017.There is a very slim chance of a Labour-led coalition government with Te Pati Maori, the country’s Indigenous rights party, and the Green Party. (Mr. Hipkins has said he will not work with New Zealand First.)What are New Zealanders voting on?Cost-of-living issues, as in many other comparable economies, dominate at the polls.“It may or may not be the government’s fault,” said Ben Thomas, a former press secretary for the National Party, “but it’s the government’s problem.”To battle inflation, New Zealand’s independent central bank has raised rates to a 15-year high of 5.5 percent. That has inflicted considerable pain on homeowners, most of whom are subject to floating mortgage rates. New home loans command rates of at least 7 percent, more than three times what they were in 2020, and many expect rates to go even higher.Inflation remains high, even as it slowed to 6 percent in July compared with 6.7 percent in the same month a year earlier, according to the most recent government data. Food prices jumped 12.3 percent over the same period.New home loans in New Zealand have risen sharply in the past few years, now commanding rates of at least 7 percent.Ruth McDowall for The New York TimesThe proposed solutions from both major parties — like the tax and benefit cuts from the National Party, or the targeted subsidies and financial support from Labour — are unlikely to provide widespread relief, analysts say.“The electoral numbers will fall on what is basically two estranged parents doing a bidding war over pocket money,” Mr. Thomas said.A spate of unusual violent crime and “ram raids” — when a vehicle is driven into the windows of a store so it can be robbed — has haunted voters. The National Party has sought to seize the issue, promising to reintroduce the youth boot camps that the country has previously tried and abandoned.Race has also emerged as an issue. New Zealand has longstanding arrangements with Maori, its Indigenous people, many of which are governed by an 1840 treaty. But some New Zealanders say these go too far. Act, the libertarian party run by David Seymour, has promised a referendum on “co-governance,” the practice of including Maori in policy decisions — a vow that has prompted widespread allegations from the left of racism. Act rejects those claims, saying it just wants equal rights for all citizens.What comes next?New Zealand’s other economic problems — which include an aging population, a crumbling health service, inadequate infrastructure and an economy reliant on dairy and other food exports that is set to be tested by extreme weather events — have defied the efforts of successive governments, said Craig Renney, an economist for the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions.“We still have an economy which, structurally, is a commodity-exporting, low-wage economy,” Mr. Renney said, “supported by a giant housing market where we sell houses to each other.”There is a particular antipathy toward public spending to solve those problems, even as the liabilities of not acting continue to climb, he added. “We have a national debt that is the envy of every developed country in the world,” he said, “yet we have this insistence that there is a debt crisis just around the corner.”Despite these challenges, New Zealand’s trajectory was largely positive, said Shamubeel Eaqub, a New Zealand-based economist. “I’m optimistic about New Zealand,” he said. “I’m not optimistic about our politics.”And while New Zealanders may approach Saturday’s vote with a sense of irritability, after an election campaign that has been characterized by mudslinging and small-target campaigning, there have been few allegations of the misinformation or antidemocratic behaviors that have bedeviled elections elsewhere in the world.“In New Zealand, we don’t stop and think, ‘If you look at all of the indicators and league tables around the world, we’re actually one of the best-governed countries on earth,’ ” said Dr. Duncan, the political scientist. “But if you actually tried to say it to most New Zealanders, they’ll ask you, ‘What are you on?’” More

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      Is Daniel Noboa the Answer to Ecuador’s Need for Change?

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      For generations, the Noboa family has helped shape Ecuador, overseeing a vast economic empire, including fertilizers, plastics, cardboard, the country’s largest container storage facility and, most famously, a gargantuan banana business featuring one of the world’s most recognizable fruit brands, Bonita.One notable position has escaped them, however: the presidency. On five occasions, the head of the family conglomerate, Álvaro Noboa, has run for president and lost — in one case by two percentage points.On Sunday, the Noboas may finally get their presidency. Mr. Noboa’s son, Daniel Noboa, a 35-year-old Harvard Kennedy School graduate who has used the same campaign jingle as his father, is the leading candidate in a runoff election. His opponent is Luisa González, the handpicked candidate of former President Rafael Correa, who beat the elder Noboa in 2006.The legacy of the banana company — and Daniel Noboa’s association with it — is just one aspect of an election that centers on issues of employment and security in this country of 17 million on South America’s western coast that has been jolted by the extraordinary power gained by the drug trafficking industry in the last five years.International criminal groups working with local gangs have unleashed an unprecedented surge of violence that has sent tens of thousands of Ecuadoreans fleeing to the U.S.-Mexico border, part of a migration wave that has overwhelmed the Biden administration.Mr. Noboa rose unexpectedly from the bottom of the polls to a second-place finish in the first round of presidential elections in August, helped, experts said, by a widely lauded debate performance and the upending of the race by the shocking assassination of another candidate, Fernando Villavicencio, days before the vote.Mr. Noboa has galvanized a base of frustrated voters on the back of a campaign promising change.“He has been able to say that ‘I represent renewal in Ecuador,’” said Caroline Ávila, an Ecuadorean political analyst. “And that is why people are buying his message.”Sunday’s election pits Mr. Noboa, a center-right businessman, against Ms. González, 45, a leftist establishment candidate, at a moment of deep anxiety in a country once a relatively peaceful island in a violent region.Mr. Noboa’s opponent, Luisa González, is the handpicked candidate of former President Rafael Correa.Karen Toro/ReutersMr. Noboa, who declined several requests for an interview, has had a consistent lead in multiple polls since August, though it has narrowed slightly in recent days.He has positioned himself as “the employment president,” even including a work application form on his website, and has promised to attract international investment and trade and cut taxes.His opponent, Ms. González, has pledged to tap central bank reserves to stimulate the economy and increase financing for the public health care system and public universities.On security, both candidates have talked about providing more money for the police and deploying the military to secure ports used to smuggle drugs out of the country and prisons, which are controlled by violent gangs.Ms. González’s close association with Mr. Correa has helped elevate her political profile, but also hurt her among some voters.Her first place finish in the first round was propelled by a strong base of voters nostalgic for the low homicide rates and commodities boom that lifted millions out of poverty during Mr. Correa’s administration. Ms. González’s campaign slogan in the first round was “we already did it and we will do it again.”But building on that support is a challenge. Mr. Correa’s authoritarian style and accusations of corruption deeply divided the country. He is living in exile in Belgium, fleeing a prison sentence for campaign finance violations, and many Ecuadoreans fear that a González presidency would pave the way for him to return and run for office again.Mr. Correa’s tenure was marked by low homicide rates and a commodities boom that lifted millions out of poverty. But now he is living in exile, facing a prison term on corruption chargesDaniel Berehulak for The New York TimesDaniel Noboa is part of the third generation of his family that today operates a sprawling venture, but whose roots were in agriculture.The Noboa family’s rise to prominence and wealth began with Luis Noboa, Daniel’s grandfather, who was born into poverty in 1916, but started building his business empire in the second half of the 20th century by exporting bananas and other crops.His death in 1994 set off a bitter court battle on three continents among his wife and children for control of the business that finally ended in 2002, when a judge in London awarded Álvaro Noboa a 50 percent stake in the family’s holding company.Álvaro expanded the company internationally, while also fighting multiple legal battles over back taxes and disputed payments to shipping companies.As a politician, he described himself as a “messiah of the poor,” handing out free computers and fistfuls of dollars at his rallies, while also fending off accusations of child labor, worker mistreatment and union busting at his banana business. (He has claimed that the accusations were politically motivated.)His son, Daniel, was raised in the port city of Guayaquil, where he founded an event promotion company when he was 18, before moving to the United States to study at New York University. Afterward he became commercial director for the Noboa Corporation and earned three more degrees, including a master’s in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School.He ran successfully for Ecuador’s Congress in 2021, positioning himself as a pro-business lawmaker, until President Guillermo Lasso disbanded the legislature in May and called for early elections.Mr. Noboa, shown wearing a bullet-resistant vest, and Ms. González have vowed to rein in the violence, though neither has made security a central part of their campaign.Marcos Pin/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Noboa has promoted a more left-leaning platform, railing against the banking industry and calling for more social spending.A Harvard classmate and close friend of Mr. Noboa, Mauricio Lizcano, a senior official in Colombia, described the candidate as someone “who respects diversity and respects women, who believes in social issues” but is also “orthodox in economics and business.’’Still, Mr. Noboa has not raised social issues on the campaign trail, and his running mate, Verónica Abad, is a right-wing business coach who has spoken out against abortion, feminism and L.G.B.T.Q. rights and expressed support for Donald J. Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s former far-right president.Ms. Abad is “a really odd choice for someone like Noboa who’s trying to transcend this kind of left-right divide,” said Guillaume Long, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and Ecuador’s former foreign minister under Mr. Correa.Despite his family pedigree, Mr. Noboa has tried to set himself apart, pointing out that he has his own business and that his personal wealth is valued at less than $1 million.While Álvaro frequently referred to Mr. Correa as a “communist devil,” his son has avoided directly attacking “correísmo.’’“I never voted for his father, but this guy has a different aura, new blood, a new way of thinking,’’ said Enrique Insua, a 63-year-old retiree in Guayaquil. “He is charismatic.”A campaign mural for Mr. Noboa in Duran, Ecuador, a municipality on the Pacific Coast that has been torn by violence. Rodrigo Abd/Associated PressBut like his father, Daniel has also drawn criticism from analysts who fear he could use the presidency to advance the family’s many businesses.“Whether in the manufacturing sector, in services or agriculture, everything is under their control in some way or another,” said Grace Jaramillo, a political science professor and expert on Ecuador at the University of British Columbia in Canada.“There’s no issue in economic policy that will not affect for the good or bad, any of their enterprises,” she added. “It’s a permanent conflict of interest.”Ecuador’s economy was ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic, and just 34 percent of Ecuadoreans have adequate employment, according to government data.Beyond the economy, the country heads to the polls during what has perhaps been the most violent electoral season in its history.Beside Mr. Villavicencio — who was outspoken about what he claimed were links between organized crime and the government — five other politicians have been killed this year. Last week, seven men accused of killing Mr. Villavicencio were found dead in prison.Soldiers on patrol in Guayaquil, Ecuador, the country’s largest city, which has also experienced drug-fueled violence.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesMr. Lasso, the departing president, called for early elections to avoid an impeachment trial over accusations of embezzlement and widespread voter anger with the government’s inability to stem the bloodshed.With news reports regularly featuring beheadings, car bombs and police assassinations, Mr. Noboa and Ms. González have vowed to rein in the violence, though neither has made security a central part of their campaigns.Ms. González, during a presidential debate, pointed to the arrests of several leaders of criminal gangs when she served in the Correa administration.“We will have the same iron fist with those who have declared war on the Ecuadorean state,” she said.Mr. Noboa has proposed the use of technology, like drones and satellite tracking systems, to stem drug trafficking and has suggested building prison boats to isolate the most violent inmates.But analysts say the two candidates have not done enough to prioritize combating the crime that has destabilized Ecuador and turned it into one of Latin America’s most violent countries.“Neither Luisa González, nor especially Noboa seem to have much of a plan on security or to emphasize it,” said Will Freeman, a fellow in Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, a U.S. research institute. “It’s like politics is frozen in an era before all this happened.”Thalíe Ponce More

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      Elecciones en Ecuador: Noboa y González se enfrentan en segunda vuelta

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      Durante generaciones, la familia Noboa ha ayudado a forjar a Ecuador: controla un vasto imperio económico que incluye fertilizantes, plástico, cartón, la mayor instalación de almacenamiento de contenedores del país y, lo más conocido, un gigantesco negocio de banano con una de las marcas de fruta más reconocidas del mundo: Bonita.Sin embargo, se les ha escapado un cargo: la presidencia. En cinco ocasiones, el jefe del conglomerado familiar, Álvaro Noboa, ha sido candidato a la presidencia y ha perdido, una vez por dos puntos porcentuales.El domingo, los Noboa podrían al fin llegar a la presidencia. El hijo de Álvaro Noboa, Daniel Noboa, graduado de la Escuela de Gobierno John F. Kennedy de 35 años que ha usado el mismo jingle de campaña que su padre, es el principal candidato en la segunda vuelta electoral. Su oponente es Luisa González, la candidata elegida personalmente por el expresidente Rafael Correa, que venció al padre de Noboa en 2006.El legado de la empresa bananera —y su vínculo con Daniel Noboa— es solo uno de los aspectos de unas elecciones que se centran en cuestiones de empleo y seguridad en este país de 17 millones de habitantes en la costa occidental de Sudamérica, conmocionado por el extraordinario poder que el narcotráfico ha adquirido en los últimos cinco años.Grupos criminales internacionales que trabajan con pandillas locales han desatado una oleada de violencia sin precedentes que ha hecho que decenas de miles de ecuatorianos se encaminen a la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México, parte de una afluencia de migración que ha desbordado al gobierno de Joe Biden.Noboa surgió inesperadamente desde los últimos lugares de las encuestas para posicionarse en el segundo puesto en la primera ronda presidencial de agosto. Los expertos dicen que le favoreció una celebrada actuación en el debate, así como el vuelco que tomó la contienda cuando otro candidato, Fernando Villavicencio, fue asesinado sorpresivamente días antes de las votaciones.Noboa ha activado a una base de votantes inconformes con la promesa del cambio.“Ha sido capaz de decir: ‘Yo soy la renovación, yo la represento en Ecuador’”, dijo Caroline Ávila, una analista política ecuatoriana. Ese es el mensaje que “la gente le está comprando”, agregó.Las elecciones del domingo enfrentan a Noboa, un empresario de centroderecha, con González, de 45 años, candidata del establishment de izquierda, en un momento en que el país, otrora una isla relativamente pacífica en una región violenta, está sumido en una profunda inquietud.La oponente de Noboa, Luisa González, es la candidata elegida por el expresidente Rafael Correa.Karen Toro/ReutersNoboa, quien rechazó varios pedidos de entrevista, ha tenido la delantera de forma consistente en varias encuestas desde agosto, aunque en los últimos días la brecha entre ambos candidatos se ha cerrado.Se ha posicionado como “el presidente del empleo”, en su página web incluso ha incluido un formulario de búsqueda de empleo, y prometido atraer el comercio y la inversión extranjeros y recortar los impuestos.González, su oponente, ha prometido hacer uso de las reservas del banco central para estimular la economía y aumentar la financiación del sistema público de salud y las universidades públicas.En materia de seguridad, ambos candidatos han mencionado que brindarán más fondos a la policía y emplearán al ejército para resguardar los puertos, que se usan para el narcotráfico, y las prisiones, que están bajo el control de pandillas violentas.La cercanía de González con Correa ha ayudado a elevar su perfil político, pero también le ha perjudicado entre algunos votantes.Logró el primer lugar en la primera vuelta de las elecciones impulsada por una amplia base de votantes que añoran las bajas tasas de homicidios y un auge de los precios de las materias primas que logró sacar a millones de personas de la pobreza en el gobierno de Correa. El eslogan de campaña de González en la primera vuelta fue: “Ya lo hicimos y lo volveremos a hacer”.Pero ampliar ese apoyo es un desafío. El estilo autoritario de Correa y las acusaciones de corrupción en su contra dividieron profundamente al país. El expresidente vive exiliado en Bélgica, huyendo de una condena de prisión por violar las disposiciones de financiamiento de campaña. Muchos ecuatorianos temen que una eventual presidencia de González allane el camino para que regrese y vuelva a postularse.El mandato de Correa se caracterizó por unos bajos índices de homicidios y el auge de los precios de las materias primas, que sacó a millones de personas de la pobreza. Pero ahora vive en el exilio, sentenciado a prisión por corrupción.Daniel Berehulak para The New York TimesDaniel Noboa forma parte de la tercera generación de una familia que hoy opera un amplio negocio pero con raíces en la agricultura.La familia Noboa adquirió riqueza y prominencia gracias a Luis Noboa, abuelo de Daniel, quien nació en la pobreza en 1916 pero construyó un imperio en la segunda mitad del siglo XX a base de la exportación de banano y otros productos.Su muerte, en 1994, desató una encarnizada batalla judicial en tres continentes cuando su esposa e hijos se disputaron el control del negocio. Al final, en 2002, un juez en Londres le adjudicó a Álvaro Noboa una participación del 50 por ciento en el holding familiar.Álvaro expandió la empresa a nivel internacional y al mismo tiempo emprendió varias peleas judiciales por impuestos atrasados y litigio de pagos con empresas de transporte.En su carrera política se describió como “mesías” de los pobres y en sus mítines entregaba computadoras y puñados de dólares. Al mismo tiempo refutaba acusaciones de explotación infantil, maltrato laboral y represión sindical en su empresa bananera. (Ha dicho que las acusaciones tenían motivaciones políticas).Su hijo, Daniel, creció en la ciudad portuaria de Guayaquil, donde fundó una empresa de promoción de eventos a los 18 años. Luego se mudó a Estados Unidos para estudiar en la Universidad de Nueva York. Luego sería director comercial de la Corporación Noboa al tiempo que obtuvo otros tres grados académicos, entre ellos una maestría en administración pública de la Escuela Kennedy de Harvard.En 2021, Daniel se postuló al Congreso y ganó, al posicionarse como un legislador favorable al empresariado, hasta que en mayo el presidente Guillermo Lasso disolvió la legislatura y llamó a elecciones anticipadas.Noboa, en la foto con un chaleco antibalas, y González se han comprometido a frenar la violencia, aunque ninguno de los dos ha hecho de la seguridad una parte central de su campaña.Marcos Pin/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNoboa ha promovido una plataforma más de izquierda y se ha pronunciado en contra de la banca y pedido más gasto social.Mauricio Lizcano, compañero y amigo cercano de Noboa, así como alto funcionario en Colombia, describió al candidato como alguien “que respeta la diversidad y respeta a las mujeres, que cree mucho en lo social”, pero también es “ortodoxo en la economía y en la empresa”.Sin embargo, Noboa no ha planteado temas sociales en campaña y Verónica Abad, su compañera de fórmula, es una coach de negocios de derecha que se ha pronunciado en contra del aborto, el feminismo y los derechos de la comunidad LGBTQ y también ha expresado apoyo por Donald Trump y Jair Bolsonaro, el expresidente ultraderechista de Brasil.Abad es “una elección bastante rara para alguien como Noboa, que está intentando ir más allá de esta división izquierda-derecha”, dijo Guillaume Long, analista sénior de política en el Centro de Investigación Económica y Política y quien se desempeñó como ministro de Relaciones Exteriores en el gobierno de Correa.A pesar de su pedigrí familiar, Noboa ha intentado diferenciarse al declarar que tiene su propio negocio y que su fortuna personal no asciende a 1 millón de dólares.Si bien Álvaro se refería con frecuencia a Correa como un “diablo comunista”, su hijo ha evitado atacar directamente al correísmo.“Por el padre nunca voté, pero este chico tiene un aura diferente, nueva sangre, nueva forma de pensar”, dijo Enrique Insua, un jubilado de 63 años en Guayaquil. “Es carismático”.Un mural de la campaña de Noboa en Durán, Ecuador, una ciudad de la costa del Pacífico afectada por la violencia.Rodrigo Abd/Associated PressPero, al igual que su padre, Daniel también ha atraído críticas de algunos analistas, que temen que pudiera usar el cargo presidencial para ayudar a las muchas empresas familiares.“Ya sea en el sector manufacturero, en los servicios o en la agricultura, de una forma u otra todo está bajo su control”, dijo Grace Jaramillo profesora de ciencia política y experta en Ecuador en la Universidad de British Columbia en Canadá.“No hay tema de política económica que no afectará, para bien o para mal, a alguna de sus empresas”, añadió. “Es un conflicto de interés permanente”.La economía del país fue muy afectada por la pandemia de coronavirus y solo el 34 por ciento de ecuatorianos tienen un empleo adecuado, según datos gubernamentales.Además del sector económico, el país se dirige a las urnas en la que tal vez sea la temporada electoral más violenta de la historia del país.Este año han sido asesinados cinco políticos, además de Villavicencio —quien se expresó abiertamente sobre supuestos vínculos entre el gobierno y el crimen organizado— y la semana pasada siete hombres imputados por el asesinato de Villavicencio fueron hallados muertos en prisión.Soldados patrullando en Guayaquil, la ciudad más grande de Ecuador, que también ha sufrido la violencia del narcotráfico.Victor Moriyama para The New York TimesLasso, el presidente saliente, convocó a elecciones anticipadas para evitar un juicio de destitución por acusaciones malversación de fondos y una indignación generalizada de los votantes ante la incapacidad del gobierno por detener la violencia.Ante un panorama informativo en el que suelen reportarse decapitaciones, coches bomba y asesinatos de policías, tanto Noboa como González han prometido frenar la violencia, aunque ninguno de los dos ha hecho de la seguridad un tema central de campaña.En un debate presidencial González mencionó el arresto de varios líderes de bandas criminales durante su tiempo en el gobierno de Correa.“La misma mano dura tendremos con quienes le han declarado la guerra al Estado ecuatoriano”, dijo.Noboa ha propuesto emplear la tecnología, como drones y sistemas de rastreo satelital, para detener al narcotráfico; sugirió buques prisión como una forma de aislar a los reos más violentos.Pero los analistas comentan que ambos candidatos han fallado al no priorizar el combate al crimen; la delincuencia ha desestabilizado a Ecuador y lo ha convertido en uno de los países más violentos de América Latina.“Ni Luisa González ni especialmente Noboa parecen tener un plan de seguridad bien definido ni la enfatizan”, dijo Will Freeman, investigador de Estudios Latinoamericanos en el Consejo de Relaciones Exteriores. “Es como si la política estuviera congelada en una época previa”.Thalíe Ponce More