FORMS OF GOVERNANCE

[kmaherali]

The Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara temple in Surrey, British Columbia. Hardeep Singh Nijjar was murdered in his truck outside the temple in June.Credit...Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press, via Associated Press

On Father's Day this year, two heavyset men were loitering near a Sikh temple in British Columbia. Then the president of the temple, a Canadian citizen and an activist named Hardeep Singh Nijjar, stepped out and climbed into his pickup truck to drive home for dinner with his family.

The two waiting men, wearing masks, fired through Nijjar’s window about a dozen times. Temple members bravely ran after the gunmen, who escaped in a getaway car driven by a third man.

Now Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada has publicly asserted that the Indian government may be responsible for murdering Nijjar — an explosive allegation that, if found to be true, should be a warning to Western countries in their dealings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his increasingly authoritarian government. India denies the accusation and calls it “absurd.”

In his initial statement, Trudeau was cautious and spoke of “credible allegations of a potential link” between the murder and the Indian government. But in a visit to The New York Times on Thursday, Trudeau seemed completely confident that the Indian government had been involved.

Trudeau said bluntly that he wanted to see “a number of people thrown in jail,” plus “a series of lessons learned and changes made to the way Indian intelligence services operate.”

While Trudeau would not share the evidence tying the crime to India, I’m betting it’s solid. Nijjar, who was born in India, advocated a separatist state called Khalistan to be carved from Punjab, a proposal that infuriates many Indians because in the 1980s the campaign for it involved terrorism. In 2020, India labeled Nijjar, without evidence, as a terrorist and later offered a cash reward for information leading to his arrest.

Trudeau is seeking to work with India on an investigation of the incident, but the Modi government has escalated the tension. It stopped issuing visas to Canadians and ordered Canada to cut its diplomatic staff in India.

This episode should be a warning to Western leaders, including President Biden, who have fawned over Modi. The last couple of decades of travails with Vladimir Putin should have taught us something about the difficulties of trying to reform nationalist authoritarians, or the perils of granting them impunity.

As Trudeau noted in his visit to The Times, he had an obligation to act. “When we have credible reasons to believe that this happened, you can’t shrug it off,” he said.

“If we, as we do, want India to continue down its path of democracy, of successful rising world power, we need to make sure we are clear about the responsibilities and the expectations that come with that,” Trudeau added.

The paradox is that Nijjar doesn’t seem to have been any threat to India today. There was a violent separatist movement supporting Khalistan in the early 1980s, and I met its leaders when I was a law student backpacking through India then and sleeping on the floor of the Sikh Golden Temple to save money. But that movement has fizzled, and the dream of Khalistan seems more alive in the Sikh diaspora than in India itself.

If India is caught lying about its role in the killing, it will have damaged its international standing far more than Nijjar ever could have.

A foreign country can overcome an assassination in a Western democracy — but only if it comes clean. In 1984, gunmen in California assassinated a Taiwanese-American journalist, Henry Liu, after he wrote a critical biography of Taiwan’s dictator at the time. Taiwan eventually prosecuted a chief of military intelligence for the crime and sentenced him to life imprisonment — and Taiwan and America moved past the incident.

In this case, though, Modi isn’t showing any sign of investigating and seems to be trying to profit politically, by inflaming the prickly nationalism that has carried his career forward so far. He portrays himself as defender of India’s Hindu majority from Muslim jihadis or Sikh separatists — or sanctimonious Western imperialists — and this dust-up might actually help him in next year’s Indian elections.

Modi is a complicated figure. He is one of the most popular leaders in the world today, and as I wrote during a visit to India earlier this year, he deserves credit for economic pragmatism and significantly raising living standards. But Modi’s government has also made India less free, cracking down on the press and stirring a fiery Islamophobia that has led to Muslims being lynched. I worry that, like the Pakistani general Mohammad Zia ul-Haq almost half a century ago, he is unleashing religious extremism that could ultimately destabilize his country.

India is so important that other nations will be tempted to avert their eyes and not get involved in Canada’s quarrel with Delhi. In 2018, in response to a Russian assassination on British soil, the United States expelled 60 Russians, and 14 European countries took similar steps; that won’t happen this time. But we shouldn’t give assassins a pass just because they come from a country we’re courting.

To its credit, the Biden administration did support Canada and called on India to cooperate in the murder investigation — although it would help if this came publicly from Biden himself. Elsewhere, there has been mostly silence and fecklessness: Australia’s prime minister declined to comment at all, and Britain’s foreign secretary tweeted pablum that did not even mention India.

Without prejudging the results, Western countries should categorically stand with Canada in calling for a fair investigation of the murder and justice for those responsible. The current international silence is conspicuously loud.

Canadians deserve better from us, and so do Indians.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/22/opin ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

The diplomats and 42 family members left amid growing tension over Canada’s assertion that India was complicit in the killing of a Sikh leader in British Columbia.



Mélanie Joly, Canada’s foreign minister, right, sitting next to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, said that India’s plan to revoke diplomatic immunity was “unreasonable and escalatory.”Credit...Blair Gable/Reuters

Canada has withdrawn two-thirds of its diplomats based in India after that country said it would revoke their diplomatic immunity this Friday, further ratcheting up tension between the two countries.

India and Canada have been at increasingly bitter odds since the assertion last month by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that Indian government agents had played a role in the killing in British Columbia of a Sikh separatist who was a Canadian citizen.

Mélanie Joly, the Canadian foreign minister, told reporters on Thursday that India had offered “no good reason” for revoking the diplomats’ immunity, which she called a violation of international law.

Canada had been in talks with India to avert the effective expulsion. Ms. Joly declined to discuss the status of those negotiations as she condemned India’s decision as a blow to the global agreement that ensures the safety of diplomats.

“Immunities allow diplomats to do their work without fear of reprisal or arrest from the country they’re in,” Ms. Joly said. “They are a fundamental, fundamental principle of diplomacy. And this is a two-way street. They only work if every country abides by the rules.”

She added that India’s action was “unreasonable and escalatory.”

Forty-one Canadian diplomats left India on Wednesday along with 42 of their family members, Ms. Joly said. With 21 diplomats remaining in India, Ms. Joly said that Canada will temporarily close three consulates there and concentrate services at its main diplomatic mission in Delhi, the capital.

Because India’s action is outside of the rules in the Geneva Convention that govern diplomatic relations between nations, Ms. Joly said that Canada will not make a similar, retaliatory move, as is often the case in such diplomatic disputes.

“If we allow the norm of diplomatic immunity to be broken, no diplomats anywhere on the planet would be safe,” she said. “So for this reason, we will not reciprocate.”

The diplomatic departures that were announced Thursday are not the first arising out of the feud, although they are by far the largest.

Canada told the head of India’s security service in the country to leave when Mr. Trudeau publicly said that India was involved in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, British Columbia. India swiftly ordered a Canadian diplomat to return home. India has also suspended visa applications by Canadian nationals.

Ms. Joly’s office said that the high commissioner from Canada, the title used by the country’s ambassadors to other Commonwealth countries, has not left India.

India is Canada’s largest source of permanent immigrants, temporary foreign workers and foreign students. Marc Miller, Canada’s immigration minister, said that the departure of the diplomats would cause delays in the processing of visas and immigration applications for people in India. The 10 visa centers where Indians submit their initial applications, he said, are operated by contractors and will remain open, and his department will attempt to limit delays.

“Canada is determined to welcome all Indian citizens who wish to come here to visit the country, work, study, be with their loved ones, or make Canada their home,” he told reporters.

Ms. Joly declined to comment on what discussions, if any, Canadian officials are conducting with India about the assertion that Indian officials were involved in the shooting death of Mr. Nijjar, a prominent advocate of the creation of an independent nation, Khalistan, that would include parts of India’s Punjab State.

The Indian diplomatic mission in Ottawa did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“This is a stunningly bad decision by the Indian government,” said Errol Mendes, a professor of international law at the University of Ottawa. “You normally only force the withdrawal of that many people when you are saying that you want to be an adversary.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/19/worl ... hdraw.html

[kmaherali]

The final six episodes of “The Crown” were released this week, bringing Peter Morgan’s engrossing saga of the Windsors — bookended by the marriages of Elizabeth and Philip in 1947 and Charles and Camilla in 2005 — to an end. The Netflix series had all the appeal of a classic prime-time soap, and sure enough, tens of millions of people have tuned in, escaping reality to dwell for an hour in a bubble of fashion, money, gossip, intrigue and betrayal.

To many, escape is the whole point of royal watching — which is why royal mania is so often dismissed as a frivolous distraction. The royals are no longer as powerful as when they oversaw the rise of modern Britain and its empire. But the world of the Windsors is still intimately, and sometimes painfully, connected to our own. In that sense, the saga of the royal family, as captured in “The Crown,” offers supreme lessons in resilience, demonstrating that even the most traditional leaders can change with the times, relinquishing old roles to find new ways of exerting power and influence.

It may be easy to look at the monarchy today and assume its role is almost entirely ceremonial, but kings and queens — and their extended families — still exert tremendous social influence, especially as exemplars of morality. That was a role that King George III and his advisers pioneered way back in the 18th century when, to maintain their relevance, the royal family was expected to establish standards of proper behavior and stand by them. For better and worse, that expectation persists.

In the most favorable instances, royals have used this soft power to engage in cultural repair and provide moral leadership. Queen Victoria, for example, served as the first patron of the British Red Cross, helping to reform the kind of care received by those injured during conflicts. On the eve of World War II, King George VI met with Franklin D. Roosevelt in Hyde Park, N.Y. In eating hot dogs together, the king and president telegraphed Anglo-American solidarity in the face of rising fascism.

Over time, such stories have helped us understand that the actions of the royals affect not just their world but also our own, which may explain both our perpetual curiosity about the family and the intensity of our emotions as we litigate their choices. Many prestige cable shows have insightfully examined the dynamics of a marriage — take Tony and Carmela Soprano, — but when “The Crown” dissects Charles and Diana’s doomed marriage, it is re-enacting a pivotal moment in history that informed how many modern couples think about marital obligation and what we owe our partners and ourselves.

The final season of “The Crown” — and, in many ways, the modern story of the Windsors — has been haunted by the ghost of Diana, a figure who perhaps understood this dynamic between perception and obligation better than anyone. We may remember Diana first for her outfits and her sudden renown but she went on to do humanitarian work that benefited AIDS patients, spoke openly about her bulimia, pursued solutions to homelessness and campaigned for land mine removal in Bosnia and Angola.

In different but no less powerful ways, King Charles III is currently trying to use his influence to help mitigate the impact of climate change. At the core of these efforts is an acknowledgment that, whatever their political role, royals can, and should, have consequence. But their actions also reflect a recognizable human urge to shape the world around us and take control of our circumstances. That’s why we can see so much of ourselves in the royals when they strive for control — and often fail to achieve it.

Of course, the royals can still seem clueless and out of touch. Take their halting and awkward attempts to reckon with the role their ancestors played in shoring up a brutal empire. Centuries ago, monarchs funded the slave trade and Queen Victoria and her descendants provided symbolic glue for the British Empire and Commonwealth realms. The royal family is still tethered to that imperial past. The Prince and Princess of Wales, William and Kate, received significant public criticism during a 2022 royal tour of the Caribbean when some suggested they failed to adopt a sufficiently apologetic stance toward Britain’s colonial past. King Charles fared better on his recent visit to Kenya by acknowledging Britain’s violent response to the Mau Mau uprising in the 1950s. Even so, the royals are navigating what the British journalist Afua Hirsch described last year as “a clamoring chorus of global trauma” led by “those colonized in the name of the British crown.”

But what history teaches us — and “The Crown” artfully conveys — is that the royal family can embrace change when forced to. The show has always been most successful when it’s not just penetrating the royal bubble but puncturing it. Yes, we’ve followed the Windsors, but we’ve also entered the homes of the grieving mining families of Aberfan following the sudden collapse of a colliery spoil tip. We’ve observed the Bahamian-born valet Sydney Johnson lovingly care for the exiled Duke of Windsor. And in the final seasons we’ve watched the Egyptian businessman Mohamed al-Fayed and his son Dodi make tragic efforts to recast themselves as British elites. The exploits of the monarch are never just about the monarch. They are also, inevitably, about us. When the queen encounters her subjects, she often comes away changed. Though it could still be improved and modernized, the monarchy we see now, under King Charles, is a far cry from the one in 1947 captured on “The Crown” when it began.

We might thrill to be escorted inside Balmoral Castle and Buckingham Palace, where we keep close company with Queen Elizabeth II and her restless brood. There’s certainly pleasure in listening in to the imagined private conversations of a queen so famously tight-lipped that her unofficial mantra was reportedly “Never complain, never explain.” But all of these stories, from the young Elizabeth to Charles and Diana to William and Harry, have reverberated precisely because they offer more than simply voyeuristic escapism. They help us understand our world a little better — and the way that we have shaped the royals’ rarefied realm.

More on the Windsors

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/16/opin ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

Next year could see increasing volatility as persistent military conflicts and economic uncertainty influence voting in national elections across the globe.


India, the world’s fastest-growing economy, will hold the biggest election next year.Credit...Rebecca Conway for The New York Times

The attacks on crucial shipping traffic in the Red Sea straits by a determined band of militants in Yemen — a spillover from the Israeli-Hamas war in Gaza — is injecting a new dose of instability into a world economy already struggling with mounting geopolitical tensions.

The risk of escalating conflict in the Middle East is the latest in a string of unpredictable crises, including the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, that have landed like swipes of a bear claw on the global economy, smacking it off course and leaving scars.

As if that weren’t enough, more volatility lies ahead in the form of a wave of national elections whose repercussions could be deep and long. More than two billion people in roughly 50 countries, including India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, the United States and the 27 nations of the European Parliament, will head to the polls. Altogether, participants in 2024’s elections olympiad account for 60 percent of the world’s economic output.

In robust democracies, elections are taking place as mistrust in government is rising, electorates are bitterly divided and there is a profound and abiding anxiety over economic prospects.

Image
A cargo ship crosses a narrow channel.

A ship crossing the Suez Canal toward the Red Sea. Attacks on the Red Sea have pushed up freight and insurance rates.Credit...Mohamed Hossam/EPA, via Shutterstock

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A group of people standing outside on a footpath, in front of a billboard with these words in Russian: "Elections of the President of Russia. March 15-17, 2024.”

A billboard promoting presidential elections in Russia, which will take place in March.Credit...Dmitri Lovetsky/Associated Press

Even in countries where elections are neither free nor fair, leaders are sensitive to the economy’s health. President Vladimir V. Putin’s decision this fall to require exporters to convert foreign currency into rubles was probably done with an eye on propping up the ruble and tamping down prices in the run-up to Russia’s presidential elections in March.

The winners will determine crucial policy decisions affecting factory subsidies, tax breaks, technology transfers, the development of artificial intelligence, regulatory controls, trade barriers, investments, debt relief and the energy transition.

A rash of electoral victories that carry angry populists into power could push governments toward tighter control of trade, foreign investment and immigration. Such policies, said Diane Coyle, a professor of public policy at the University of Cambridge, could tip the global economy into “a very different world than the one that we have been used to.”

In many places, skepticism about globalization has been fueled by stagnant incomes, declining standards of living and growing inequality. Nonetheless, Ms. Coyle said, “a world of shrinking trade is a world of shrinking income.”

And that raises the possibility of a “vicious cycle,” because the election of right-wing nationalists is likely to further weaken global growth and bruise economic fortunes, she warned.

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People waving signs and wearing red caps, with painted faces.

A campaign rally for former President Donald J. Trump in New Hampshire in December.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

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Migrants standing outside in a line at the border wall with a sun behind them.

A line of migrants on their way to a Border Patrol processing center at the U.S.-Mexico border. Immigration will be a hot topic in upcoming elections.Credit...Rebecca Noble for The New York Times

Many economists have compared recent economic events to those of the 1970s, but the decade that Ms. Coyle said came to mind was the 1930s, when political upheavals and financial imbalances “played out into populism and declining trade and then extreme politics.”

The biggest election next year is in India. Currently the world’s fastest-growing economy, it is jockeying to compete with China as the world’s manufacturing hub. Taiwan’s presidential election in January has the potential to ratchet up tensions between the United States and China. In Mexico, the vote will affect the government’s approach to energy and foreign investment. And a new president in Indonesia could shift policies on critical minerals like nickel.

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The U.S. presidential election, of course, will be the most significant by far for the world economy. The approaching contest is already affecting decision-making. Last week, Washington and Brussels agreed to suspend tariffs on European steel and aluminum and on American whiskey and motorcycles until after the election.

The deal enables President Biden to appear to take a tough stance on trade deals as he battles for votes. Former President Donald J. Trump, the likely Republican candidate, has championed protectionist trade policies and proposed slapping a 10 percent tariff on all goods coming into the United States — a combative move that would inevitably lead other countries to retaliate.

Mr. Trump, who has echoed authoritarian leaders, has also indicated that he would step back from America’s partnership with Europe, withdraw support for Ukraine and pursue a more confrontational stance toward China.

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People walking inside a car factory and cars on the assembly line near them.

Workers on a car assembly line in Hefei, China. Beijing has provided enormous incentives for electric vehicles.Credit...Qilai Shen for The New York Times

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People working inside a shipyard on a large ship.

A shipyard in India, which is jockeying to compete with China as the world’s largest manufacturing hub.Credit...Atul Loke for The New York Times

“The outcome of the elections could lead to far-reaching shifts in domestic and foreign policy issues, including on climate change, regulations and global alliances,” the consulting firm EY-Parthenon concluded in a recent report.

Next year’s global economic outlook so far is mixed. Growth in most corners of the world remains slow, and dozens of developing countries are in danger of defaulting on their sovereign debts. On the positive side of the ledger, the rapid fall in inflation is nudging central bankers to reduce interest rates or at least halt their rise. Reduced borrowing costs are generally a spur to investment and home buying.

As the world continues to fracture into uneasy alliances and rival blocs, security concerns are likely to loom even larger in economic decisions than they have so far.

China, India and Turkey stepped up to buy Russian oil, gas and coal after Europe sharply reduced its purchases in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. At the same time, tensions between China and the United States spurred Washington to respond to years of strong-handed industrial support from Beijing by providing enormous incentives for electric vehicles, semiconductors and other items deemed essential for national security.

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A group of protesters holding a black, white, green flag in the air.

A protest in Yemen on Friday against the operation to safeguard trade and protect ships in the Red Sea.Credit...Osamah Yahya/EPA, via Shutterstock

The drone and missile attacks in the Red Sea by Iranian-backed Houthi militia are a further sign of increasing fragmentation.

In the last couple of months, there has been a rise in smaller players like Yemen, Hamas, Azerbaijan and Venezuela that are seeking to change the status quo, said Courtney Rickert McCaffrey, a geopolitical analyst at EY-Parthenon and an author of the recent report.

“Even if these conflicts are smaller, they can still affect global supply chains in unexpected ways,” she said. “Geopolitical power is becoming more dispersed,” and that increases volatility.

The Houthi assaults on vessels from around the world in the Bab-el-Mandeb strait — the aptly named Gate of Grief — on the southern end of the Red Sea have pushed up freight and insurance rates and oil prices while diverting marine traffic to a much longer and costlier route around Africa.

Last week, the United States said it would expand a military coalition to ensure the safety of ships passing through this commercial pathway, through which 12 percent of global trade passes. It is the biggest rerouting of worldwide trade since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Claus Vistesen, chief eurozone economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said the impact of the attacks had so far been limited. “From an economic perspective, we’re not seeing huge increase in oil and gas prices,” Mr. Vistesen said, although he acknowledged that the Red Sea assaults were the “most obvious near-term flashpoint.”


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Uncertainty does have a dampening effect on the economy, though. Businesses tend to adopt a wait-and-see attitude when it comes to investment, expansions and hiring.

“Continuing volatility in geopolitical and geoeconomic relations between major economies is the biggest concern for chief risk officers in both the public and private sectors,” a midyear survey by the World Economic Forum found.

With persistent military conflicts, increasing bouts of extreme weather and a slew of major elections ahead, it’s likely that 2024 will bring more of the same.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/24/busi ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

I’ve been The Times’s foreign affairs columnist since 1995, and one of the most enduring lessons I’ve learned is that there are good seasons and bad seasons in this business, which are defined by the big choices made by the biggest players.

My first decade or so saw its share of bad choices — mainly around America’s response to Sept. 11 — but they were accompanied by a lot of more hopeful ones: the birth of democracy in Russia and Eastern Europe, thanks to the choices of Mikhail Gorbachev. The Oslo peace process, thanks to the choices of Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat. China’s accelerating opening to the world, thanks to the choices of Deng Xiaoping. India’s embrace of globalization, thanks to choices initiated by Manmohan Singh. The expansion of the European Union, the election of America’s first Black president and the evolution of South Africa into a multiracial democracy focused on reconciliation rather than retribution — all the result of good choices from both leaders and led. There were even signs of a world finally beginning to take climate change seriously.

On balance, these choices nudged world politics toward a more positive trajectory — a feeling of more people being connected and able to realize their full potential peacefully. It was exciting to wake up each day and think about which one of these trends to get behind as a columnist.

For the last few years, though, I’ve felt the opposite — that so much of my work was decrying bad choices made by big players: Vladimir Putin’s tightening dictatorship and aggression, culminating in his brutal invasion of Ukraine; Xi Jinping’s reversal of China’s opening; Israel’s election of the most right-wing government in its history; the cascading effects of climate change; the loss of control over America’s southern border; and, maybe most ominously, an authoritarian drift, not only in European countries like Turkey, Poland and Hungary but in America’s own Republican Party as well.

To put it another way: If I think about the three pillars that have stabilized the world since I became a journalist in 1978 — a strong America committed to protecting a liberal global order with the help of healthy multilateral institutions like NATO, a steadily growing China always there to buoy the world economy, and mostly stable borders in Europe and the developing world — all three are being shaken by big choices by big players over the last decade. This is triggering a U.S.-China cold war, mass migrations from south to north and an America that has become more unreliable than indispensable.

But that’s not the half of it. Because now that advanced military technologies like drones are readily available, smaller players can wield much more power and project it more widely than ever before, enabling even their bad choices to shake the world. Just look at how shipping companies across the globe are having to reroute their traffic and pay higher insurance rates today because the Houthis, Yemeni tribesmen you never heard about until recently, have acquired drones and rockets and started disrupting sea traffic around the Red Sea and through the Suez Canal.

This is why I referred to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as our first true world war, and why I feel that Hamas’s war with Israel is in some ways our second true world war.

They are being fought on both physical battlefields and digital ones, with huge global reach and implications. Like farmers in Argentina who were stymied when they suddenly lost their fertilizer supplies from Ukraine and Russia. Like young TikTok users around the world observing, opining, protesting and boycotting global chains, such as Zara and McDonald’s, after being enraged by something they saw on a 15-second feed from Gaza. Like a pro-Israel hacker group claiming credit for shutting down some 70 percent of Iran’s gas stations the other day, presumably in retaliation for Iran’s support for Hamas. And so many more.

Indeed, in today’s tightly wired world, it is possible that the war over the Gaza Strip — which is roughly twice the size of Washington, D.C. — could decide the next president in Washington, D.C., as some young Democrats abandon President Biden because of his support for Israel.

But before we become too pessimistic, let us remember that these choices are just that: choices. There was nothing inevitable or foreordained about them. People and leaders always have agency — and as observers we must never fall prey to the cowardly and dishonest “well, they had no choice” crowd.

Gorbachev, Deng, Anwar el-Sadat, Menachem Begin, George H.W. Bush and Volodymyr Zelensky, to name but a few, faced excruciating choices, but they chose forks in the road that led to a safer and more prosperous world, at least for a time. Others, alas, have done the opposite.

To close out the year, it’s through this prism of choices that I want to re-examine the story that has consumed me, and I dare say much of the world, since Oct. 7: the Israel-Hamas war. It was not as inevitable as some want you to think.

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Displaced Palestinians walk on their way from the north of the Gaza Strip to its south on Nov. 26.
Credit...Samar Abu Elouf for The New York Times

I began thinking about this a few weeks ago, when I flew to Dubai to attend the United Nations climate summit. If you’ve never been there, the Dubai airport has some of the longest concourses in the world. And when my Emirates flight landed, we parked close to one end of the B concourse — so when I looked out the window I saw lined up in a perfectly symmetrical row some 15 Emirates long-haul passenger jets, stretching far into the distance. And the thought occurred to me: What is the essential ingredient that Dubai has and Gaza lacks? Because both began, in one sense, as the convergence of sand and seawater at crucial intersections of the world.

It’s not oil — oil plays only a small role in Dubai’s diversified economy today. And it’s not democracy. Dubai is not a democracy and does not aspire to be one. But people are now flocking to live here from all over the world — its population of more than 3.5 million has surged since the outbreak of Covid. Why? The short answer is visionary leadership.

Dubai has benefited from two generations of monarchs in the United Arab Emirates who had a powerful vision of how the U.A.E. in general and the emirate of Dubai in particular could choose to be Arab, modern, pluralistic, globalized and embracing of a moderate interpretation of Islam. Their formula incorporates a radical openness to the world, an emphasis on free markets and education, a ban on extremist political Islam, relatively little corruption, a strong rule of law promulgated from the top down and a relentless commitment to economic diversification, talent recruitment and development.

There are a million things one could criticize about Dubai, from labor rights for the many foreign workers who run the place to real estate booms and busts, overbuilding and the lack of a truly free press or freedom of assembly, to name but a few. But the fact that Arabs and others keep wanting to live, work, play and start businesses here indicates that the leadership has converted its intensely hot promontory on the Persian Gulf into one of the world’s most prosperous crossroads for trade, tourism, transport, innovation, shipping and golf — with a skyline of skyscrapers, one over 2,700 feet high, that would be the envy of Hong Kong or Manhattan.

And it has all been done in the shadow (and with the envy) of a dangerous Islamic Republic of Iran. When I first visited Dubai in 1980, there were still traditional wooden fishing dhows in the harbor. Today, DP World, the Emirati logistics company, manages cargo logistics and port terminals all over the world. Any of Dubai’s neighbors — Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Iran and Saudi Arabia — could have done the same with their similar coastlines, but it was the U.A.E. that pulled it off by making the choices it made.

I toured the site of the U.N.’s global climate conference with the U.A.E.’s minister of state for international cooperation, Reem al-Hashimy, who oversaw the building of Dubai’s massive 2020 Expo City, which was repurposed to hold the event. In three hours spent walking around, we were stopped at least six or seven times by young Emirati women in black robes in groups of two or three, who asked if I could just step aside for a second while they took selfies with Reem or whether I would be their photographer. She was their rock-star role model — this Harvard- and Tufts-educated, nonroyal woman in a leadership role as a government contractor.

Compare that with Gaza, where the role models today are Hamas martyrs in its endless war with Israel.

Among the most ignorant and vile things that have been said about this Gaza war is that Hamas had no choice — that its wars with Israel, culminating on Oct. 7 with a murderous rampage, the kidnappings of Israelis as young as 10 months and as old as 86 and the rape of Israeli women, could somehow be excused as a justifiable jailbreak by pent-up males.

No.

Let’s go to the videotape: In September 2005, Ariel Sharon completed a unilateral withdrawal of all Israeli forces and settlements from Gaza, which Israel occupied in the 1967 war. In short order, Hamas began attacking the crossing points between Gaza and Israel to show that even if Israel was gone, the resistance movement wasn’t over; these crossing points were a lifeline for commerce and jobs, and Israel eventually reduced the number of crossings from six to two.

In January 2006, the Palestinians held elections hoping to give the Palestinian Authority legitimacy to run Gaza and the West Bank. There was a debate among Israeli, Palestinian and Bush administration officials over whether Hamas should be allowed to run in the elections — because it had rejected the Oslo peace accords with Israel.

Yossi Beilin, one of the Israeli architects of Oslo, told me that he and others argued that Hamas should not be allowed to run, as did many members of Fatah, Arafat’s group, who had embraced Oslo and recognized Israel. But the Bush team insisted that Hamas be permitted to run without embracing Oslo, hoping that it would lose and this would be its ultimate refutation. Unfortunately, for complex reasons, Fatah ran unrealistically high numbers of candidates in many districts, dividing the vote, while the more disciplined Hamas ran carefully targeted slates and managed to win the parliamentary majority.

Hamas then faced a critical choice: Now that it controlled the Palestinian parliament, it could work within the Oslo Accords and the Paris protocol that governed economic ties between Israel, Gaza and the West Bank — or not.

Hamas chose not to — making a clash between Hamas and Fatah, which supported Oslo, inevitable. In the end, Hamas violently ousted Fatah from Gaza in 2007, killing some of its officials and making clear that it would not abide by the Oslo Accords or the Paris protocol. That led to the first Israeli economic blockade of Gaza — and what would be 22 years of on-and-off Hamas rocket attacks, Israeli checkpoint openings and closings, wars and cease-fires, all culminating on Oct. 7.

These were fateful choices. Once Sharon pulled Israel out of Gaza, Palestinians were left, for the first time ever, with total control over a piece of land. Yes, it was an impoverished slice of sand and coastal seawater, with some agricultural areas. And it was not the ancestral home of most of its residents. But it was theirs to build anything they wanted.

Had Hamas embraced Oslo and chosen to build its own Dubai, not only would the world have lined up to aid and invest in it; it would have been the most powerful springboard conceivable for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, in the heart of the Palestinian ancestral homeland. Palestinians would have proved to themselves, to Israelis and to the world what they could do when they had their own territory.

But Hamas decided instead to make Gaza a springboard for destroying Israel. To put it another way, Hamas had a choice: to replicate Dubai in 2023 or replicate Hanoi in 1968. It chose to replicate Hanoi, whose Củ Chi tunnel network served as the launchpad for the ’68 Tet offensive.

Hamas is not simply engaged in some pure-as-the-driven-snow anticolonial struggle against Israel. Only Hamas’s useful idiots on U.S. college campuses would believe that. Hamas is engaged in a raw power struggle with Fatah over who will control Gaza and the West Bank, and it’s engaged in a power struggle in the region — alongside other pro-Muslim Brotherhood parties and regimes (like Turkey and Qatar) — against pro-Western monarchies like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait and the U.A.E. and military-led regimes like Egypt’s.

In that struggle, Hamas wanted Gaza isolated and in conflict with Israel because that allowed Hamas to maintain its iron-fisted political and Islamist grip over the strip, foregoing elections and controlling all the smuggling routes in and out, which funded its tunnels and war machine and the lifestyle of its leaders and loyalists — every bit as much as Iran’s Islamic regime today needs its hostility with America to justify its iron grip over Iranian society and the Revolutionary Guard’s control of all of its smuggling. Every bit as much as Hezbollah needs its conflict with Israel to justify building its own army inside Lebanon, controlling its drug smuggling and not permitting any Lebanese government hostile to its interests to govern, no matter who is elected. And every bit as much as Vladimir Putin needs his conflict with NATO to justify his grip on power, the militarization of Russian society and his and his cronies’ looting of the state coffers.

This is now a common strategy for consolidating and holding power forever by a single political faction and disguising it with an ideology of resistance. It’s no wonder they all support one another.

There is so much to criticize about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, which I have consistently opposed. But please, spare me the Harvard Yard nonsense that this war is all about the innocent, colonized oppressed and the evil, colonizing oppressors; that Israel alone was responsible for the isolation of Gaza; and that the only choice Hamas had for years was to create an underground “skyline” of tunnels up to 230 feet deep (contra Dubai) and that its only choice on Oct. 7 was martyrdom.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives for a cabinet meeting in Tel Aviv on Dec 17.

Credit...Pool photo by Menahem Kahana

Hamas has never wavered from being more interested in destroying the Jewish state than in building a Palestinian state — because that goal of annihilating Israel is what has enabled Hamas to justify its hold on power indefinitely, even though Gaza has known only economic misery since Hamas seized control.

We do those Palestinians who truly want and deserve a state of their own no favors by pretending otherwise.

Gazans know the truth. Fresh polling data reported by AFP indicates that on the eve of Oct. 7, “many Gazans were hostile to Hamas ahead of the group’s brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israel, with some describing its rule as a second occupation.”

As Hamas’s grip over Gaza is loosened, I predict we will hear a lot more of these Gazan voices on what they really think of Hamas, and it will be embarrassing to Hamas’s apologists on U.S. campuses.

But our story about agency and choices does not stop there. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister — 16 years — also made choices. And even before this war, he made terrible ones — for Israel and for Jews all over the world.

The list is long: Before this war, Netanyahu actively worked to keep the Palestinians divided and weak by strengthening Hamas in Gaza with billions of dollars from Qatar, while simultaneously working to discredit and delegitimize the more moderate Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, committed to Oslo and nonviolence in the West Bank. That way Netanyahu could tell every U.S. president, in effect: I’d love to make peace with the Palestinians, but they are divided, and moreover, the best of them can’t control the West Bank and the worst of them control Gaza. So what do you want from me?

Netanyahu’s goal has always been to destroy the Oslo option once and for all. In that, Bibi and Hamas have always needed each other: Bibi to tell the United States and Israelis that he had no choice, and Hamas to tell Gazans and its new and naïve supporters around the world that the Palestinians’ only choice was armed struggle led by Hamas.

The only exit from this mutually assured destruction is to bring in some transformed version of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank — or a whole new P.L.O.-appointed government of Palestinian technocrats — in partnership with moderate Arab states like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. But when I raise that with many Israelis right now, they tell me, “Tom, it’s not the time. No one wants to hear it.”

That makes me want to scream: No, it is exactly the time. Don’t they get it? Netanyahu’s greatest political achievement has been to persuade Israelis and the world that it’s never the right time to talk about the morally corrosive occupation and how to help build a credible Palestinian partner to take it off Israel’s hands.

He and the settlers wore everyone down. When I covered the State Department in the early 1990s, West Bank settlements were routinely described by U.S. officials as “obstacles to peace.” But that phrase was gradually dropped. The Trump administration even decided to stop calling the West Bank “occupied” territory.

The reason I insist on talking about these choices now is because Israel is being surrounded by what I call Iran’s landcraft carriers (as opposed to our aircraft carriers): Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Shiite militias in Iraq. Iran is squeezing Israel into a multifront war with its proxies. I truly worry for Israel.

But Israel will have neither the sympathy of the world that it needs nor the multiple allies it needs to confront this Iranian octopus, nor the Palestinian partners it needs to govern any post-Hamas Gaza, nor the lasting support of its best friend in the world, Joe Biden, unless it is ready to choose a long-term pathway for separating from the Palestinians with an improved, legitimate Palestinian partner.

Biden has been shouting that in Netanyahu’s ears in their private calls.

For all these reasons, if Netanyahu keeps refusing because, once again, politically, the time is not right for him, Biden will have to choose, too — between America’s interests and Netanyahu’s.

Netanyahu has been out to undermine the cornerstone of U.S. Middle East policy for the last three decades — the Oslo framework of two states for two people that guarantees Palestinian statehood and Israeli security, which neither side ever gave its best shot. Destroying the Oslo framework is not in America’s interest.

In sum, this war is so ugly, deadly and painful, it is no wonder that so many Palestinians and Israelis want to just focus on survival and not on any of the choices that got them here. The Haaretz writer Dahlia Scheindlin put it beautifully in a recent essay:

The situation today is so terrible that people run from reality as they run from rockets — and hide in the shelter of their blind spots. It’s pointless to wag fingers. The only thing left to do is try and change that reality.

For me, choosing that path will always be in season.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/29/opin ... s-war.html

[kmaherali]

Margrethe, the longest-serving monarch in Europe, announced during her New Year’s speech that she would abdicate her throne in January. Her eldest son, Crown Prince Frederik, will succeed her.


Queen Margrethe II of Denmark at Christiansborg Castle in Copenhagen last month.Credit...Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, the longest-serving monarch in Europe, unexpectedly declared that she would abdicate her throne after more than a half-century, announcing in her New Year’s speech on Sunday that her eldest son, Crown Prince Frederik, would succeed her.

In her speech, Margrethe, 83, said that her age and health were factors in her decision after more than 50 years as queen. “Such a long time does not pass unnoticed for anyone — not even me,” she said. “Time wears, and ailments increase.”

In particular, she said, a back surgery she underwent this year was a factor in making her “think about the future — whether it was time to hand over responsibility to the next generation.”

“I have decided that now is the right time,” she said in her speech. “Fifty-two years after I succeeded my beloved father, I will step down as queen of Denmark.”

She said she would step down on Jan. 14. The crown prince, Frederik, is 55.

Margrethe, the eldest of three daughters of King Frederik IX and Queen Ingrid, acceded to the throne after her father’s death in 1972 — and after Denmark made a constitutional change to allow female succession, allowing the king to pass over his brother for Margrethe, his eldest child.

Denmark’s royal family, like its British counterpart, holds a largely ceremonial role under a parliamentary government. But Margrethe has been credited with modernizing the Danish monarchy and restoring its popularity.

Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen — who will become the first female prime minister to proclaim a new monarch — thanked the queen in a statement.

“Although the duty and role of the sovereign have been inherited for over 1,000 years, it is still difficult to comprehend that the time has come for a change of throne,” Ms. Frederiksen said. “Many of us have never known another monarch. Queen Margrethe is the epitome of Denmark, and, throughout the years, has articulated the words and emotions that define us as a people and a nation.”

In her speech, Margrethe thanked the Danish people for their support, as well as “the successive governments, with whom it has always been rewarding to work, and to the Danish Parliament, which has always trusted me.”

Much of the queen’s popularity has been tied to her personality and artistic streak. Even after she entered the line of succession at 13, she pursued her interest in art, earning a diploma in prehistoric archaeology at the University of Cambridge and studying at Aarhus University in Denmark, the Sorbonne and the London School of Economics.

She also produced her own artwork, including paintings shown in museums, decoupages — a type of cut-and-paste artwork — and drawings. (Her illustrations were adapted for a “Lord of the Ring” book under a pseudonym, Ingahild Grathmer; the book’s publisher approached her after she sent copies to J.R.R. Tolkien as fan mail in 1970.)

More recently, she served as the costume and production designer for “Ehrengard: The Art of Seduction,” a Netflix film adapting a fairy tale, that includes wardrobes and sets based on her drawings and other artworks. “I work when I can find the time,” she told The New York Times this past year, “and I seem usually to be able to find the time.”

Though Margrethe has largely avoided the tabloid controversies that have plagued other royals around Europe, her family members have drawn headlines in the past. Her husband, Prince Henrik, had long complained about not being called king or king consort, and about relying on Margrethe for funds. He eventually received a salary, but in 2017, he announced at 83 years old that he no longer wished to be buried alongside the queen.

He died six months later and was reportedly cremated, with half of his ashes spread over Danish waters and the other buried in the private gardens of a castle north of Copenhagen.

The queen also drew complaints from family members in 2022, after she stripped four of her grandchildren of their royal titles.

Maya Tekeli contributed reporting.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/31/worl ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

With 50 million criminal and civil cases pending, it would take 300 years to clear the country’s judicial backlog.


Lawyers outside the Delhi High Court. The number of pending cases in the Indian judicial system has doubled over the past two decades, to more than 50 million.

When the armed men stormed into the village of lower-caste Indians, fanning out through its dirt lanes and flinging open the doors of its mud homes, Binod Paswan jumped into a grain silo and peered out in horror.

Within hours, witnesses say, upper-caste landlords massacred 58 Dalits, people once known as “untouchables,” most of them farmworkers in the eastern state of Bihar who had been agitating for higher wages. Seven of them were members of Mr. Paswan’s family.

The next day, he lodged a police complaint, and investigators soon filed charges. That was 26 years ago. He is still waiting — after conflicting verdicts and hundreds of court hearings, with some witnesses now dead or impaired by fading eyesight — for a resolution.

“A cry for justice turned into a lifelong nightmare for us,” said Mr. Paswan, 45.

In a vast nation with no shortage of intractable problems, it is one of the longest-running and most far-reaching: India’s staggeringly overburdened judicial system.

The country’s economy is growing rapidly, technology is reshaping more than a billion lives and national leaders are striving for global power, but India seems to have few answers for the ever-deepening court backlogs that deprive citizens of their rights and hamper business activity.

More than 50 million cases are pending across the country, according to the National Judicial Data Grid — a pileup that has doubled over the past two decades. At the current pace, it would take more than 300 years to clear India’s docket.

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A man wearing a blue sarong and shirt holds a child in the courtyard of his home. Nearby, another child plays at a table. Nearby is a large memorial, with names listed in Hindi.

Binod Paswan playing with his nephew in Bihar, a state in northern India. Next to him is a red memorial with the names of the 58 Dalits massacred 26 years ago, including seven of his relatives.

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A man holds a small, worn book, with a red and black cover.

Mr. Paswan with a book listing the phone numbers of all of the lawyers involved in the case. He lodged a police complaint a day after the massacre, and 26 years later, he is still waiting for resolution.

There are many reasons for the backlogs. India has one of the world’s lowest ratios of judges to population, with just 21 per million people, compared with about 150 in the United States. For decades, India’s leaders and courts have set a target of 50 judges per million people. But there have been no sizable funding increases to hire more judges, improve court facilities and digitize procedures, as officials deem other priorities more important.

A rigid system with archaic rules inherited from the British also slows the process. Lawyers make endless oral arguments and produce lengthy written submissions. Little has changed even as government committees have recommended an end to the writing of testimonies by hand and to time-consuming procedures in examining witnesses.

Delays are endemic in both criminal and civil cases. About 77 percent of prisoners in India are awaiting trial, compared with one in three worldwide. Of the more than 11 million pending civil cases, most of which involve disputes over land or other property, nearly a quarter are at least five years old.

The country’s longest-running legal dispute — a bank liquidation case — was settled last January after 72 years. In June, a 90-year-old man was given life in prison for his involvement in a 42-year-old case.

“What are we doing about resolving the issue? Frankly, nothing,” Madan Lokur, a former Supreme Court judge, said in a recent interview.

“How long will it take to get a decision in your case?” he added. “If you’re fortunate, maybe in your lifetime.”

Judges churn through scores of cases every day, many of them nuisance filings by the government or citizens. Quick hearings lead to adjournments — and the backlog grows.

India’s government would seem to have a direct interest in easing the delays: It is the country’s biggest litigant, accounting for nearly 50 percent of pending cases.

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People sit in chairs, reading paperwork.

Lawyers preparing paperwork near a court in Mathura, India. A rigid system with archaic rules inherited from the British is one factor in the delays.

But successive administrations have used the courts’ vulnerability as a political weapon. Fights between the judiciary and the executive branch over judicial appointments have reached new heights under the country’s current leader, Narendra Modi, who critics say has largely cowed the courts as he consolidates power across India’s institutions.

The Supreme Court remains a last resort for justice, but its judges are often bogged down by less-consequential matters like marriage or property disputes. When they do rule, the judges are increasingly seen as favoring the government, which has showered retirement perks on jurists who appear to toe the line, experts say.

And while opposition politicians and activists accused of crimes often languish for years in legal limbo, government supporters facing the same have an easier time getting bail.

The glacial pace of India’s judiciary was evident one recent morning in Mathura, a town in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

Hundreds of plaintiffs and defendants wandered aimlessly through the court complex’s crowded corridors, while lawyers holding papers under their arms took sips of hot milk and ginger tea.

In one corner, a lawyer and police officers joked with a milkman who had been accused more than a decade ago of selling adulterated products. The inspector who filed the case never appeared in court and was transferred from the town. The milkman, Mahender, who uses one name, has appeared at dozens of hearings anyway. The judge calls his name, the accused raises his hand, the inspector and a witness are absent, and another court date is assigned.

Even lawyers who become plaintiffs can struggle to navigate the system.

In 1999, an Indian Railways ticketing officer overcharged Tungnath Chaturvedi, a lawyer at the Mathura court, by 25 cents. Mr. Chaturvedi, 67, said he filed a case not because of the money, but because of the agent’s attitude.

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A man sits in a chair, in front of red walls, as younger relatives stand nearby.

Tungnath Chaturvedi, seated, filed a case in 1999 against Indian Railways after he was overcharged 25 cents for a ticket. Mr. Chaturvedi said he filed the suit because of the railroad agent’s attitude.

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Two hands point at photocopies of a railroad ticket on a piece of paper.

Mr. Chaturvedi with a copy of the original train ticket as evidence for his case. It took him 120 hearings over 23 years to get a verdict.

It took him 120 hearings over 23 years to get a verdict. Last year, a consumer court ordered the railway to pay a fine of about $188, as well as the outstanding amount of 25 cents, plus 12 percent interest. Still, Indian Railways went to the highest court in Uttar Pradesh, and it reduced the fine to $80.

“When I filed the case, I used to go up and down the five stories of the court every day to attend court hearings,” Mr. Chaturvedi said. “When the judge delivered the verdict in my case, I was not able to walk from my home to the court because of arthritis. And I had already retired from work. That is the story of the Indian judiciary.”

Many cases are far more serious than a small overcharge, and the toll on those waiting for justice is much greater.

In June 1997, Neelam Krishnamoorthy lost her two children, ages 17 and 13, in a fire at a New Delhi movie theater that killed 59 people.

Her struggle to get justice inspired a Netflix series and countless newspaper articles. Her activism led to improved fire safety measures in shopping malls and theaters.

Ten years after the fire, 16 men, including the cinema’s owners and staff members and safety inspectors, were found guilty of negligence. Four of the men were already dead.

The two brothers who owned the theater, both powerful real estate barons, were given two years in prison, a sentence that Ms. Krishnamoorthy appealed to the Supreme Court. It did not rule until 2015, waiving the sentence and instead fining the brothers; Ms. Krishnamoorthy appealed again.

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A woman in a yellow dress stands near a window. Nearby are old portraits of her children.

Neelam Krishnamoorthy next to portraits of her two children, who died in 1997 in a fire at a New Delhi movie theater that killed 59 people.

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A hand holds a book with pictures taken after a fire at a movie theater.

“Had I known it would take more than two decades to even get bare minimum justice, I don’t think I would have gone to court,” Ms. Krishnamoorthy said.

She continues to make the court rounds, now accusing the brothers of tampering with evidence.

“Had I known it would take more than two decades to even get bare minimum justice, I don’t think I would have gone to court,” Ms. Krishnamoorthy said. “I would have picked up a gun and shot the perpetrators; at least I would have got the sense of justice.”

Justice has also been elusive for the victims of the 1997 village massacre in Bihar. In 2010, a court found 26 people guilty, giving 16 of them death sentences and the others life imprisonment. The men challenged the verdict in a higher court, and two years later, citing a lack of evidence, it acquitted all 26 defendants.

Mr. Paswan and a few other eyewitnesses filed an appeal at the Supreme Court in 2014. The case has come before the judges nine times, but Mr. Paswan has no idea what is going on.

Days after the massacre, Dalit leaders erected a red brick memorial just outside his home. The names and ages of the 58 people who died are inscribed in Hindi. Twenty-seven women — eight of them pregnant — and 16 children were among the dead.

“When I look at this memorial, I can hear cries of people for help,” Mr. Paswan said. “It also serves as a constant reminder of injustice done to lower-caste people by the courts of this country.”

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Lawyers, in suits, stand outside a court, one of them smoking.

Lawyers taking a break outside court in New Delhi. “How long will it take to get a decision in your case?” asked one former Supreme Court justice. “If you’re fortunate, maybe in your lifetime.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/13/worl ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

Cheered by Thousands, Denmark’s New King Takes His Throne

The prime minister publicly presented the new monarch, King Frederik X, after his mother formally completed her abdication as queen in a private meeting.


Denmark’s newly proclaimed King Frederik, Queen Mary and their children appearing on the balcony of Christiansborg Palace on Sunday.Credit...Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters

Tens of thousands of people gathered on the streets of Copenhagen to celebrate the accession of Denmark’s new king, Frederik X, on Sunday, just two weeks after his mother, Queen Margrethe II, made the dramatic announcement that she would abdicate.

The country’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, presented the new king, bareheaded and wearing a dark Navy uniform adorned with medals and golden epaulets, to the Danish people from a balcony of Copenhagen’s Christiansborg Palace, which houses the Parliament, in a move seen as underlining Denmark’s democratic character.

Raising a white-gloved hand to acknowledge the acclamations from the cheering crowds who had gathered in front of the palace, he appeared to wipe away a tear as Ms. Fredriksen proclaimed him as king. Then in a speech, King Frederik, 55, paid tribute to his mother, saying she would “always be remembered as an extraordinary ruler.”

For himself, he said, “My hope is to become a unifying king of tomorrow. It is a task I have been approaching all my life. It is a task I take on with pride, respect and joy.”

He then shared a kiss with his Australian-born wife, Queen Mary, 51, on the balcony to more and louder cheers. They left the palace in a horse-drawn carriage accompanied by mounted guards, heading for Amalienborg Palace, where they have their residence.

Large crowds of people, many of them waving small Danish flags, had also lined the route through the streets of Copenhagen as King Frederik made his way to Christiansborg by car in a motorcade as bells rang out from a nearby church.

Before the public appearance, Margrethe formally passed the monarchy to King Frederik in a meeting that was later shown on television, quietly signing her abdication papers, and, handing them over to Ms. Frederiksen, saying simply, “There.”

Margrethe’s abdication came 52 years after she succeeded her father in the same palace following his death. She had been the longest-serving monarch in Europe. Unlike the proclamation in 1972, which was marked by grief at King Frederik IX’s passing, the mood Sunday was cheerful.

In a New Year’s speech, Queen Margrethe, 83, cited her age and health as factors in her decision to step down. At the same time, she announced that her son Frederik would succeed her.

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People sitting at a red-topped table.

Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II signing a declaration of abdication on Sunday in Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen.Credit...Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix Foto, via Associated Press

King Frederik, who is known as an easygoing, sports-loving and climate-friendly prince, was already extremely popular among Danes, who overwhelmingly support a monarchy.

Denmark’s king serves as a head of state and is responsible for signing all acts of Parliament before they become law. But legislative powers have been in the hands of elected officials since 1849.

Lars Hovbakke Sorensen, an expert on the Danish royal family, said that having the prime minister announce the new monarch was a gesture that underscored the importance of the country’s democracy.

“It means that we have a monarchy where the monarchy does not have any political power,” Mr. Hovbakke Sorensen said.

He said that no crown had been laid on the head of a Danish sovereign since 1660, when the monarchy became hereditary. Before then, the king was elected, and a member of the aristocracy crowned him.

Queen Mary is also hugely popular in Denmark, admired for her sense of personal style and her commitment to sustainability and women’s rights. The couple met at a bar in Sydney during the 2000 Olympics in what became known as a fairy-tale encounter.

(Years later in Australia, Frederik was temporarily turned away from a bar for a lack of ID.)

In her proclamation, Ms. Frederiksen thanked Queen Margrethe for binding “us to the past and preparing us for the future,” and called Frederik “a king we know, a king we love and a king we trust.”

The royal couple’s children, Prince Christian, 18, Princess Isabella, 16, and Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine, 13-year-old twins, also appeared on the balcony.

Anne-Grete Krag, 76, a retired lawyer, came to take part in the festivities near the palace with her husband, Jens Krag, a retired financial executive who is also 76.

“We were fortunate to see Queen Margrethe on TV, when she was proclaimed,” said Ms. Krag. Frederik “will be a different king,” she said. “He doesn’t have the same cultural interests as the queen.”

“He will be a king of his generation,” said Mr. Krag.

Queen Margrethe, known for her artwork, her chain smoking and her charisma, had previously said that she would “stay on the throne until I drop,” but she said that a recent back surgery had made her consider handing over responsibility.

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Crowds of people watch the queen being carried in a carriage drawn by white horses.

Queen Margrethe in a carriage heading to Christiansborg Palace on Sunday in Copenhagen.Credit...Ida Marie Odgaard/Ritzau Scanpix Foto, via Associated Press

In 2022, she stripped four grandchildren of royal titles to free them of the responsibilities that would come with their roles. The decision upset family members, leading her to issue an apology. On Sunday, Frederik’s brother, Prince Joachim was also present.

Mr. Hovbakke Sorensen said that next week, King Frederik would attend a Mass in Aarhus, Denmark’s second largest city, to show the country that he cares for the whole nation, and not only the capital city.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/14/worl ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

Will deepening skepticism about the United States as a trustworthy nation diminish Taiwan’s belief that it could fend off China?

The collection of American memorabilia, vast and well-lit in a busy area of City Hall in the southern Taiwanese city of Tainan, reflected decades of eager courtship. Maps highlighted sister cities in Ohio and Arizona.

There was a celebration of baseball, an American flag laid out on a table. And in the middle of it all, a card sent to the United States that seemed to reveal the thinking of Tainan, a metropolis of 1.8 million, and nearly all of Taiwan.

“Together, stronger,” it said. “Solidarity conquers all.”

The message was aspirational — a graphic illustration of profound insecurity. Taiwan is a democratic not-quite nation of 23 million, threatened by a covetous China, with a future dependent on how the United States responds to the ultimate request: to fight the world’s other superpower if it attacks and endangers the island’s self-rule.

Now more than ever, the fraught psychology of that predicament is showing signs of wear. With China asserting its claim to the island with greater force, and the United States increasingly divided over how active it should be in global affairs, Taiwan is a bundle of contradictions and doubts, less about its own government’s plans or even Beijing’s than the intentions of Washington.

ImageTwo people walk down a side street in a city. A fluttering American flag is painted on the street.

Polls show growing distrust of the United States in Taiwan.

Vice President Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party won Taiwan’s presidential election this month in part because he looked like the candidate most likely to keep America close.

Pre-election polling showed that most people in Taiwan want stronger relations despite the risk of provoking China. They support the recent rise in weapons sales from the United States. They believe President Biden is committed to defending the island — but they worry it is not enough.

As they watch Washington deadlock on military aid for Ukraine and Israel, and try to imagine what the United States would actually do for Taiwan in a crisis, faith in America is plummeting. The same Taiwanese poll showing support for the U.S. approach found that only 34 percent of respondents saw the United States as a trustworthy country, down from 45 percent in 2021.

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Confetti falls as people raise their arms at a political rally. Many are wearing blue-green jackets.

Lai Ching-te at a rally in Taipei before his election victory.

Recent studies of online discussion show a similar trend: deepening concerns that the world’s oldest democracy will lack the strength or interest to really help. In interviews, voters described feeling like passengers. Many see the United States as an unpredictable driver that could get them to safety but could just as well abandon the wheel.

And on a small island about 100 miles from China that has a defense budget only a fraction of Beijing’s, those doubts about America can have their own dangerous impact.

Taiwanese and American analysts are unsure what a widespread lack of faith in the United States could inspire — for some, perhaps a commitment to do more with self-defense. But for others, it contributes to a lack of urgency. If survival depends on the Americans, and who knows if they will ever come, the argument goes, what is the point?

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A person in a military uniform shakes hands with another person, who has a blue and yellow suitcase.

Fewer young people are enlisting in the Taiwan military.

The risk for Taiwan — and those who see it as a first line of defense that, if lost to Beijing, would give China greater power to dominate Asia — is that distrust toward the United States could make it easier for the island to be swallowed up.

“It’s really important that they believe the United States is coming to intervene on their behalf because there are a lot of studies showing that can influence how well they hold out,” said Oriana Skylar Mastro, a fellow in international studies at Stanford University and the American Enterprise Institute. “And we’d need them to hold on long enough for us to get there.”

An Abandonment Complex

The origins of Taiwan’s distrust can be glimpsed in a row of mildewing houses in the mountains above the skyscrapers of Taipei, the island’s vibrant capital. Starting around 1950, American soldiers occupied these bungalows, with their speckled floors and large yards.

The troops’ presence seemed permanent. There were about 9,000 American soldiers in Taiwan in 1971 when a treaty ensured that the United States would defend Taiwan against any attacker. Then, rapidly, they were gone.

When the United States established diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic of China in 1979, after President Richard M. Nixon’s visit to Beijing in 1972, it sped the departure of American personnel. Neighbors recalled friends disappearing with toys, and kitchen utensils left behind to rust.

Eva Wang worked as a legal adviser for the American military in the 1960s. She said she cried the day in 1979 when U.S. officials lowered the American flag for the last time, learning a powerful lesson: “Our destiny was out of our control.”


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An American flag, tattered, flies in front of a house resembling an American home from decades ago.

Former American military housing in Taipei.

Her husband, Wayne Chen, a retired prosecutor, concluded — as did many others — that the Americans could not be trusted.

“If a war really breaks out and the C.C.P. comes over,” he said, referring to the Chinese Communist Party, “then of course the U.S. military will not defend us.”

Researchers in Taiwan have found that 1979 continues to shape Taiwanese views. Even for those not alive at the time, the American reversal stings, like a parent’s adulterous affair, endlessly discussed.

“If you look at the skepticism generated from within Taiwan today, it’s mainly about the U.S. abandoning Taiwan,” said Jasmine Lee, the editor of US-Taiwan Watch, a think tank that recently contributed to a report on doubts about the United States. “It’s reasonable because we’ve been abandoned before.”

Nixonian history is still baked into relations. After 1979, the United States developed a policy of “strategic ambiguity,” declining to commit outright to defending Taiwan, which China sees as lost territory. That means everything the United States does is closely watched through a lens of past and potential betrayal.

The disastrous American withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021; Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Washington’s decision not to send troops; the 2022 visit to Taiwan by Nancy Pelosi, which led to a strong Chinese military response — news events have had a sharp effect on Taiwanese public opinion about the United States, according to polls and discussion in Chinese-language media outlets and online platforms.

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A person lifts a cup of coffee from the bar at a cafe.

Some of the housing has been converted into a cafe.

Dr. Mastro, of Stanford, said that in some cases, “Taiwan’s views of trustworthiness make no sense.” While polls in Taiwan showed doubts rising because America did not do more to help Ukraine, she said, the reality was that the United States held back in part “so we could be prepared to defend Taiwan.”

But abandonment has not been the only worry. Data scientists with a Taiwanese think tank identified 84 separate narratives of skepticism toward the United States in online discourse from 2021 to 2023. Some people argued that the United States was too weak to defend distant Taiwan, or that it was a destructive force, a creator of chaos. Others declared America to be anti-democratic and a “fake friend.”
Chinese commenters often tried to amplify the criticisms, and the “fake friend” line came from the mainland, researchers said, but nearly everything else grew out of Taiwanese anxiety.

Hsin-Hsin Pan, an associate sociology professor at Soochow University in Taipei who studies Taiwanese public opinion, said insecurity and frustration with a lack of influence over its own fate had become an even bigger part of Taiwan’s identity.

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People in military uniforms carry guns as they cross the street in an industrial area.

A military exercise in Taoyuan in July.

Taiwan is at a lopsided crossroad of U.S.-China relations. It sits in the shadow of an increasingly authoritarian giant that sees Taiwan as a haughty, breakaway appendage that must be returned, by force if necessary. And it is thousands of miles from the United States, where polls since 2021 have shown that a plurality of Americans oppose committing troops to Taiwan’s defense. In one recent poll, 53 percent of Republicans said the United States should stay out of global affairs.

“There is no anti-Americanism here,” Dr. Pan said. “But there is substantial skepticism.”

Seeking Steadiness

Some of Taiwan’s most vocal U.S. skeptics have learned from not just history, but also personal experience. They were graduate students in New York during the Covid-19 pandemic, disillusioned by the chaotic response and anti-Asian prejudice. Others are engineers with Silicon Valley connections who worry that Taiwan’s microchip industry, which makes 90 percent of the world’s most advanced semiconductors, will be weakened by pressure to manufacture in the United States — stealing the jewel that makes the world want to keep the island out of Chinese hands.

They are also immigrants like Amy Chou, 67, a no-nonsense restaurant owner in San Francisco who returned to Taiwan this month to vote. Like many others, she said she thought the United States would help Taiwan in a war, but she was not sure and did not trust America to think about anything but its own economic interests.

“Americans just want us to buy more weapons,” she said at a political rally in Tainan. “They want our money, and want our chips. ”

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People with face masks walk past shrubs near an office building. In the shrubs is a sign with the letters “tsmc.”

A Chinese invasion could disrupt Taiwan’s crucial semiconductor industry.

“If Trump wins,” she added, fearing the effect of another four years with an “America First” foreign policy, “it’ll be worse.”

Taiwanese politicians are hesitant to discuss such concerns — including Mr. Lai, a former mayor of Tainan, the city with the pro-America shrine. But in a sign of his priorities, he addressed the international media before thanking supporters after securing victory last Saturday night. For a leader reviled by Beijing for having once called himself a “pragmatic worker for Taiwanese independence,” that seemed to suggest he believed nothing mattered more for Taiwan than outside support.

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People wave small flags and signs and celebrate at a political rally.

Supporters of Mr. Lai on Election Day.

Not that he or other officials are solely lobbying for help. Taiwan’s 2024 budget included a jump in military spending to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product, or $19 billion. But its leaders have been slow to shift toward the drones, missiles and other asymmetrical weapons that, according to analysts, would be needed to hold off a Chinese amphibious invasion.

There is even less urgency in Taiwanese society. Volunteer enlistments in the Taiwanese military have been declining since 2021. Deferments from compulsory service are common, and civil defense training at the community level, while improving, remains infrequent.

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People with a mishmash of uniforms and protective gear conduct combat training.

A combat training session in 2022.

American officials and analysts often lament the inaction. They have shown less interest in doubts about the United States. Laura Rosenberger, chairwoman of the American Institute in Taiwan, the U.S. embassy in all but name, simply praised Taiwan’s “robust democracy” when asked at a news conference about the rising skepticism.

But instead of flattery, many on the island long for a candid reckoning about the past, America’s struggles in the present, and a shift from strategic ambiguity to strategic clarity. Put U.S. troops or equipment in Taiwan, some argue; swap intelligence, make and publicize shared plans — commit long-term to protect an island that may be both a pawn and where the U.S.-led global order wins or loses.

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Two people, one holding a small child, walk past a sign that says “American Institute in Taiwan.”

The de facto American embassy in Taipei.

“There needs to be a commitment to elaborate on why Taiwan matters to America’s national interests,” Dr. Pan said.

She added: “We need to know there’s a steadiness to power.”

John Liu and Christopher Buckley contributed reporting from Taipei, Taiwan.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/20/worl ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

The Peace Palace, which houses the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands.Credit...Peter Dejong/Associated Press

The United Nations’ highest court is expected to rule Friday on a call for Israel to suspend its attacks in Gaza, a decision that might have little practical effect on the war but that could increase the international pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The expected ruling by the International Court of Justice in The Hague would be an initial step in a case brought by South Africa that accuses Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

The court has no means of enforcement, and if it rules that Israel’s campaign in Gaza must stop, it is not clear that Israel would comply. But the case has drawn much international attention, and a ruling against Israel would be a blow to Mr. Netanyahu’s government.

In a packed court this month, lawyers for South Africa argued that Israel had meant to “create conditions of death” in Gaza and demanded that the court order an emergency suspension of the military campaign.

Israel has denied the genocide accusation. Its lawyers argued that the country’s military had worked to preserve civilian lives in Gaza. It said it had given civilians two weeks to leave northern Gaza before it invaded in late October and, after freezing aid delivery at the start of the war, later enabled its daily supply.

The court is not expected to issue a ruling on the genocide charge for years.

Health officials in Gaza say more than 25,000 people there have been killed since Israel began a military operation to defeat Hamas, bombarding the territory and then launching a ground invasion. The United Nations says that more than 70 percent of those killed have been women or children.

Israel’s campaign is a response to a Hamas-led assault on Oct. 7 in which Israeli officials say around 1,200 people were killed and around 240 were taken to Gaza as hostages.

— Matthew Mpoke Bigg

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/01/25 ... -netanyahu

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Senegal’s President Calls Off a National Election. His Critics Call It a Coup.

The West African country had planned to hold an election in three weeks. But President Macky Sall canceled it indefinitely pending an inquiry into corruption allegations at the constitutional court.

Share free access
The president of Senegal, in a white robe and hat, talks to a man in a blue robe.

President Macky Sall of Senegal, center, attending an event last April in Dakar, the capital.Credit...Guy Peterson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Ruth MacleanMady Camara
By Ruth Maclean and Mady Camara
Reporting from Dakar, Senegal

Feb. 3, 2024
Senegal’s president has canceled the election for his replacement three weeks before voting was set to take place, saying that a dispute between the legislative and judicial arms of government needed to be resolved first.

Speaking on Saturday afternoon from the presidential palace in Dakar, Senegal’s capital, his words live-streamed on his social media platforms, President Macky Sall said that he was repealing the decree convening the electoral body, effectively postponing elections indefinitely.

But his opponents said he was essentially carrying out a coup d’état, and accused him of treason.

“For the first time in its history, Senegal has just suffered a coup d’état,” Ousmane Diallo, a researcher with Amnesty International, posted on X. In an interview, he said that the dispute Mr. Sall cited as the reason for the postponement was “a manufactured crisis, a crisis created in a week to stop the electoral process.”

After the country’s constitutional council published lists of approved candidates for the election, some of them were found to have been approved despite holding dual nationality, something presidential candidates are not allowed in Senegal.

One was Karim Wade, the son of President Sall’s predecessor, Abdoulaye Wade. The younger Mr. Wade, whose mother is from France, had renounced his French citizenship in order to run, but may have done so only after the constitutional court rejected him as a presidential candidate. After he was blocked from running, his party accused two of the court’s judges of corruption, and it appears that these allegations form the basis of President Sall’s decision to cancel the election.

In his speech on Saturday Mr. Sall portrayed it as a dispute between the national assembly, which launched an inquiry into the allegations, and the constitutional court, saying things had reached a crisis point. The situation, he said, “could seriously damage the credibility of the election” in a country that “cannot afford a new crisis.”

Mr. Sall had spent years refusing to confirm whether he would try for a third term in office. Senegal’s Constitution limits presidents to two consecutive terms. But in 2016, when Mr. Sall was four years into his first term, voters changed the Constitution to reduce terms to five years from seven, which he argued reset the clock, allowing him to run a third time.

But last July, he said he would not run again, and later named the prime minister, Amadou Ba, as the governing party candidate for the 2024 election.

He gave no new date for an election in his address to the nation on Saturday, but said he was still committed to staying out of the race himself.

“My solemn commitment not to run in the presidential election remains unchanged,” he said in his live-streamed address, before the camera cut to shots of the golden lions outside the presidential palace, and the Senegalese flag embossed with the president’s initials fluttering in slow motion.

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Protesters bearing the flag of Senegal and banners chant and raise their arms at a demonstration in 2023.

Last year in Dakar, protesters rallied against Mr. Sall’s ability to run for a third term.Credit...Leo Correa/Associated Press

Half an hour after the president’s address on Saturday, three young men jumped off a bus in Ouakam, a neighborhood in Dakar, and bought cups of spiced coffee as they discussed the news of the canceled election. One said that Mr. Sall was just testing people, to see if they would take to the streets.

“This is the biggest coup d’état ever,” said another, Abdou Lahat, sipping his Touba coffee.

Despite a warning from the U.S. embassy that violent protests could break out, most residents of Senegal’s capital, Dakar, merely continued with their day on Saturday. But many were unhappy.

“We want to change all these people,” said Fatou Diouf, a young woman selling fabric in a Dakar market on Saturday afternoon, referring to the country’s leaders.

Koumba Sakho, a 28-year-old who works in a bakery in the city center, agreed. “The Senegalese will no longer accept anyone being imposed on them,” she said.

In the wake of the announcement of the canceled election, experts scrambled to assess the legality of the president’s move.

One said that by canceling the decree convening the electoral body when he did, the president was violating the constitution and the electoral code. Another said only the constitutional court could postpone the election, and then only if one of the candidates died.

A presidential candidate, Thierno Sall, accused the president of treason.

“Macky Sall knows that his candidate, Amadou Ba, cannot win the presidential election,” he said in a statement. “He is afraid of the consequences of his actions during all his years at the head of our country.”

Senegal has, so far, been spared the military coups that have recently convulsed other former French colonies that neighbor it in the arid Sahel region just south of the Sahara. But the president’s critics on Saturday accused him of carrying out a constitutional coup.

“This is a Louis Bonaparte 1851-style coup,” said Ndongo Samba Sylla, an economist, referring to Napoleon’s nephew, an elected president of France who, when his term expired, declared himself emperor.

The day before Mr. Sall’s announcement, Mr. Sylla sat in a café on Dakar’s palm-lined coastal road, the Corniche, expressing fear that Senegal’s leaders were about to destroy its institutions.

Long lauded as a regional model of democracy, Senegal’s electoral process was in fact “a system to cheat,” Mr. Sylla said, reflecting a dynamic mirrored across Francophone Africa: aging presidents who are unpopular with their youthful electorates, with charges continually brought against potential opponents.

“Senegal is not democratic, for me,” he said. “Democracy is about political equality. We don’t have that.”

Like the countries now led by juntas, Senegal has experienced a wave of youth discontent, with widespread demonstrations against a government that many see as repressive, out of touch, in cahoots with France, and unable to create sufficient opportunities for young people, who dominate the country demographically.

These problems have led many young Senegalese to turn to a politician who portrayed himself as a savior from the country’s elites, from France and from economic hardship: 49-year-old Ousmane Sonko.

Mr. Sonko, who is in jail and barred from standing in the election, his party dissolved, has variously been charged with calling for insurrection, with defamation of the country’s tourism minister and with rape. He was acquitted of rape, but convicted of “corrupting youth” for acting immorally toward the young massage therapist who accused him of raping her.

His legal battles have only seemed to fuel Mr. Sonko’s popularity, sending thousands into the streets, bashing pots and pans throughout the country in his support and in defiance of the government.

At least 16 people were killed in the demonstrations, according to Human Rights Watch.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/03/worl ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

Buckingham Palace did not specify the type of cancer but said Britain’s monarch would postpone his public engagements during his treatment.


King Charles III and Queen Camilla leaving the London Clinic last week after Charles underwent a medical procedure.Credit...Daniel Leal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

King Charles III has been diagnosed with cancer and is suspending his public engagements to undergo treatment, casting a shadow over a busy reign that began less than 18 months ago after the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II.

The announcement, made by Buckingham Palace on Monday evening, came a week after the 75-year-old sovereign was discharged from a London hospital, following a procedure to treat an enlarged prostate.

The palace did not disclose what form of cancer Charles has, but a palace official said it was not prostate cancer. Doctors detected the cancer during that procedure, and the king began treatment on Monday.

News of Charles’ diagnosis reverberated through Britain, which, after seven decades of Elizabeth’s reign, has begun to get comfortable with her son. Charles waited longer to ascend the throne than anyone in the history of the British monarchy, and he was a familiar figure, with a personal life relentlessly dissected by the British media by the time he became the sovereign.

As king, however, Charles has become a confident elder statesman, putting a subtle but unmistakable stamp on the monarchy. He has traveled widely and spoken out on issues like climate change that have long been important to him.

Anxiety for Charles mixed with hope that he would recover swiftly. But in the absence of details about his condition, there was, inevitably, speculation, as royal watchers parsed the palace’s four-paragraph announcement.

“During the king’s recent hospital procedure for benign prostate enlargement, a separate issue of concern was noted,” the palace said. “Subsequent diagnostic tests have identified a form of cancer. His Majesty has today commenced a schedule of regular treatments, during which time he has been advised by doctors to postpone public-facing duties.”

Palace officials said the king would continue to carry out other duties, including his weekly meeting with the prime minister, as well as the daily pile of paperwork he completes as Britain’s head of state. Officials said there were no plans to appoint counselors of state to act in his place — a procedure that could signal that the sovereign was unable to fulfill his duties because of illness.

The palace said Charles “remains wholly positive about his treatment” and that he looked forward to resuming public engagements. He returned to London from his country residence, Sandringham, to begin treatment as an outpatient, palace officials said.


Charles, who ascended to the throne in September 2022, has generally been in good health. As a schoolboy, he suffered from recurring tonsillitis, but as an adult, he enjoyed vigorous sports like hiking, polo and skiing.

//The British Royal Family
//Charles’s Cancer Diagnosis: King Charles III has been diagnosed with an undisclosed form of cancer and is suspending public engagements to undergo treatment.
//A Period of Troubling Health News: Charles’s diagnosis comes as Catherine, the Princess of Wales, spent almost two weeks in the hospital after undergoing abdominal surgery, and Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, said that she had been diagnosed with melanoma.
//Prince Harry’s Libel Claim: Barely a month after winning a landmark phone-hacking lawsuit against a British publisher, Prince Harry withdrew an unrelated libel suit against the publisher of another tabloid paper, The Mail on Sunday.

The king’s disclosure of the prostate treatment, and now of his cancer diagnosis, is unusual for the royal family, whose members often reveal little about their health. After the queen’s death at 96, the palace issued her death certificate, which listed her cause of death simply as “old age.”

Still, palace officials on Monday made clear that they would not issue regular updates on the king’s condition, and they asked reporters not to attempt to contact those involved in his treatment.

The palace said in its statement that the king had chosen to share his diagnosis “to prevent speculation and in the hope it may assist public understanding for all those around the world who are affected by cancer.”

The king’s younger son, Prince Harry, has been in touch with his father and planned to travel to Britain to visit him, according to the BBC. Harry has been largely estranged from the royal family since he and his wife, Meghan, announced they were withdrawing from official duties and moved to California.

Palace officials said Queen Camilla would continue to carry out a full program of official engagements during her husband’s treatment. She was a frequent visitor during his hospitalization for prostate treatment at the London Clinic, an elite private hospital in the city’s Marylebone neighborhood.

Charles’s illness caps a period of troubling health news for the royal family. Catherine, the wife of Prince William, was hospitalized for almost two weeks after undergoing abdominal surgery. She was released last week, but Kensington Palace has released few details about her recovery, which is expected to last until after the Easter holiday.

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The king and queen walking into church.

Charles and his wife, Camilla, arriving for a church service on Sunday at St. Mary Magdalene Church, in Sandringham.Credit...Joe Giddens/Press Association, via Associated Press

Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York and ex-wife of the king’s younger brother, Prince Andrew, said recently that she had been diagnosed with melanoma, a serious type of skin cancer. It was her second cancer diagnosis within a year. Ms. Ferguson, 64, had spoken publicly about her decision to undergo a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery last year after a breast cancer diagnosis in the summer.

The news of the king’s illness brought an outpouring of well wishes from British and world leaders, and other public figures.

“Wishing His Majesty a full and speedy recovery,” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak posted on social media. “I have no doubt that he’ll be back to full strength in no time and I know the whole country will be wishing him well.”

President Biden, on a trip to Las Vegas, told reporters, “I’m concerned about him. Just heard about his diagnosis.” Mr. Biden, who was welcomed to Windsor Castle by the king last July, said he hoped to speak to Charles soon.

Michelle O’Neill, the Irish nationalist leader just named as first minister of Northern Ireland’s government, wrote on X, “I am very sorry to hear of King Charles illness and I want to wish him well for his treatment and a full and speedy recovery.”

Royal watchers were reluctant to speculate on how the king’s illness would affect the crown, given the paucity of information about his condition. Some pointed hopefully to the palace’s upbeat characterization of Charles’ mood.

“If the king becomes seriously unwell, then there will be constitutional questions to answer,” said Ed Owens, a royal historian who recently published a book, “After Elizabeth: Can the Monarchy Save Itself?” “Likewise, a prolonged period out of the public eye will require the rest of the royal family — already overstretched — to do more.”

Mr. Owens said the king’s age made worries about his health inevitable, adding, “It is moments like these that bring into sharp focus the very human, and potentially fragile, qualities of the U.K.’s constitution.”

In his brief time on the throne, Charles has been both a figure of continuity and change: conducting his life much as he has for decades, but embracing a more politically engaged role than his mother ever did.

Last year, he played host at Windsor Castle to the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, after she signed a Northern Ireland trade agreement with Mr. Sunak. The timing drew criticism, since it appeared to give a royal imprimatur to the deal — in what some considered an improper intervention by the monarch in politics.

The king made two highly successful state visits to Europe, addressing the German Parliament in serviceable German, and drawing excited crowds during a walkabout with President Emmanuel Macron of France.

In December, Charles addressed the opening ceremony of the United Nations climate summit in Dubai, listing a litany of climate-related natural disasters that had afflicted the world in the last year: wildfires in Canada; floods in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh; cyclones in the Pacific; and a drought in East Africa.

“We are taking the natural world outside balanced norms and limits, and into dangerous uncharted territory,” he said. “Our choice now is a starker and darker one: How dangerous are we actually prepared to make our world?”


Cancer Diagnosis Like King Charles’s Is Not Unheard-Of
While Buckingham Palace released little information on Charles’s diagnosis, some cancer experts not involved in his care have seen the illness detected during other routine medical procedures.
Feb. 6, 2024

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/05/worl ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

Aamir Qureshi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

]
By Bina Shah

Ms. Shah, a Pakistani essayist and novelist, wrote from Karachi.

This is a critical week for Pakistanis. On Thursday, we will vote in nationwide federal and provincial elections with the future of our democracy in question. We are not the only country facing such a moment this year. National elections will be held in more than 60 countries, which account for nearly half the global population.

But I suspect that millions of voters around the world are, like me, wondering whether they even believe in the promise of democracy anymore. Pakistan has never been able to get it right; next door in India, the world’s biggest democracy, elections a couple of months from now are likely to extend the grip of Narendra Modi’s Hindu-supremacist government; and Donald Trump is on the upswing again in America, which votes in November. The world is in a state of turmoil and instability — with harrowing conflicts raging in Gaza and Ukraine — partly because of the chaos of the modern political process and the shortsighted leaders who take advantage of it.

Pakistanis have been haunted by feelings like this for decades. In 1977, when I was a girl, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was deposed in a military coup that plunged the country into dictatorship and martial law. Mr. Bhutto was hanged two years later, and the darkness of that day has never left me — the eerily empty streets, the newspapers declaring it a “black day” in block letters on the front pages. Military rule finally ended in 1988, followed by a welcome — though often politically chaotic — decade of democratic rule, but then yet another period of military dictatorship. Experiments with democracy resumed in 2008, but the repeated blatant thefts of power have left us shellshocked.

And here we are again.

The elections on Thursday will proceed without Imran Khan, the popular former prime minister who was sentenced last week on questionable charges of leaking state secrets and corruption (he was given prison terms of 10 years and 14 years, respectively). When he was elected in 2018, Mr. Khan promised to free Pakistan from corrupt dynastic politics. But his term ended four years later in much the same way as those previous periods of democratic rule. The United States looked the other way while his elected government was removed from power.

Mr. Khan’s party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or P.T.I., faces severe electoral challenges in this week’s elections, including an authoritarian crackdown on its members. Former P.T.I. figures must now run as independents. The Supreme Court has even barred the party from using its popular election symbol, a cricket bat. (Mr. Khan was a national cricket hero before turning to politics.)

So we will go to the polls this week with a sense of frustration and futility. Pakistanis, especially young adults eligible to vote for the first time, are asking themselves: Why vote for politicians who seem to have no goal other than to take power and use it against their opponents?

The somber mood is everywhere on the streets. Canvassing and campaigning are muted, and there is far less of the political song-singing, the flags, banners and other trappings of past elections. These had at least brought some excitement and a festival-like atmosphere to break up what can often be a chaotic, stressful life for so many of Pakistan’s 245 million people.

The election gloom matches the existential difficulties that Pakistan faces. An economic crisis, marked by spiraling inflation and unemployment, compound the challenges for a country already struggling to house, educate and provide proper health care for the world’s fifth most populated country.

The caretaker government installed after Mr. Khan’s ouster issues announcements almost daily of its resolve to uphold a peaceful electoral process: The army will be deployed, schools will be closed for eight days and officials have denied rumors that social media and internet access will be shut down. But there is still palpable tension, demoralization and the unavoidable question: What is this election even for?

I’ve been discussing the idea of democracy with concerned former classmates from my college days in the United States. Some are from countries like mine, where the cycle of democracy and dictatorship is familiar. Others are Americans who are wary of what the U.S. elections might portend. Western countries have been selling Pakistanis on democracy’s superiority over all other political systems for as long as we can remember. But in the United States, the Trump presidency and the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, made us scratch our heads and wonder: Are Pakistanis trying to become more democratic like the United States, or are Americans inadvertently, carelessly, becoming less democratic, like us?

In past Pakistani elections — including when Mr. Khan was elected in 2018 — excitement was always sky-high, even though we knew we would probably never have Western-style democracy. Today, it’s sinking in that we may not achieve anything more than the strange hybrid of civilian and military leadership that we have now, and which will always be at risk of some force coming along and snuffing democracy out.

Democracy is infinitely better than out-and-out fascism or authoritarianism. Still, perhaps we are reaching a point where countries are evaluating how effective American-style democracy can realistically be for them, and whether it is a panacea for all cultures and national conditions. We’ve seen democracy’s flaws and how they can be used to undermine the democratic system itself.

Pakistani elections are marked by vote-rigging, political horse-trading and corruption. No matter who wins, they inevitably disappoint because they are always focused more on staying in power than serving the people. Healthy democracy seems more like an El Dorado that is further out of reach with each election.

Yet despite all of this, it’s difficult to fully let go of the democratic idea. So the train keeps running in Pakistan, picking up hopeful new passengers along the way. There has been a surge in registered voters for this election, 44 percent of which are below the age of 35, and more female candidates.

So we will vote this week, our deep sense of pessimism accompanied by faint hope that someday something might change. Voters around the world this year will be told that their voice matters. But in Pakistan, we’re still waiting for proof that anyone is listening.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/06/opin ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

The party of Imran Khan, the jailed former prime minister, took the most seats, humiliating the country’s military rulers and creating a political crisis.


Supporters of Imran Khan’s political party rallied on Saturday in Peshawar, Pakistan, asking for the release of the complete results of the parliamentary election.Credit...Arshad Arbab/EPA, via Shutterstock

The party of the imprisoned former prime minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, won the most seats in parliamentary elections this week, delivering a strong rebuke to the country’s powerful generals and throwing the political system into chaos.

While military leaders had hoped the election would put an end to the political turmoil that has consumed the country since Mr. Khan’s ouster in 2022, it has instead plunged it into an even deeper crisis, analysts said.

Never before in the country’s history has a politician seen such success in an election without the backing of the generals — much less after facing their iron fist.

In voting on Thursday, candidates from Mr. Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or P.T.I., appeared to win about 97 seats in the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, the country’s election commission reported on Saturday. The military’s preferred party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, or P.M.L.N., led by a three-time former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, won at least 73 seats, the commission said. Only seven seats were left unaccounted for — not enough to change the outcome as reported by the commission.

While candidates aligned with Mr. Khan were set to be the largest group in Parliament, they still fell short of a simple majority — setting off a race between the parties of Mr. Khan and Mr. Sharif to win over other lawmakers and establish a coalition government.

Leaders of Mr. Khan’s party also said they planned court challenges in dozens of races that they believe were rigged by the military, and said they would urge their followers to hold peaceful protests if the remaining results were not released by Sunday.

The success of Mr. Khan’s party was a head-spinning upset in an election that the military thought would be an easy victory for Mr. Sharif. Ahead of last week’s election, Pakistan’s powerful generals had jailed Mr. Khan, arrested candidates allied with him and intimidated his supporters to clear his party from the playing field — or so they thought. Instead, the election results confirmed that Mr. Khan remains a formidable force in Pakistani politics, despite his ouster and subsequent imprisonment.

On Friday evening, Mr. Khan’s party released a victory speech using a computer-generated voice to simulate that of Mr. Khan, who has been jailed since August. “I congratulate you all for your election 2024 victory. I had full confidence that you would all come out to vote,” the A.I.-generated voice said. “Your massive turnout has stunned everybody.”

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A man hangs a red and green flag in support of the political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.

A supporter of Mr. Khan’s party raised a banner near a polling station on Thursday in Lahore, Pakistan. Credit...Saiyna Bashir for The New York Times

The success of Mr. Khan’s party upended the decades-old political playbook governing Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation of 240 million. Throughout those years, the military has wielded ultimate authority, guiding its politics behind a veil of secrecy, and civilian leaders have typically risen to power only with its support — or been driven from office by its heavy hand.

The vote also showed that Mr. Khan’s strategy of preaching reform and railing against the military has resonated deeply with Pakistanis — particularly young people — who are disillusioned with the political system. It also proved that his loyal base of supporters was seemingly immune to the military’s old tactics for demoralizing voters, including arresting supporters and issuing long prison sentences to their political leaders days before the vote.

Mr. Khan, a former cricket star turned populist politician, was sentenced to a total of 34 years in prison after being convicted in four separate cases on charges that included leaking state secrets and unlawful marriage, and that he has called politically motivated.

Three of those verdicts were issued just days before the vote — an old tactic used by the military, analysts say. But early estimates show that around 48 percent of the voters turned out for the election, according to the Free and Fair Election Network, an organization of civil society groups. Voter turnout in the country’s past two elections was about 50 percent, the organization said.

The results were “both an anti-establishment vote and also a vote against the status quo, against the two other major political parties that have been ruling the country and their dynastic politics,” Zahid Hussain, an analyst based in Islamabad, said, referring to the military as the establishment.

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Men stand outside under flags and banners.

Voters gathered outside a polling station in Lahore on Thursday. Many young people turned out for the former cricket star turned prime minister, Imran Khan. Credit...Saiyna Bashir for The New York Times

Without a simple majority, most analysts believe it will be difficult for Mr. Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or P.T.I., to form a government. Some P.T.I. leaders have also suggested that the party would rather remain in the opposition than lead a weakened coalition government with Mr. Khan still behind bars.

Despite lagging behind in the polls, on Friday Mr. Sharif gave a victory speech in front of a crowd of supporters of his party, P.M.L.N. He also invited other parties to join his in forming a coalition government, suggesting that such a coalition would not include P.T.I.

“We are inviting everyone today to rebuild this injured Pakistan and sit with us,” he said in a speech in Lahore, the capital of Punjab Province.

But any coalition Mr. Sharif manages to form will face serious political challenges. The coalition government led by P.M.L.N. after Mr. Khan’s ouster was deeply unpopular and widely criticized for failing to address an economic crisis that has battered the country and sent inflation to record highs.

The incoming government is also likely to face a serious legitimacy crisis. The election on Thursday has also been criticized by some as one of the least credible in the country’s history, and delays in releasing the election results have led to widespread allegations that the military tampered with the vote count to tip the scales back in P.M.L.N.’s favor.

With P.T.I. promising bruising and lengthy court battles over the results, it could be some time before any party manages to form a government.

“We will pursue all legal options, and we will pursue all constitutional options,” said the P.T.I. leader, Raoof Hasan.

Zia ur-Rehman contributed reporting.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/10/worl ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

The Rise, and Fall, and Rise Again of Imran Khan
Mr. Khan’s success was fueled by social media, which drove Pakistan’s young people to turn out to vote and rebuff the country’s powerful military.


Imran Khan in Islamabad in 2019.Credit...Saiyna Bashir for The New York Times

When Pakistan’s government censored the media, former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party posted campaign videos on TikTok. When the police barred his supporters from holding rallies, they hosted virtual gatherings online.

And when Mr. Khan ended up behind bars, his supporters produced speeches using artificial intelligence to simulate his voice.

Mr. Khan’s message resonated with millions across the country who were frustrated by the country’s economic crisis and old political dynasties: Pakistan has been on a steep decline for decades, he explained, and only he could restore its former greatness.

The success of candidates aligned with Mr. Khan’s party in last week’s election — snagging more seats than any other in Parliament — was a stunning upset in Pakistani politics. Since Mr. Khan fell out with the country’s generals and was ousted by Parliament in 2022, his supporters had faced a military-led crackdown that experts said was designed to sideline the former prime minister.

His success marked the first time in Pakistan’s recent history that the political strategy used by the country’s powerful military for decades to keep its grip on power had suddenly veered off course. It also proved how Mr. Khan’s populist rhetoric and the country’s internet-savvy youth bulge are rewriting politics in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation of 240 million people that has struggled with military coups since its founding 76 years ago.

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Roughly a dozen young men raise their hands and cheer as a flag is waved by the crowd.

Young supporters of Mr. Khan on election day in Lahore.Credit...Saiyna Bashir for The New York Times

Now, as the parties of both Mr. Khan and Nawaz Sharif, the three-time former prime minister, race to win over other lawmakers and establish a coalition government, Pakistan is in uncharted territory. If Mr. Khan’s party succeeds — an outcome many analysts believe is unlikely — it would be the first time in Pakistan’s history that a civilian government would be led by a party at odds with the military and whose leader is behind bars.

No matter the outcome, Mr. Khan’s party “proved it is an unshakable political presence, tapping into the dissatisfaction of Pakistan’s youth,” said Adam Weinstein, deputy director of the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute, a Washington-based think tank. “The old playbook for shaping the country’s politics is outdated; social media and youth mobilization have become game changers.”

For roughly half of Pakistan’s history, the military has ruled the country directly. When civilian governments have been allowed to come to power, they were led by a handful of leaders — including Mr. Khan’s rival in this election, Mr. Sharif — who were typically ushered into power with the support of the generals.

Those military-aligned leaders built political parties around their family dynasties, passing party leadership from one generation to another — and keeping political power within a tightknit circle. But in recent years, as the country’s young population has ballooned to around half its electorate, there has been a growing frustration with that system, analysts say.

Young people felt shut out of Pakistan’s political system because “someone in the family will always get the top slot,” said Zaigham Khan, a political analyst based in Islamabad. “The old parties are becoming obsolete because they refuse to change — and that created a vacuum for someone like Imran Khan.”

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Campaign posters hang across a street in Lahore, Pakistan.

Campaign posters in Lahore on Thursday. The parties of both Mr. Khan and Nawaz Sharif are racing to win over other lawmakers and establish a coalition government.Credit...Saiyna Bashir for The New York Times

While Mr. Khan initially rose to political prominence with the military’s help, after his ouster he capitalized on young people’s yearning for change to strengthen his political base independent of the generals. His party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or P.T.I., produced political campaigns on social media — outside the reach of state censorship — that young people say stirred a political awakening for their generation.

In viral videos, Mr. Khan railed against the country’s generals, whom he blamed for his ouster in 2022. He described how the military operated like a “deep state” governing politics from behind the scenes, and claimed that the United States had colluded with Pakistani officials on his removal from power. He described himself as a reformer who would bring change.

His message galvanized young people across the country.

“I’m voting for change. I’m fed up with this whole system of political parties that have been running the country,” said Usman Saeed, 36, as he stood outside a polling station in Lahore on Thursday after casting his vote for P.T.I. candidates. “They’ve put Imran Khan in jail — that’s the main issue — it shows it’s all been managed by the establishment,” he added, referring to the military.

Few of these voters remembered the discontent of Mr. Khan’s last months in office, when his popularity plummeted as inflation soared. Had he been allowed to complete his term, many analysts said, his party likely would not have won the next general elections.

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Police officers in green uniforms grabbing a man on the street in Lahore, Pakistan.

Police officers in Lahore detaining a supporter of Mr. Khan at a protest Sunday amid allegations of election result tampering.Credit...Arif Ali/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

But even after his ouster, the country’s military leaders appeared to underestimate the country’s shifting political sands. As Mr. Khan made a political comeback, the generals turned to their old playbook to sideline him.

Authorities slapped Mr. Khan with dozens of charges that resulted in four separate sentences totaling 34 years in prison. They arrested hundreds of his supporters and — for the first time — cast a much wider net, going after Pakistanis in the country’s elite, even those with close ties to the military itself.

That intimidation campaign appeared to only bolster support for Mr. Khan. Because the crackdown was publicized widely on social media, it exposed and turned more of the public against the military’s heavy hand in politics. Many people who cast ballots last week for Mr. Khan’s party said they did so simply to spite the generals.

Looming over the political scramble now to form a new government are widespread allegations of the military tampering with vote counts and the promises by Mr. Khan’s party of long, bruising court battles to challenge dozens of results it says the military rigged. On Sunday, thousands of Mr. Khan’s supporters took to the streets across the country to express anger over allegations of election fraud — protests that were met with police batons and tear gas.

“P.T.I. is a peaceful party that has ushered in a revolution through the ballot,” the party’s head in Punjab Province, Hammad Azhar, said on the platform known as X. “We will not allow our struggle to be hijacked by nefarious designs.”

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People attending a political rally hold green and red flags with the national symbol of Pakistan on them.

Supporters of Mr. Khan and other parties protesting in Quetta, Pakistan, on Friday.Credit...Banaras Khan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The political showdown has put the country — whose history is littered with military coups and mass unrest — on edge. Most agree that despite the election’s results showing just how many Pakistanis are rejecting the country’s broken political system, Pakistan is still not moving in a direction of greater stability or a stronger democracy.

“Even if the balance of power is tilting in favor of the political parties, will they actually act democratic themselves?” said Bilal Gilani, the executive director of Gallup Pakistan. “Or will they become more fascist in their ideologies? Will they exclude the people who haven’t voted for them? That’s the question now.”

Zia ur-Rehman contributed reporting.

Christina Goldbaum is the Afghanistan and Pakistan bureau chief for The Times. More about Christina Goldbaum

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/11/worl ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

A ‘Democracy Party’ Like No Other: One of the World’s Biggest Elections

The celebration of the act of casting a vote has particular resonance in Indonesia, which until a few decades ago was a brutal dictatorship.


Supporters danced during a campaign rally for Ganjar Pranowo, one of Indonesia’s presidential candidates, at a stadium in Jakarta, the capital, this month.Credit...Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The young women and men moved from booth to booth, asking questions about the political hopefuls’ track records and visions for the country. A few steps away, first-time voters practiced casting their ballots in pretend voting booths. And onstage, talk show guests discussed how to make an informed choice in backing a candidate.

This gathering of more than a thousand people one recent Sunday in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, was a prelude to a celebration that is widely known here as “Pesta Demokrasi,” or Democracy Party.

Otherwise known as Election Day, it’s when tens of millions of people across this vast archipelago of thousands of islands head to polling stations that are sometimes decorated with balloons, garlands and flowers, and manned by officials dressed up as Spider-Man, Batman, Thor or other superheroes. After voting for presidential, parliamentary and local legislative candidates, people camp out near their polling places with food as they wait for early counts to trickle in. The next “party” is on Wednesday.

Free and fair elections in Indonesia were unthinkable as recently as the mid-1990s, when it was still under the brutal rule of Suharto. But after his fall in 1998, the country emerged as the world’s third-largest democracy. Partly because Election Day is a national holiday, voter turnout has consistently been among the highest in the world and reached a record 80 percent in 2019. With the minimum voting age set at 17, the biggest bloc this time is people under 40, who make up more than half of the 205 million voters in Indonesia.

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In a black and white photo, a man writes on a large board with papers while adults and children, sitting and standing, look on.

Counting votes during the presidential election in Jakarta in June 1999.Credit...Roger Lemoyne/Getty Images

The presidential election is a three-way race, and billboards with the faces of the three candidates — Anies Baswedan, Prabowo Subianto and Ganjar Pranowo — loom over major roads. Their debates are furiously discussed on Instagram, TikTok and X. Indonesians refer to the three men by their candidate numbers, so in homes, warungs and cafes here, the inevitable question is: “Are you voting for 1, 2 or 3?”

But even this vibrant electoral process has its limits.

“Indonesia is very new to democracy, and a lot of people are not used to choosing their candidates based on track records and ideas,” said Abigail Limuria, an organizer of the “Election Festival” gathering in Jakarta that aimed to educate voters about the candidates and issues. “Many of them just vote based on who their family is choosing.”

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People dressed in red, including some wearing traditional Indonesian theater costumes, wave flags as they ride motorcycles.

A campaign event for the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle in May 1999. Some of the rally-goers wore traditional costumes from Indonesian theater, an early example of how political campaigns in the country became festive occasions. Credit...Eddy Purnomo/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

This campaign has also raised serious questions about the future of the hard-won democratic norms in Indonesia. President Joko Widodo, the popular incumbent who is barred from seeking a third five-year term, has alarmed critics with dynastic machinations that have allowed his son to run for vice president. Though not explicitly endorsing anyone, he has appeared to engineer an alliance with Mr. Prabowo, a former rival who has long been accused of human rights abuses and was once married to a daughter of Suharto, the dictator.

Yet there is still a belief that ultimately every vote matters.

“I am taking this as an opportunity to contribute to change Indonesia for the better,” said Shiela Mutia Larasati, 25, a fashion entrepreneur based in Jakarta. “Previously, I was still young and apathetic. But now, I have hope for Indonesia.”

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Three people in superhero costumes sit and stand behind a table piled high with paper ballots.

Election officials wearing costumes at a polling station in Surabaya in 2019.Credit...Zabur Karuru/Antara Foto, via Reuters

Recent elections in Indonesia, which has the world’s largest Muslim population, have been marred by ugly identity politics — Mr. Joko was called a “Chinese Christian” (he is neither), and Mr. Prabowo, who has sought the presidency multiple times but never won, was dogged by questions about how many times he prayed in a day. Campaigning used to mean distributing food supplies to get votes. But this year, the political discussion appears to be more open about issues like democracy and defense, even if the presidential candidates all offer a vision akin to that of Mr. Joko: policy based on infrastructure and welfare projects.

“I think that’s a good sign of the improvement of democracy,” said Danis Syahroni, 24, a postgraduate student at Gadjah Mada University in the city of Yogyakarta. “We can debate and discuss candidates’ ideas.”

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A large stadium full of people, many waving various flags. Two large inflatable figures of men are visible above the crowd.

A campaign rally for Prabowo Subianto in Jakarta on Saturday.Credit...Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

About 1,200 young people turned up at a convention hall in Jakarta where the “Election Festival,” known locally as “Festival Pemilu,” was held. By midafternoon, the line was so long that organizers had to turn people away. One of the headliners was a group of young comedians known as “Trio Netizen.”

“If you get elected and you become someone important, don’t become crazy, yah?” said one of the comedians, Eky Priyagung, a reference to the 2019 election, when the opposite happened: Some candidates who lost were so devastated that they had to seek inpatient care for their mental health. The crowd burst out laughing. (This year, several hospitals have announced that they have prepared psychiatric wards for candidates.)

The event was an offshoot of a website called “Bijak Memilih,” or Choose Wisely, that caters to young voters. Ms. Abigail said she wanted to start the website because many young people have expressed confusion about whom to vote for in this election. Some are skeptical about the independence of the country’s media outlets, owned by tycoons who often hew to their political patron’s interests.

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People on a small boat loaded with white cardboard boxes, some flat and some assembled and inside clear plastic bags, distribute them to other boats and up onto land.

Workers distributing ballot boxes by boat to Bulang island on Wednesday.Credit...Antara Foto, via Reuters

To drive voters to polls, activists have relied on memes and stunts like putting out TikTok videos equating the candidates with various Taylor Swift songs. A Spotify Wrapped campaign playfully overlaps music with corruption statistics.

At least one candidate has also used social media to his advantage. With the aid of savvy digital tactics, Mr. Prabowo has had some success in rebranding himself from a feared general into a cuddly grandfather. Many young people simply do not know about his past. His apparent alliance with Mr. Joko has additionally helped his popularity.

In recent weeks, opposition to Mr. Prabowo has coalesced around images of people brandishing four fingers on one hand. The message: Voters should pick anyone except Mr. Prabowo and choose either No. 1 (Mr. Anies) or No. 3 (Mr. Ganjar).

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Women in head scarves look at merchandise, like small posters and pictures of T-shirts.

Supporters of Anies Baswedan buying campaign merchandise at a rally in Jakarta on Thursday.Credit...Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Mr. Anies, a former governor of Jakarta, has found support from an unlikely bloc: Indonesian K-pop fans. They have rented a food truck, crowd-funded digital billboards, and ordered light sticks for his last rally before the election. Many say they were taken by Mr. Anies after he emerged from a debate and did a TikTok livestream with his supporters, where, like a K-pop star, he answered questions about his love life and his favorite books.

If none of the three candidates win more than 50 percent of the vote, the race will head to a runoff in June. Recent surveys suggest Mr. Prabowo could pass the 50 percent mark, but that is far from certain. What remains certain is the high level of civic engagement.

“I’m really excited to take part in the democracy party,” said Kayla Jasmine, 20, a first-time voter attending the “Election Festival” in Jakarta.

Muktita Suhartono reports on Thailand and Indonesia. She is based in Bangkok. More about Muktita Suhartono

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/13/worl ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

Imran Khan’s Opponents Reach Deal to Shut His Allies Out of Government

After days of wrangling, two parties run by political dynasties joined forces and will nominate Shehbaz Sharif to be Pakistan’s prime minister.


Shehbaz Sharif, the once and most likely future prime minister of Pakistan, on Tuesday in Lahore.Credit...Arif Ali/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Pakistan’s two main political dynasties reached an agreement late on Tuesday to form a coalition government, ensuring that candidates aligned with former Prime Minister Imran Khan will not take power despite having won the most seats in last week’s election.

Leaders of the party favored by the country’s powerful military, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, or P.M.L.N., announced that they had joined forces with another major party, the Pakistan People’s Party, and others to reach a two-thirds majority in the incoming Parliament.

“This is not a time for disagreements, but to unite,” said Shehbaz Sharif, a former prime minister whom the coalition said it would nominate to regain that post. “Let’s move forward, move the economy forward, end mutual differences.”

The announcement came five days after a national election that most had expected P.M.L.N. to win easily after it received the backing of the military, which has frequently engineered electoral outcomes. In a stunning upset, candidates allied with Mr. Khan routed the two longstanding major parties, defying a monthslong military crackdown on their own party and delivering a sharp rebuke to the country’s generals.

The election results set off days of political jockeying. As P.M.L.N. and the P.P.P. discussed joining forces, the country waited to see if Mr. Khan, who is serving multiple jail sentences on charges he says are politically motivated, could pull off another upset and form a coalition of his own.

While Tuesday’s announcement confirms that members of Mr. Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or P.T.I., will sit in the opposition in Parliament, they will be far from sidelined, potentially posing a serious challenge to the coalition government.

P.T.I. has accused the military of tampering with the vote count in dozens of races and has promised a long, bruising court battle to challenge the results. For many Pakistanis, those accusations damage the legitimacy of Mr. Sharif’s coalition, which P.T.I. leaders have accused of forming a government with “stolen votes.”

The P.M.L.N. announcement on Tuesday that the coalition would nominate Mr. Sharif to serve as prime minister ended days of speculation over whether he or his older brother, Nawaz Sharif, a three-time prime minister, would lead the next government.

The younger Mr. Sharif, 72, led a coalition government after Mr. Khan’s ouster by Parliament in 2022. He is seen as more deferential to the military than is his brother, who has fallen out with the country’s generals multiple times after pushing for more civilian control of the government.

Putting forward the younger Mr. Sharif as prime minister suggests that the military will retain its tight grip on the country’s politics from behind the scenes, analysts say.

The previous coalition government led by Mr. Sharif was deeply unpopular and criticized for failing to address an economic crisis that has sent inflation to record highs in recent years. The country’s economy has been surviving on a $3 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund.

“It will be an uphill task for Shehbaz Sharif’s government,” said Muneeb Farooq, a Lahore-based political analyst. “The expected economic turnaround which everyone keeps talking about is far from reality.”

P.M.L.N. leaders said that the elder Mr. Sharif’s daughter, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, will be nominated to lead the provincial government in Punjab Province, the home of the Sharif political dynasty and where it has recently faced a strong challenge from P.T.I.

The move was seen as an effort by the elder Mr. Sharif to pass on the party’s baton to his daughter.

Asif Ali Zardari, a co-chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party, and officials from several other smaller parties expressed support for Shehbaz Sharif to form the next government after the leaders held a meeting in Islamabad, the capital, late on Tuesday night.

“We will take Pakistan out of difficult times,” said Mr. Zardari, who is expected to be the country’s next president, a largely ceremonial post. His wife, Benazir Bhutto, was a two-time prime minister of Pakistan and was assassinated in 2007.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/14/worl ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

A Feared Ex-General Appears Set to Become Indonesia’s New Leader

Prabowo Subianto was ejected from the military on accusations of rights abuses. Now, he is projected to win the country’s presidency outright in the first round.


Prabowo Subianto, who has coveted the Indonesian presidency for decades and has tried on different public personas to court voters, greeting supporters on Wednesday in Jakarta. Credit...Oscar Siagian/Getty Images

Indonesia’s defense minister, a feared former general who was removed from the army after he was found responsible for the kidnapping of political dissidents, appeared to be on track to win the presidential election outright on Wednesday, casting doubts on the future of one of the world’s most vibrant democracies.

The candidate, Prabowo Subianto, had a commanding lead in the three-way race for president, with more than 58 percent of the vote, according to unofficial tallies that have a history of accurately predicting the final results. The two other presidential candidates said it was too early to declare a winner.

If the projections are confirmed, Indonesia — the world’s third-largest democracy — will be left contending with a president who has said that the country needs neither elections nor democracy, who was barred from entering the United States for two decades because of his human rights record and who was long associated with Indonesia’s former dictator, Suharto.

The era of liberty that followed the ouster of Suharto, critics say, could now be under threat with Mr. Prabowo’s ascent to power.

On Wednesday night, supporters of Mr. Prabowo chanted his name as he gave his victory speech in the capital, Jakarta.

“This victory must be a victory for all the Indonesian people,” Mr. Prabowo said.

The election in Indonesia matters far beyond its borders. The world’s fourth-most-populous country, it is of growing strategic importance to both the United States and China. Indonesia is one of the world’s top producers of coal, palm oil and nickel, and it sits atop the supply chains of many international companies. All of that means it will have a major bearing on the future of the climate change crisis, as well.

Mr. Prabowo has coveted the presidency for decades and has tried on different public personas to court voters. But what finally pushed him over the line was the implicit support of the popular outgoing president, Joko Widodo, whose son Gibran Rakabuming Raka is Mr. Prabowo’s running mate.


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A couple appear to be getting instructions from election workers at what appears to be an outdoor polling station. There is a large crowd observing them.

Gibran Rakabuming Raka and his wife, Selvi Ananda, at a polling station in Solo City on Wednesday. Mr. Gibran, the son of President Joko Widodo, was Mr. Prabowo’s running mate.Credit...Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images

By co-opting Mr. Prabowo, critics say, Mr. Joko showed the lengths to which he was willing to go to maintain his influence on Indonesian politics after his second five-year term in office ends. Democratic norms in Indonesia have eroded during Mr. Joko’s time in power. He has stripped down the powers of an anti-corruption agency, rammed through a contentious labor law and, more recently, appeared to engineer the placement of Mr. Gibran on the ballot for vice president.

“In the past Indonesia’s declining democracy has been closely related to the suppression of civil liberties, but with the deterioration in the quality of elections and intervention from those in power, I think we are now in a bad situation,” said Yoes C. Kenawas, a politics researcher at Atma Jaya Catholic University.

Such concerns have not filtered down to most Indonesians, who have largely prospered under Mr. Joko’s ambitious infrastructure and welfare projects. Surveys have consistently shown that they want someone to continue his legacy — and that is how Mr. Prabowo pitched himself in this election.

Indonesia is an important outlier in a region where the will of the people is often ignored. Even though democracy is widely considered to be imperfect here, many Indonesians have embraced it as a way of life. Elections in the last three decades have been considered free and fair, and voters say they do not want a return to the days of Suharto — Mr. Prabowo’s former boss and ex-father-in-law.

Polling stations across thousands of islands spread across three time zones were open for just six hours. Tens of millions of people voted, celebrating what is known in the country as “Pesta Demokrasi,” or Democracy Party.

It can take weeks for the authorities to declare official ballot counts, given the expanse of Indonesia. But results can be apparent hours after the polls close, thanks to so-called quick counts, in which independent polling companies tally ballots from a sampling of polling places nationwide.

For the past few months, surveys showed Mr. Prabowo was ahead of his opponents, Anies Baswedan, former governor of Jakarta; and Ganjar Pranowo, former governor of Central Java. The platforms of the three candidates did not differ significantly, experts said, but Mr. Prabowo’s strongman bona fides set him apart.

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Two men standing on a stage during a campaign rally packed with people.

A presidential candidate, Ganjar Pranowo, left, who was running against Mr. Prabowo. Credit...Ulet Ifansasti for The New York Times

Following Suharto’s 1998 ouster, Mr. Prabowo was discharged from the Indonesian military after the armed forces found he was involved in the abduction and torture of pro-democracy activists. More than a dozen remain missing and are feared dead.

Mr. Joko played a crucial role in the rehabilitation of Mr. Prabowo, whom he named defense minister in 2019. Then last fall, Mr. Gibran, 36, joined forces with Mr. Prabowo, 72, who aggressively courted the massive youth vote — people younger than 40 accounted for more than half of all eligible voters — with a slick social media campaign that sought to rebrand him as a gemoy, or cuddly, grandfather.

“I want Jokowi’s program to continue,” said Albertus Andy, 49, a motorcycle taxi driver in Jakarta, speaking after he voted for Mr. Prabowo. “And since he cannot do three terms, then for his son to continue.”

Mr. Joko’s maneuvering rattled some of his supporters. Many could not understand why a man who benefited from direct democracy now has dynastic desires. Mr. Joko had been expected to support Mr. Ganjar, one of the other presidential hopefuls and the candidate from Mr. Joko’s party.

“For our friends in the U.S., it’s as if Obama suddenly decided to support Trump while still endorsing a Democrat program,” said Andi Widjajanto, who resigned as a strategist for Mr. Joko in October and began working for Mr. Ganjar.

In October, Mr. Joko’s brother-in-law cast the deciding vote in the Constitutional Court’s decision to lower the age of vice-presidential candidates, allowing Mr. Gibran to join the race. An uproar followed, but Mr. Joko doubled down in recent weeks, saying that “a president is permitted to endorse candidates and take sides.” The message to many was unmistakable. By his side was Mr. Prabowo.

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A group of men in batik shirts, with one of them holding a microphone.

Mr. Prabowo, left, and Mr. Gibran, center, who could run in the election only after the minimum age was lowered.Credit...Ulet Ifansasti for The New York Times

His statement fueled another outcry, prompting Mr. Joko to appear on YouTube holding up a poster and pointing to passages from the 2017 General Elections Law stating that presidents are allowed to participate in campaigning. “Don’t interpret it otherwise,” he said.

But legal experts said Mr. Joko was selectively quoting the law, which also states that he must take a leave of absence if he wants to campaign.

It is far from clear what Mr. Joko’s influence will be on Indonesian politics after he leaves office and if his son becomes vice president. Compared to the president, the vice president has limited power. But whoever holds the post is next in line if the president dies.

“I don’t expect Prabowo will allow Jokowi to carry too much influence,” said Natalie Sambhi, executive director at Verve Research, a group that studies the relationship between militaries and societies. “Now, the question becomes, if Prabowo starts to steer Indonesia in a different direction from Jokowi’s vision, what will happen?”

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A streetside poster showing Mr. Joko’s sons, Mr. Gibran and Kaesang Pangarep.

A poster of Mr. Joko’s sons, Mr. Gibran and Kaesang Pangarep. Critics of the current government say that Indonesia’s democracy is on the line in the election.Credit...Ulet Ifansasti for The New York Times

Mr. Jokowi “used to be the hope of the people; he is now no longer a leader, but a ruler, an official who is building dynastic politics,” said Maria Sumarsih, 71. Ms. Maria’s son was killed by security forces in November 1998 during a student protest at his university.

Todung Mulya Lubis, who campaigned for Mr. Joko a decade ago and served as Indonesia’s ambassador to Norway, said that “enjoying power with all the attachments to it” was probably something that had changed his former boss.

“He may have his power continue by proxy,” said Mr. Todung, who is advising Mr. Ganjar’s legal team. But he added: “Being a leader of this pluralistic country, he should understand that democracy limits his power.”

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A handful of people in a rooftop pool overlooking a campaign rally.

An election rally for Mr. Ganjar in Central Java.Credit...Ulet Ifansasti for The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/13/worl ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

Senegal Must Hold Election After All, Top Court Rules

The president of the West African country had postponed a coming election, but the country’s constitutional court said the vote must take place as soon as possible.


Demonstrators protesting against President Macky Sall’s decision to postpone a national election, in Dakar, Senegal, last week.Credit...Stefan Kleinowitz/Associated Press

Senegal’s constitutional court ruled on Thursday that a national election that had been postponed by the president must take place as soon as possible, throwing the West African country’s political future into fresh doubt.

The court, the country’s highest, said that while it is now impossible to hold an election in 10 days’ time — the vote had initially been planned for Feb. 25 — the balloting should be held by the earliest feasible date.

Less than two weeks ago, President Macky Sall issued a decree indefinitely postponing the balloting, pending an investigation into corruption allegations in the constitutional court. Just a couple days later, the country’s Parliament decided to delay the vote by nearly 10 months, setting Dec. 15 as the date.

But the court’s ruling on Thursday declared the law passed by Parliament to be against the Constitution and ordered that Mr. Sall’s decree delaying the election be canceled.

“Neither the president of the republic nor Parliament can postpone a presidential election,” the ruling said, adding that only the court had that power. The precise date could be adjusted to make up for the campaigning days lost, it said.

As the highest judicial authority in the land, the constitutional court has the final decision in the matter, and to abide by the ruling, Mr. Sall must now allow political campaigns to begin, organize the coming election and step down by April 2, when his term comes to an end.

In a social media post, the Senegalese writer Felwine Sarr called it “a historic decision.”

As of Thursday night, it was not clear what the president’s next move would be in response to the ruling. Should he disregard the court’s decision, Senegal would enter a period of “radical uncertainty,” said Ndongo Samba Sylla, a Senegalese development economist.

But Mr. Sall has already raised questions about the integrity of the constitutional court itself, saying that allegations of corruption against some of its judges needed to be investigated. This was the principal reason given for delaying elections.

Long considered a bastion of stability and democracy among coup-prone neighbors in the strip of countries south of the Sahara known as the Sahel, Senegal has been shaken by the events of the past few weeks. Ahead of the vote in Parliament, opposition lawmakers were thrown out of the chamber by the police, after which the bill passed with a vote of 105 to 1.

For years, Mr. Sall refused to say whether or not he would seek a third term — the Constitution limits presidents to two — but last July, he pledged to step down when his second term ended, and his prime minister, Amadou Ba, was named as the ruling party candidate.

But Mr. Ba was considered unlikely to win the election in the first round, experts predicted, even with a major opposition leader, Ousmane Sonko, in jail and out of the running.

After Mr. Sall’s decree, analysts had asked whether the president was trying to buy time to find a more popular successor, or whether he aimed to retain power himself beyond December.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/15/worl ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

America is economically thriving but politically dysfunctional. We have the material, technological and military resources to remain the world’s leading superpower, but the current Congress is unable to make decisions about basic issues, like how to fix the immigration system or what role we should play in the world.

What do we have to do to rectify this situation? Well, a lot of things, but one of them is this: More of us have to embrace an idea, a way of thinking that is fundamental to being a citizen in a democracy.

That idea is known as value pluralism. It’s most associated with the British philosopher Isaiah Berlin and is based on the premise that the world doesn’t fit neatly together. We all want to pursue a variety of goods, but unfortunately, these goods can be in tension with one another. For example, we may want to use government to make society more equal, but if we do, we’ll have to expand state power so much that it will impinge on some people’s freedom, which is a good we also believe in.

As Damon Linker, who teaches a course on Berlin and others at the University of Pennsylvania, noted recently, these kinds of tensions are common in our political lives: loyalty to a particular community versus universal solidarity with all humankind; respect for authority versus individual autonomy; social progress versus social stability. I’d add that these kinds of tensions are rife within individuals as well: the desire to be enmeshed in community versus the desire to have the personal space to do what you want; the desire to stand out versus the desire to fit in; the cry for justice versus the cry for mercy.

If we choose one good, we are sacrificing a piece of another. The tragic fact about the human condition is that many choices involve loss. Day after day, the trick is figuring out what you are willing to sacrifice for the more important good.

Sure, there are some occasions when the struggle really is good versus evil: World War II, the civil rights movement, the Civil War. As Lincoln argued, if slavery is not wrong then nothing is wrong. But these occasions are rarer than we might think.

I think I detest Donald Trump as much as the next guy, but Trumpian populism does represent some very legitimate values: the fear of imperial overreach; the need to preserve social cohesion amid mass migration; the need to protect working-class wages from the pressures of globalization.

The struggle against Trump the man is a good-versus-bad struggle between democracy and narcissistic authoritarianism, but the struggle between liberalism and Trumpian populism is a wrestling match over how to balance legitimate concerns.

Berlin had a word for people who think there is one right solution to our problems and that therefore we must do whatever is necessary in order to impose it: monists. Berlin was born in pre-revolutionary Russia and came of age in the 1930s, when two monist philosophies were on the march, Marxism and fascism. They claimed to be all-explaining ideologies that promised an ultimate end to political problems.

Today, monism takes the form of those on the left or right who see all political conflicts as good and evil fights between the oppressors and the oppressed. The left describes these conflicts as the colonizer versus the colonized. The Trumpian right describes these conflicts as the coastal elites, globalists or cultural Marxists. But both sides hold up the illusion that we can solve our problems if we just crush the bad people.

We pluralists resist that kind of Manichaean moralism. We begin with the premise that most political factions in a democratic society are trying to pursue some good end. The right question is not who is good or evil. The right question is what balance do we need to strike in these circumstances?

In the 1980s, I thought the chief worry was economic sclerosis and that Reagan/Thatcher policies, including tax cuts, were the right response. Now I think the chief worry is inequality and social fragmentation, and I think the Biden policies, including tax increases, are the right response.

We pluralists believe that conflict is an eternal part of public life — we’re always going to be struggling over how to balance competing goods — but it is conflict of a limited sort, a debate among patriots, not a death match between the children of light and the children of darkness. In our view, Congress is supposed to be the place where these kinds of balances are struck, the place where different sorts of representatives meet to weigh interests and strike compromises. It’s not supposed to be a place where representatives destroy compromises so they can go on TV taking some ideologically pure stance.

Pluralism is a creed that induces humility (even among us pundits, who are resistant to the virtue). A pluralist never believes that he is in possession of the truth, and that all others live in error. The pluralist is slow to assert certainty, knowing that even those people who strenuously denounce him are probably partially right. “I am bored by reading people who are allies,” Berlin once confessed.

Berlin went to strenuous lengths to argue that pluralism is not relativism. It’s not the belief that we all get to have our own truth. It’s the belief that objective truths exist, but unfortunately, in political life, they don’t fit into one frictionless whole.

He was more interesting when writing about specific people — like Machiavelli or Churchill — than when writing about abstract ideas. That captures something deeply humanistic about his worldview: that at the center there is always the searcher, struggling with ironies and incongruities, always trying empathetically to understand other minds, always trying to keep his head while others are losing theirs.

Berlin argued that if there were a final set of solutions, “a final pattern in which society could be arranged,” then “liberty would become a sin.” But there are no final right answers to political questions, so history remains a conversation that has no end.

Many American voters reward politicians who offer them a holy war. If there were more pluralists, we’d elect more people interested in gradually and steadily making life better.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/15/opin ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

An Election Shatters the Image of Pakistan’s Mightiest Force

Pakistanis once thought of the military as the iron hand controlling the country’s politics. That illusion has been broken, creating one of the establishment’s biggest crises yet.


Supporters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan at a protest in Karachi, Pakistan, on Saturday. The country’s military is accused of rigging vote counts in this month’s election. Credit...Fareed Khan/Associated Press

The intimidating myth of an all-powerful military in Pakistan has been smashed in public view.

The first cracks began to appear two years ago, when thousands of Pakistanis rallied alongside an ousted prime minister who had railed against the generals’ iron grip on politics. A year later, angry mobs stormed military installations and set them aflame.

Now comes another searing rebuke: Voters turned out in droves this month for candidates aligned with the expelled leader, Imran Khan, despite a military crackdown on his party. His supporters then returned to the streets to accuse the military of rigging the results to deny Mr. Khan’s allies a majority and allow the generals’ favored party to form a government.

The political jockeying and unrest have left Pakistan, already reeling from an economic crisis, in a turbulent muddle. But one thing is clear: The military — long respected and feared as the ultimate authority in this nuclear-armed country of 240 million people — is facing a crisis.

Its rumblings can be heard in once unthinkable ways, out in the open, among a public that long spoke of the military establishment only in coded language.

“Generals should stay out of politics,” said Tufail Baloch, 33, a protester in Quetta, a provincial capital in the country’s restive southwest.

“The military should focus on combating terrorism, not managing the elections,” said Saqib Burni, 33, who demonstrated in Karachi, the country’s most cosmopolitan city.

No one thinks that the military, with its lucrative business interests and self-image as the backbone holding together a beleaguered democracy, will cede power anytime soon. And even after this election, in which Mr. Khan’s allies won the most seats, the generals’ preferred candidate from another party will become prime minister.

But after the outpouring of voter support for Mr. Khan — and the botched effort at paralyzing his party — an overwhelming swell of Pakistanis now view the military as yet another source of instability, analysts say.

As the military’s legitimacy is tested, the country is waiting to see how the army’s chief, Gen. Syed Asim Munir, will respond.

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Three people are seen in shadow as they stand atop shipping containers that are blocking a road. The sky is dark and hazy.

A demonstration in Islamabad in 2022 after Mr. Khan was ousted from power.Credit...Farooq Naeem/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Will the military exert an even heavier hand to silence the uproar and quash questions about its authority? Will it reconcile with Mr. Khan, who is widely seen in the top military ranks as a wild card who could turn the public tide back in its favor? Or will the military stay the course and risk having the unrest spiral out of its control?

“This is the biggest institutional crisis that the military has ever faced in Pakistan,” said Adil Najam, a professor of international affairs at Boston University. “It is not just that their strategy failed. It’s that the ability of the military to define Pakistan’s politics is now in question.”

Since Pakistan’s founding 76 years ago, the generals have either ruled directly or been the invisible hand guiding politics, driven by a view that politicians are fickle, corrupt and insufficiently attuned to existential threats from archrival India and the wars in Afghanistan.

But after a mounting public outcry forced the country’s last military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to resign in 2008, the military’s power calculus changed. While true democracy had proved unstable, ruling the country directly opened the military up to too much public scrutiny. Allowing civilians to be elected in democratic votes — while still steering the policies that mattered — could insulate the military from public criticism, or so the thinking went among top brass.

The result was a veneer of democracy that had all the trappings of participatory politics — elections, a functioning Parliament, political parties — but none of the heft. For a decade, prime ministers came and went, ushered in when the military favored them and forced out when they stepped out of line.

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A person stands in a polling station, most of which is dark with shadow.

Voting in Islamabad this month. Allies of Mr. Khan won the most seats despite a military crackdown.Credit...Gabrielle Fonseca Johnson/Reuters

The fallout from the ouster in 2022 of Mr. Khan, a populist leader who pitched himself as an alternative to the country’s entrenched political dynasties, torpedoed that uneasy status quo. Once a darling of the military, Mr. Khan blamed the generals for his removal, popularizing once unimaginable rhetoric among the country’s huge population of young people that the military was a malevolent force in politics.

“There is a new generation that doesn’t see the military as something that rescues them from bad politicians — it is seen as an institution which is in fact part of the trouble,” said Ayesha Siddiqa, author of “Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy.”

The military’s response to Mr. Khan’s resurgent public support was bungled at best — and severely miscalculated at worst, analysts say.

The state censorship machine could not keep up with the flood of viral videos on social media spreading Mr. Khan’s anti-military messages. Arrests and intimidation of military veterans and those in the country’s elite who backed Mr. Khan only seemed to isolate the military from one of its key support bases and drive voters to cast ballots just to spite the generals.

As Mr. Khan was slapped with multiple lengthy prison sentences days before the vote, it deepened people’s sympathy for him, instead of demoralizing them and keeping them home on Election Day, analysts and voters said.

The military’s strategies “completely backfired,” said Aqil Shah, a visiting professor at Georgetown University and author of “The Army and Democracy: Military Politics in Pakistan.” “They miscalculated the amount of resentment and backlash against what the military was doing and the other parties that were seen as being in collusion with it.”

In the days after the election, the military’s favored party of the moment, led by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, announced that it had cobbled together a coalition with the country’s third-largest party and others to lead the next government.

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People stand side by side on a terrace. One person, Nawaz Sharif, is holding a microphone.

The party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, center with microphone, is set to lead a coalition government even after finishing behind Mr. Khan’s allies in the election.Credit...Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters

But as candidates aligned with Mr. Khan won the most seats, it proved to Pakistanis that there are limits to the military’s power to engineer political outcomes. And any social legitimacy that the military had left, analysts say, was eroded by widespread allegations of vote tampering to narrow the winning margins among Mr. Khan’s allies.

For now, most expect the generals to stay the course and back the government led by Mr. Sharif’s party, hoping the uproar subsides. But in the months and years to come, they will need to rebuild public trust to stabilize the country, and they have few good options.

Should the current unrest boil over, analysts say, the military may use an even heavier hand to reassert its authority, like imposing martial law. But when the generals have exerted their authority forcibly in the past, they have tended to do so with the public’s support at times of growing exasperation with elected governments.

General Munir or his successor could strike a deal with Mr. Khan to bring him back into politics in the hope that it quells the unrest. While many in the military’s top ranks view Mr. Khan as self-involved and an unreliable partner, his cultlike following could be used to change public opinion about the military.

Though Mr. Khan has portrayed himself as a martyr for democracy, most analysts believe that he would embrace the military and its role in politics again if he was allowed to return to the political scene. But, so far, General Munir has appeared to be steadfast about keeping Mr. Khan out of politics.

The only certainty, experts agree, is that the military’s prominent role in politics is here to stay — as is the instability that the country has been unable to shake.

“What’s unfolding in front of us is something that will lead to a new model of the military’s relationship with politics and society,” Mr. Najam, the professor at Boston University, said. “We don’t know what that will be. But what we know is that the military will remain a force in politics.”

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A truck, with the image of a military leader painted on its back, drives down a busy road.

The army’s chief, Gen. Syed Asim Munir, depicted on a truck in Islamabad.Credit...Farooq Naeem/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Christina Goldbaum is the Afghanistan and Pa

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/21/worl ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

Opposition Leader in Chad Is Killed in a Shootout Months Before Elections

Yaya Dillo, who was expected to run for president in May, was killed along with many others in a gun battle in the capital, the national prosecutor said.


The death of Yaya Dillo — a former rebel who was the cousin of the country’s president, as well as his most vocal critic — leaves a void in Chad’s opposition.Credit...Issouf Sanogo/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The main opposition leader in the central African nation of Chad was killed on Wednesday in a shootout at his party headquarters in the capital, the country’s prosecutor has announced.

Yaya Dillo, who had been expected to run for president in an election planned for May, was among dozens of people killed and injured in an exchange of gunfire with security forces in Ndjamena, the capital. Heavy gunfire was heard in Ndjamena on Wednesday, and the internet was cut off.

A landlocked, desert country surrounded by neighbors battling insurgencies, plagued by coups or at war, Chad has long been seen as a linchpin for stability and is an important U.S. ally in the region, despite its political travails.

After its longtime president, Idriss Déby, was killed on the battlefield in 2021, his son took power in what analysts agree was a coup d’état. But Western nations did not condemn the move to the same extent that they did coups in neighboring Niger and Sudan.

The death of Mr. Dillo — a former rebel who was the cousin of the country’s president, as well as his most vocal critic — leaves a void in Chad’s political opposition less than three months before national elections are set to be held.

Chadian officials said previously that there had been an attack on the country’s National Security Agency, and accused Mr. Dillo’s party, the Socialist Party Without Borders, of being behind it — which Mr. Dillo denied.

In a news conference broadcast on national television on Thursday, Oumar Mahamat Kedelaye, the national prosecutor, accused Mr. Dillo of heading a band of armed men that had launched an attack on the intelligence agency.

“This well-armed group in 11 vehicles attacked the National Security Agency, and this attack led to dozens of people wounded, and deaths, among them Yaya Dillo,” Mr. Kedelaye said.

But the fight between Mr. Dillo’s party and the authorities went further back: last week, the government said the headquarters of the Supreme Court had been ransacked, and later accused one of Mr. Dillo’s party members of trying to assassinate the court’s president. Mr. Dillo dismissed the purported ransacking as “staged.”

Amnesty International raised concerns about the government’s version of events.

Mr. Kedelaye’s statement “does not yet clarify the sequence of events between the attack on the Supreme Court more than 10 days ago and the death of Yaya Dillo,” said Abdoulaye Diarra, Amnesty International’s researcher on Central Africa.

The incident shows how fragile the political process is heading into the upcoming presidential election, said Mr. Diarra, who called on the government to investigate impartially.

As of Thursday afternoon in Ndjamena, there was no comment from either the United States or France — both important partners to Chad in the fight against terrorism.

In recent months, Chad’s president, Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno — known as Mahamat Kaka — has been trying to consolidate his power ahead of elections. He brought another opposition leader, Succès Masra, into the government as prime minister.

Mr. Masra offered his condolences to Mr. Dillo’s family via Facebook on Thursday after what he described as the “unhappy events” over the last few days.

Right up until the end, Mr. Dillo had also been communicating via Facebook. In one of his last posts, he wrote that he and his men were being surrounded.

“Soldiers are encircling us,” he wrote.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/29/worl ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

Voters enraged by a violent crackdown on protesters and disaffected by the failure of elections to yield substantive changes are vowing to make a statement by staying home during Friday’s elections.


A large billboard in Tehran encouraging people to vote in parliamentary elections this week. With widespread disaffection, turnout could be as low as 15 percent, one government poll said.Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times

As Iran prepares for a parliamentary election on Friday, calls to boycott the vote are turning it into a test of legitimacy for the ruling clerics amid widespread discontent and anger at the government.

A separate election on Friday will also decide the membership of an obscure, 88-member clerical body called the Assembly of Experts, which selects and advises the country’s supreme leader, who has the last word on all key state matters. While it normally operates behind the scenes, the assembly has the all-important task of choosing a successor to the current, 84-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has ruled Iran for more than three decades.

Iran’s leaders view turnout at the polls as a projection of their strength and power. But a robust vote appears unlikely with these elections taking place amid a slew of domestic challenges and a regional war stemming from the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza that has come to include Iran’s network of proxy militias.

Analysts say Iranians have also lost confidence in elections after repeatedly voting for reformist lawmakers and presidents who pledged changes in foreign and economic policy and more individual rights that mostly failed to materialize.

A government poll cited last week by Khabaronline, an Iranian news outlet, projected turnout of about 36 percent nationally and only about 15 percent in Tehran. (The site said it withdrew the report under orders from the government.) By comparison, more than 70 percent of Iran’s 56 million eligible voters cast ballots for the reformist President Hassan Rouhani in 2017.

Mr. Khamenei on Wednesday urged Iranians to vote even if they are not satisfied with the status quo, stressing that voting was tantamount to protecting the country’s national security.

“If the enemy sees a weakness in Iranians in the field of national power, it will threaten the national security from various angles,” Mr. Khamenei said in a speech that was broadcast on state television. “Not voting has no benefits.”

But opponents disagree. Many prominent politicians, activists and the jailed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi have called on Iranians to boycott the vote to demonstrate that they no longer believe change is possible through the ballot box.

“The Islamic Republic deserves national sanctions and global condemnation,” Ms. Mohammadi said in a statement from her cell posted on social media. Sitting out elections, she added, “is not only a political necessity but also a moral duty.”

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Fliers of candidates for the upcoming parliamentary and Assembly of Experts elections at a bus stop in Tehran. Iranians say they have lost hope of achieving significant changes through elections.Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times

A group of 300 prominent activists and politicians, including former lawmakers and a former Tehran mayor, signed a joint statement calling the elections a farce because of the strict vetting of candidates that predetermined the elections’ outcomes. The government was “engineering the elections to confront the will of the people,” the statement said, adding that the signatories were refusing to participate in the “staged event.”

The main source of Iranians’ anger toward the government is its violent crackdown on demonstrations led by women and girls in 2022 and 2019 that killed hundreds of protesters, including teenagers and children, and the jailing of dissidents, students and activists.

That added fuel to longstanding grievances over government corruption and economic mismanagement that, along with foreign, nuclear and military policies that have impeded efforts to lift economic sanctions that are dimming Iranians’ prospects of earning a decent living.

Analysts say voter turnout in the elections will be an important measure of the government’s popularity and, by extension, its power.

“The elections are important for two reasons,” said Sanam Vakil, director of Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House. “First, we are returning to popular protest through not participating in elections, and second, how low the vote will be could tell us something about the power base of the Islamic Republic.”

Even with low voter turnout, however, the conservative faction is expected to maintain its grip on the Parliament because its candidates are running largely uncontested. An appointed body called the Guardian Council, which vets all the parliamentary candidates, eliminated nearly all those who could be considered independent, centrist or reformist. Over 15,000 candidates were approved to run for 290 seats, including five slots for religious minorities, for a four-year term that begins in May.

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Woman waving Iran’s flag and pictures of the country’s leaders.

Elections will also be held for the Assembly of Experts, the obscure body that will name a successor to the current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times

The Reform Front, a coalition of parties that generally favor more social freedoms and engagement with the West, announced that it was not participating in the election because all its candidates had been disqualified and that it could not endorse any of the council’s approved candidates.

“At this moment, we have no space to maneuver and we have no choice,” Javad Emam, the spokesman for the Reform Front, said in an interview. “The relationship between the people and the state and the politicians has been seriously and deeply damaged.”

In Tehran, election posters and banners erected around the city this week by the authorities equated voting with nationalism and love for Iran — but not the Islamic Republic. “High participation = A strong Iran” and “Decide for Iran,” read two of the banners seen in photographs and videos in the Iranian news media.

Campaign rallies in Tehran have lacked the typical fervor of previous elections. In many places candidates delivered speeches to small crowds surrounded by rows of empty seats, according to videos on social media and witnesses. Outside the campus of Tehran University this week, election campaigners set up a microphone and invited passers-by to speak freely but they were refuted with dismissive shrugs and angry cursing, one witness reported.

Many Iranians dismissed the whole exercise as a waste of time. “It doesn’t matter who comes and who goes and who takes power — I have absolutely no hope of fixing this system, nor do I know a way to reform it through the existing constitution,” said Alireza, a 46-year-old scriptwriter in Tehran who asked that his last name not be published out of fear of retribution.

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People looking at books being sold on a street in Tehran.

Posters for the parliamentary elections behind a street vendor selling books in Tehran.Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times

Vahid Ashtari, a prominent conservative who has exposed financial corruption and nepotism among senior Iranian officials and faced prosecution, has labeled elections “sarekari,” a Persian slang term for duping or tricking someone. He said in a statement on the social media platform X that outside the bubble of campaigning “people are living their lives” and could not care less about which candidate was running under which coalition.

Campaign events seemed to attract larger crowds in some smaller cities, where politics are more local and politicians are known through their clans. In Yasuj, a small city in southwest Iran, videos on social media showed a conservative candidate joining an impromptu dance party and energetically rallying the crowd of men and women — a clear bending of the rules that ban public dancing.

Some supporters of the government said their decision to vote was an act of defiance against the naysayers and Iran’s traditional enemies, Israel and the United States.

“I will vote and invite everyone around me to vote as well,” Rasoul Souri, 42, who works in a government agency in Tehran, said in a telephone interview. “When we participate in the election, the development of our country will disappoint our enemies.”

Analysts say Iran’s efforts to avoid war during the current tensions in the region are tied to its domestic dynamics. Mr. Khamenei, they said, does not want to risk external confrontations that could destabilize Iran domestically at a politically sensitive time, particularly when the issue of his succession, and by default the future of the Islamic Republic, is being quietly discussed.

The election for the Assembly of Experts could prove consequential, given its role in naming the next supreme leader. But a vetting process that disqualified a former reformist president, Hassan Rouhani, from seeking re-election to a seat he had held for more than two decades indicated to analysts that Mr. Khamenei’s successor will be a conservative.

“Given the high stakes there will be no margin for error for Iran’s ruling elite,” said Nader Hashemi, a professor of Middle East politics at Georgetown University. “Stage managing this election to ensure a loyal assembly will be a top national security priority for the Islamic Republic.”

Leily Nikounazar contributed reporting from Belgium.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/29/worl ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

Parliament’s election of Shehbaz Sharif for a second term follows a month of political turmoil. The new government faces economic troubles and questions of legitimacy.


Shehbaz Sharif in Lahore, Pakistan, in February. His party currently has the military’s support.Credit...Arif Ali/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Pakistan’s newly elected Parliament approved Shehbaz Sharif as prime minister on Sunday, ushering in his second term in that role and capping weeks of upheaval — as well as setting into motion a government facing economic and political challenges that are likely to leave the country in turmoil for years to come.

His selection also brings to a crossroads the role of Pakistan’s powerful military, which has long been seen as an invisible hand guiding the country’s politics and has previously engineered its election results. Analysts say that public confidence in Mr. Sharif’s government is low.

“The government is being seen as foredoomed,” said Talat Hussain, a political analyst based in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital.

Mr. Sharif secured 201 votes in the national assembly, while his closest rival, Omar Ayub, a supporter of the imprisoned former prime minister Imran Khan, got 92.

Before the voting began, Mr. Sharif arrived in the main hall accompanied by his older brother, Nawaz, who was also elected as a member of the national assembly. The two brothers sat together in the front row, a reminder that the elder Sharif, himself a three-time prime minister, remains influential and is likely to wield power behind the scenes.

The proceedings started with a loud protest in support of Mr. Khan. Several Khan supporters sat in front of the speaker’s dais to chant slogans; many others waved pictures of Mr. Khan, as they, too, shouted slogans in support of the cricket star turned politician.

Mr. Sharif’s party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, which he leads with his family and which is currently the military’s preferred party, did not win the most seats in the national elections that Pakistan held a month ago. That honor went to candidates aligned with a party led by Mr. Khan, which the military had sought to sideline.

Despite that upset — a searing rebuke to the military — the P.M.L.N. was able to cobble together a coalition with other major parties to lead the government.

Yet Mr. Sharif’s government will face lingering doubts over its legitimacy after mounting accusations that the military tampered with the vote count in dozens of races to tilt them in favor of his party and away from Mr. Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.

Najam Sethi, a prominent Pakistani political analyst, said the longevity of the Sharif coalition government depended on support from the military chief.

“As things stand, the military leadership and the coalition parties have no option but to stick together because both stand to lose if one falters. As long as Gen. Asim Munir is army chief, the Shehbaz-led government will survive bouts of instability,” Mr. Sethi said.

Another challenge: The country’s economy has teetered on the brink of collapse for years, with inflation reaching a record high last spring. A bailout from the International Monetary Fund has kept the economy afloat, but that program is set to expire this month, and the new government will need to secure another long-term I.M.F. plan.

Any possible deal — which Aqdas Afzal, an economist based in Karachi, said would need to be “in the neighborhood” of $6 billion to $8 billion — will most likely require new austerity measures that could stoke public frustration.

Image
A group of men, many holding large green and red flags, stand close together.

Supporters of the party led by former Prime Minister Imran Khan protested in Karachi, Pakistan, on Saturday.Credit...Rehan Khan/EPA, via Shutterstock
In Parliament, leaders of Mr. Khan’s party have also promised to serve as a powerful opposition — and possible spoiler.

“Our priority will be to get our leaders released and bring them to the Parliament,” Mr. Ayub said, referring to Mr. Khan and Shah Mahmood Qureshi, a former foreign minister, who is also imprisoned.

The party’s supporters, energized by election success, may also take to the streets to press the government to release Mr. Khan, who is serving multiple sentences on charges that include leaking state secrets. Mr. Khan has vowed to appeal those convictions, which he says are politically motivated, and his party has promised legal challenges to some of the election results.

The new prime minister, speaking after Sunday’s vote, said the country faced huge challenges but also had opportunities. Noting that the economy remained the key challenge, he vowed to bring in investment and create a business-friendly environment.

Mr. Sharif, whose first term as prime minister came after lawmakers ousted Mr. Khan in a no-confidence vote in April 2022, is known for efficient management. He oversaw several big infrastructure projects as the chief minister of Punjab, the country’s largest province.

In contrast to his brother Nawaz, who was prime minister for three terms and has fallen out with the country’s generals several times, Mr. Sharif has been deferential toward the military. In his previous term as prime minister, the military further entrenched its role in the government and increased its influence over policy-making.

In June 2023, Mr. Sharif approved the creation of a government council intended to attract foreign investment, a move widely seen as an effort by the military to have a more direct say in economic policies. The army chief, General Munir, is a member of that body, the Special Investment Facilitation Council.

Mr. Sharif also approved a policy under which the country’s intelligence agency was given the power to approve or deny government officials’ appointments and postings. That has amplified its pervasive sway over not only politics but also the civil service, analysts say.

In the wake of the election upset, analysts say the military’s future role is an open question. But most agree that a weak civilian government will make it easier for the generals to reassert their control and wield an even heavier hand politically if they choose.

“Civil-military relations in Pakistan — including relations between the military and society — will not be, cannot be, the same as they had been,” said Adil Najam, a professor of international affairs at Boston University. “What they will become is what is on the minds of every political player in Pakistan and has to be topmost on the minds of the top brass of Pakistan’s military, too.”

A correction was made on March 3, 2024: An earlier version of this article misstated the date of the founding of the Special Investment Facilitation Council. It was June 2023, not 2021.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/03/worl ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

Venezuela Announces Election Date, With Opposition Candidate Still Banned

The decision to hold a vote on July 28 is a partial fulfillment of a commitment to the United States, but with the top opposition figure barred, many wondered how free and fair the balloting would be.


The government of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, shown at a rally last week, has set elections for July.Credit...Federico Parra/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Venezuelan officials announced on Tuesday that national elections that many had hoped would forge a path toward democracy will be held on July 28.

But the decision on a date comes a month after the country’s highest court barred the leading opposition candidate from the ballot, leading many to question how free and fair the summer election would be.

Still, the announcement from the government of President Nicolás Maduro is at least a partial fulfillment of a commitment to the United States to hold elections this year in exchange for a lifting of crippling economic sanctions.

In October, Mr. Maduro signed an accord with the country’s opposition and agreed to work toward a free and fair presidential vote. In the agreement, Mr. Maduro said he would hold an election before the end of this year, and the United States in turn lifted some sanctions as a sign of good will.

But just days later, Mr. Maduro watched as an opposition candidate, María Corina Machado, won more than 90 percent of the vote in a primary election, organized by the opposition and without the involvement of the government. The decisive results emphasized her popularity and raised the prospect that she could beat him in a general election.

Since then, Mr. Maduro’s government has declared Ms. Machado ineligible to run, over what it claimed were financial irregularities that occurred when she was a national legislator, and arrested several members of her campaign. Men on motorbikes have attacked supporters at her events.

The temporary easing of U.S. sanctions on the oil and gas sector is set to expire on April 18, and the Biden administration could choose then to reimpose them.

Tuesday’s announcement “makes it crystal clear that Venezuela will not have free and fair elections this year” and “all but guarantees that the Biden administration will snap back sanctions,” said Geoff Ramsey, a senior fellow for Venezuela at the Atlantic Council, a research institution based in Washington.

Chavismo, the socialist-inspired movement that Mr. Maduro heads, has controlled Venezuela for 25 years. Mr. Maduro came to power in 2013 after the death of his predecessor, President Hugo Chávez, and he stayed in power following a 2018 election whose results were widely considered fraudulent. That election was followed by a period of international isolation, in which many countries followed the lead of the United States in refusing to conduct business with Venezuela.

The date of the coming election, July 28, is Mr. Chávez’s birthday. The announcement came on the date of his death, March 5.

The choice is probably intended to leverage Mr. Chávez’s legacy to bolster the electability of Mr. Maduro, who is deeply unpopular, according to Phil Gunson, an analyst with International Crisis Group, who is based in the country’s capital, Caracas.

Opposition candidates have until March 25 to register. It is unclear if Ms. Machado’s party will try to insist on her candidacy or if it will look to unite around another candidate.

A fractured opposition will probably be a boon to Mr. Maduro’s candidacy.

“The combination of a divided opposition, heavy abstention and weak opponents gives him the best chance of winning without having to commit fraud,” Mr. Gunson said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/05/worl ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

As Putin Pitches His Vision, Voters Avert Their Gaze From the War
Vladimir V. Putin, casting himself as the only leader able to end the war in Ukraine, is all but assured another term in a rubber-stamp election this weekend.


President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia with members of a youth organization at the Russia 2024 Expo in Moscow last month, in a photo released by Russian state media.Credit...Alexander Kazakov/Sputnik

Vladimir V. Putin’s vision of Russia — successful, innovative and borderless — is on display at one of Moscow’s biggest tourist attractions, a Stalin-era exhibition center that currently houses a sleek showcase called Russia 2024. The exhibition promotes what the Kremlin portrays as Russia’s achievements in the past two decades, roughly the period Mr. Putin has been in power, and his promises for the future after he secures another six-year term in rubber-stamp elections this weekend.

The exhibition is in many ways a microcosm of a country whose people largely — at least in public — avert their gaze from the big and bloody war in Ukraine that Mr. Putin started more than two years ago.

The centerpiece is a grand hall housing pavilions featuring all the Russian regions, including five illegally annexed from Ukraine. Visitors to one pavilion are greeted by two LED screens displaying tulip fields that portray the region of Belgorod, which borders Ukraine, as calm and peaceful.

That is increasingly at odds with the reality of regular air raid sirens and deadly Ukrainian missile and drone strikes on the city, including one on Thursday that killed two people and injured 19.

At the Crimea pavilion, throngs of visitors pose with men dressed as Roman legionnaires next to a video boasting about the bridge connecting the peninsula, which was illegally annexed in 2014, to the Russian mainland. There is no mention of the Ukrainian attack in 2022 that blew a hole in the bridge, or the frequent threats that lead to the closing of the bridge for hours at a time.

It is a cognitive dissonance many Russians have adopted, celebrating the motherland and accepting the government’s triumphal narrative — even as Mr. Putin has become a pariah in much of the Western world, domestic prices rise and the Russian army suffers a staggering number of casualties in Ukraine.

“People have spent these two years in this weird state where you basically have to choose to ignore a major tragedy,” said Greg Yudin, a Russian sociologist and research scholar at Princeton University. “Most people understand what is going on but they still have to pretend nothing is happening. This is a deeply traumatic experience.”

A group of men lift a coffin over a pile of dirt.

Family and friends in the village of Ovsyanka, Russia, in November, participating in the burial of a Russian soldier who was killed in Ukraine.Credit...Nanna Heitmann for The New York Times

Neither the war nor the recently annexed Ukrainian territories were mentioned by expo visitors approached by a New York Times journalist on a recent visit.

“It’s maybe not a masterpiece, but it showed Russia just as it is,” said Maria, a 42-year-old water-sanitation engineer attending the exhibit with her colleague Elena, 63. Both women were effusive about what they saw, but they were hesitant to share their full names with a foreign journalist for fear of reprisal.

Mr. Putin has visited the exhibition four times, and his presence is everywhere in quotations displayed across many of the pavilions.

“The borders of Russia don’t end anywhere,” read one quote at the exhibit for the occupied Kherson region in Ukraine. On a recent afternoon, a woman posed in front of the quote, flexing her biceps as a man photographed her.


Russia’s 2024 Presidential Vote: What to Know https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/14/worl ... pe=Article
March 14, 2024

With the Russian election apparatus controlled by the Kremlin, Mr. Putin is assured of being declared the landslide victor over three other candidates in voting that begins Friday and ends on Sunday night. Already in power since 1999, if he serves his term to completion, Mr. Putin will become the longest-serving Russian leader since Empress Catherine the Great in the 1700s.

The vote comes as Russians are winning on the battlefield amid waning support for Ukraine in the United States. Mr. Putin has of late adopted a tone of confidence, reassuring Russians that life will be normal while taking an increasingly antagonistic posture toward the West, which he portrays as a threat to Russia’s very existence.

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Two men stand near a large poster promoting the election.

Members of a local electoral commission setting up a polling station in Moscow on Thursday. The Kremlin controls the country’s election apparatus.Credit...Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters

The Russia 2024 exhibit is part of what leaked Kremlin documents obtained by Delfi, an Estonian news outlet, refer to as a domestic “information war,” whose budget is at least $690 million.

The documents, shared with The Times and other news organizations, reveal extensive expenditures on media and film projects intended to build support for the war, known in Russia as the “special military operation,” and the occupation of parts of eastern Ukraine.

For now, the Kremlin’s “information war” seems to be reaping dividends. Attendees expressed awe and joy at the exhibition, a sign that the selective vision of Russia pushed by the Kremlin two years into the full-scale invasion of Ukraine still has traction with many ordinary citizens.

Last month, in a poll by the independent Levada Center, 75 percent of respondents said that the country was moving in the right direction — more than at any time since the question was first asked in 1996.

Another poll by Levada showed that fewer than one in five Russians “believe they have the power to change anything” in their country. Still, most Russians “still believe they are living in a democracy,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Moscow.

One of the few reminders of the war at Russia 2024 was a pavilion that married two of the Kremlin’s core policy priorities: the militarization of society and “patriotic education” for school-age youth.

“The Army for Children” welcomed kids with cartoon animals in uniform. Children were invited to practice operating state-of-the-art drones, sit in a virtual-reality flight simulator and play a video game called Counter-Strike.

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A child sits in front of monitors displaying virtual drone images.

Children using a drone simulator at the Russian Defense Ministry’s pavilion at the expo.Credit...Natalia Kolesnikova/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Nationwide, the Kremlin has sought to turn both the trauma and the drama of the war into opportunities. Military parades and school programs featuring war veterans have been staged to boost national pride and a patriotic spirit.

Mr. Putin has promised to prioritize servicemen and women, announcing a new program called “Time of Heroes” in his annual state-of-the-union address last month. Its goal is to give veterans and soldiers a chance to become part of a “special personnel training program” for developing professionals.

As Russia reorients its economy to serve the war, the Kremlin is “creating a new middle class,” Mr. Kolesnikov, the Carnegie analyst, said.

Still, Russians remain anxious about the war, said Mr. Yudin, the Princeton sociologist. It is an uncertainty that oddly has the effect of drawing voters to Mr. Putin.

“There are fears about what will happen if we don’t win: We will be humiliated, everyone will be prosecuted, we will have to pay huge reparations — and basically put under foreign control,” Mr. Yudin said. “These fears are fueled by Putin, who has also positioned himself as the only one who can end the war.”

That is in large part because the Kremlin has suppressed every candidate who has called for an end to the war. One of them, Yekaterina Duntsova, a former TV host, was disqualified from running late last year. Boris B. Nadezhdin, another antiwar candidate, garnered more than 100,000 signatures of support but was disqualified for what the election commission called “irregularities.”

The vote this weekend will also take place without any independent oversight; the country’s primary election-monitoring group, Golos, has been designated a “foreign agent” by the Ministry of Justice, and its co-founder, Grigory Melkonyants, has been jailed.

Image
Boris B. Nadezhdin in a jacket and glasses.

Boris B. Nadezhdin was disqualified from running for president for what the election committee called “irregularities.”Credit...Natalia Kolesnikova/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Image
Ekaterina Duntsova wearing a blazer.

Yekaterina Duntsova, a former TV host, was also barred from being a candidate.Credit...Maxim Shemetov/Reuters

Mr. Putin’s biggest rival, the opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny, died on Feb. 16 in an Arctic penal colony under mysterious circumstances.

His gravesite on the outskirts of Moscow has become a pilgrimage destination for an estimated tens of thousands of Russians who preferred his vision for the “beautiful Russia of the future” over Mr. Putin’s war, mobilization and nuclear threats.

Many antiwar Russians, at home and in exile abroad, are unsure whether to take part in a sham election that is neither free nor fair.

Before his death, Mr. Navalny called on opposition-minded people to go to their polling station on Sunday at noon to protest. The turnout will be the first test of his legacy and of the anger and momentum accumulating since his funeral — whether the desire to protest outweighs the fear of reprisal.

On Thursday, the Moscow prosecutor’s office warned that the protests were illegal and that organizing or participating in them would be considered acts punishable by up to five years in prison.

Back at the Russia 2024 exhibition, Elena, the water-sanitation engineer, said she was ambivalent about voting. “Maybe I’ll vote, because things are going really well right now,” she said, before quickly stopping herself.

“But of course, we hope that all of this will end well,” she said in an oblique reference to the war. “The people really want this to end.”

Valerie Hopkins covers the war in Ukraine and how the conflict is changing Russia, Ukraine, Europe and the United States. She is based in Moscow. More about Valerie Hopkins

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/15/worl ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

With New Six-Year Term, Putin Cements Hold on Russian Leadership

A rubber-stamp presidential election with no real competition allows Vladimir Putin to claim strong public support for his domestic dominance and the invasion of Ukraine.


A presidential election poster in Moscow on Sunday. Credit...Nanna Heitmann for The New York Times

President Vladimir V. Putin on Sunday extended his rule over Russia until 2030, using a heavily stage-managed presidential election with no real competition to portray overwhelming public support for his domestic dominance and his invasion of Ukraine.

Some Russians tried to turn the undemocratic vote into a protest, forming long lines at polling stations at a predetermined time — noon — to register their discontent. At the same time, Ukraine sought to cast its own vote of sorts by firing a volley of exploding drones at Moscow and other targets.

But the Kremlin brushed those challenges aside and released results after the polls closed claiming that Mr. Putin had won 87 percent of the vote — an even higher number than in the four previous elections he participated in.

Afterward, Mr. Putin took a lengthy, televised victory lap, including a swaggering, after-midnight news conference at which he commented on the death of the imprisoned opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny for the first time, referring to it as an “unfortunate incident.”

Mr. Putin is now set to use his new six-year term to further cement his control of Russian politics and to press on with the war in Ukraine. If he sees the term through to its end, he will become the longest-serving Russian leader since Catherine the Great in the 1700s.

Western governments were quick to condemn the election as undemocratic. Adrienne Watson, a spokeswoman for President Biden’s National Security Council, said “the elections were obviously not free nor fair.”

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The Russian leader, photographed from behind, standing at a lectern on a blue floor. The walls are also blue.

A photo provided by Russian state media showing President Vladimir V. Putin at his campaign headquarters in Moscow on Sunday.Credit...Pool photo by Mikhail Metzel

But as Mr. Putin prepares to assume a fifth term as president, he appears as emboldened as ever, deepening his confrontation with the West and showing a willingness to keep escalating tensions. Asked at the news conference whether he believed that a full-scale conflict between Russia and NATO was possible, Mr. Putin responded: “I think that anything is possible in today’s world.”

Despite the condemnation from the West, the Kremlin views these elections as a ritual crucial to Mr. Putin’s portrayal of himself as a genuinely popular leader. Analysts now expect him to elevate hard-line supporters of the war within the Russian government, betting that Western support for Ukraine will eventually crumble and Ukraine’s government forced to negotiate a peace deal on Russia’s terms.

Asked about his priorities for his next term, Mr. Putin began by referring to his invasion of Ukraine. “We need to carry out the tasks in the context of the special military operation,” he said. The results, he said, have helped “consolidate society” around his leadership, a refrain also repeated on state television.

The extent of the Russian public’s true support for Mr. Putin in the election was hard to judge, given that opposition candidates were barred from running and that ballot-stuffing and other cases of fraud were common occurrences in past Russian elections. This was also the least transparent election in recent Russian history, with the work of independent poll observers reduced to levels not seen since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

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A young man casting a ballot as other people look on.

A polling station in Moscow on Sunday.Credit...Nanna Heitmann for The New York Times

More than five million votes were reported to have come from Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine, where people were at times directed to cast their votes under the watch of armed Russian soldiers; in Ukraine’s occupied Donetsk region, Mr. Putin was reported to have received 95 percent of the vote.

In the last presidential election, in 2018, Mr. Putin’s official result was 78 percent of the vote — some 10 points lower than this weekend.

Grigorii Golosov, a political scientist in St. Petersburg, said in a phone interview that he was surprised by the high share of the vote the Kremlin claimed, describing it as “characteristic of extremely closed autocracies.”

“They can declare any results they want, given that the process is not transparent,” Mr. Golosov said. “All that these results speak to is the degree of control over the electoral system, the election process, that the Russian authorities have attained.”

For the first time in a Russian presidential election, the vote lasted for three days, from Friday to Sunday — an extended period that made it easier for the Kremlin to drive up turnout, and harder for anyone to spot fraud.

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A billboard portraying soldiers.

An army recruitment poster in Moscow on Saturday.Credit...Nanna Heitmann for The New York Times

Ever since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Russian authorities have mounted a campaign of repression unseen since Soviet times, effectively criminalizing any form of antiwar speech.

And some voters interviewed in Moscow said they were proud to have voted for Mr. Putin, repeating a narrative that is a staple of Russian state television. The president, they said, had turned Russia into a prosperous, respected world power that has been forced into military conflict with a Western-armed Ukraine.

“I’m proud of my country and my president,” Irina, 59, said near a polling station on central Moscow’s Kutuzovsky Avenue, declining to give her last name when speaking to a Western reporter. “He elevated us globally to the extent that he won’t let anyone offend us.”

Ukraine repeatedly tried to undermine Mr. Putin’s image as a leader protecting Russia by launching attacks throughout the voting period.

On Sunday, Russian officials said that Ukraine had targeted seven regions of the country with exploding drones, and the Russian military said it had shot down 35 of them. An oil refinery was set on fire in the Krasnodar region of southern Russia and air defense forces shot down two drones flying toward Moscow, Russian officials said.

But there was little evidence that the assaults — which were largely ignored by state media — had succeeded in puncturing Mr. Putin’s aura among his supporters.

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People standing near a gravesite heaped with flowers.

The grave of the Russian opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny in Moscow on Sunday.Credit...Nanna Heitmann for The New York Times

Pyotr, 41, a marketing specialist in Moscow, expressed pride that Mr. Putin could outwit and outlast Western adversaries. “Against the background of these under-presidents, the Macrons and so on,” he said, referring to President Emmanuel Macron of France, Mr. Putin “looks like such a celestial being.”

The other three candidates on the presidential ballot were all members of the State Duma, Russia’s rubber-stamp Parliament, and had voted for the war in Ukraine, for increased censorship and for laws curbing gay rights.

With Mr. Putin’s best-known critics in prison or in exile, one little-known opponent of the war, Boris B. Nadezhdin, did manage to collect tens of thousands of signatures in an attempt to get on the ballot. But the government invalidated enough of the signatures last month to bar him, citing what it called “irregularities.”

Still, Russia’s embattled and largely exiled opposition managed to use the elections to mount an unusual protest: Putin opponents were encouraged to line up at their polling station at noon local time on Sunday. While it was hard to judge how many voters chose that time to express their discontent, one polling station near Moscow’s famed Tretyakov Gallery was relatively quiet before a long line formed suddenly at noon.

“This is our protest — we don’t have any other options,” said Lena, 61, who came to a polling station in central Moscow before noon intending, she said, to spoil her ballot. “All of us decent people are hostages here.”

Like other voters interviewed, she declined to provide her last name, for fear of reprisal.

Image

Voters line up outside a polling station in Moscow at noon on Sunday as part of a protest against Putin.Credit...Nanna Heitmann for The New York Times

The noontime lines were even longer in cities with large Russian diasporas — like Belgrade, Serbia, and Yerevan, Armenia — where the Russian Embassy served as a polling station. By 1 p.m. in Berlin, the line to vote snaked for roughly a mile through the city streets, ending just past the spot where a sign marked the location of Hitler’s World War II bunker.

Yulia Navalnaya, Mr. Navalny’s widow, waited in the line for roughly six hours, making one of her first public appearances since declaring that she would carry on her husband’s political work after he died last month. She said after leaving the Russian Embassy that she had written “Navalny” on her ballot.

Ms. Navalnaya hugged and took photographs with supporters who approached her, some of them in tears.

Yulia Lozovskaya, 29, who moved to Germany from St. Petersburg after Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, said she had sought out Ms. Navalnaya after learning from social media that she was standing somewhere in the line.

“You feel you’re not alone,” Ms. Lozovskaya said, referring to the size of the crowd. “And that gives enormous strength.”

Reporting was contributed by Alina Lobzina, Valerie Hopkins, Anatoly Kurmanaev and Milana Mazaeva.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/17/worl ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

Anti-authority narratives could tear 'fabric of society,' intelligence report warns


Anti-authority narratives could tear 'fabric of society,' intelligence report warns
© Provided by The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — Threats against politicians have become "increasingly normalized" due to extremist narratives prompted by personal grievances and fuelled by misinformation or deliberate lies, warns a newly released intelligence report.

The report, prepared by a federal task force that aims to safeguard elections, says the Canadian violent extremist landscape has seen the proliferation of conspiracy theories, a growing lack of trust in the integrity of the state and more political polarization.

Baseless theories, disinformation and misinformation have spread to larger audiences, exposing online users to a vast network of narratives that undermine science, systems of government and traditional figures of authority, the report says.
"Violent rhetoric routinely fixates on elected officials — with particular hostility towards high-profile women."

The Canadian Press used the Access to Information Act to obtain the June 2023 report by the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force. Some passages in the "Secret / Canadian Eyes Only" assessment were considered too sensitive to release.

The federal body, established in 2019 to protect the electoral process from foreign interference, includes representatives of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the RCMP, Global Affairs Canada and the Communications Security Establishment, Canada's cyberspy agency.

Recommended video: New definition enables ‘protection’ from extremist activity (Dailymotion)

The report notes that while domestic terrorism threats are not strictly part of the task force's focus on foreign meddling, "we recognize the need to provide assessments on this issue."

The task force weighed the possible threat from violent extremism driven by politics, religion and ideology. It concluded that of the three, a Canadian federal election would "most likely be impacted" by ideologically motivated violent extremism.

There is no "one-size-fits-all" worldview for ideological extremism, the report says. Rather, "threat actors" are driven by a range of grievances, ideas and highly personalized narratives from across the traditional left-to-right-wing spectrum, often deeply influenced by conspiracy theories.

Grievances may be fuelled by elements including xenophobia, gender-related issues or general anti-government sentiment.

It says while threats against politicians peak during election cycles or major political announcements, RCMP information showed that monthly and annual averages had remained relatively stable since September 2021.

Ideologically motivated violent extremists "have increasingly normalized threats against prominent public figures outside the election cycle," the report concludes.

All threats to the prime minister and other parliamentarians reported to the RCMP are triaged and assessed for a link to national security, the task force adds. About 20 per cent of reported threats to the prime minister and 13 per cent of those against parliamentarians between September 2021 and mid-2023 met the RCMP's national security threshold.

While extremist narratives and conspiracy theories do not usually manifest themselves as an act of serious violence, "they have the potential to negatively affect the fabric of Canadian society," the report says.

The RCMP did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

CSIS spokesman Eric Balsam said the 2023 assessment "remains unchanged."

CSIS director David Vigneault told a House of Commons committee this month the spy service is devoting about half of its counter-terrorism resources to investigate the threat of ideologically motivated violent extremism. "We've seen a number of the threat vectors increasing," he said.

The task force report says anti-authority extremists have "almost certainly leveraged" social media posts about foreign interference in Canadian elections to "reinforce pre-existing narratives around the inherent corruption of government institutions in Canada."

However, a narrative on the scale of the "stolen election" rhetoric that prompted the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol has not emerged in the Canadian political landscape, the report notes.

On the question of foreign interference, a broader companion report says that as of last June the task force had seen no evidence of a significant cyberthreat to Canadian electoral processes or election infrastructure from state actors.

Political parties, candidates and their staff continue to be targeted by cyberthreat activity, however, and this may take the form of online espionage, disinformation or fabricated videos known as deepfakes, the report adds.

Overall, the task force says "sophisticated, pervasive and persistent" meddling efforts constitute a serious threat to Canada's national security and the integrity of its democratic institutions.

For certain foreign states, foreign interference activities "are part of their normal patterns of behaviour in Canada and often peak during election periods."

Such interference, given its clandestine or deceptive nature, often takes place in a legal grey zone, where there are no laws regulating the activities or where interpretation of them is ambiguous, the report adds.

Canada is a high-priority foreign interference target due to its role in key global alliances and bodies, enjoying a "robust international reputation" that can be used or co-opted to help legitimize foreign state interests.

In addition, Canada's advanced, knowledge-based economy is attractive to foreign states seeking to develop their own scientific and technological expertise, the report says. Finally, Canada is home to large diaspora communities, which some foreign states try to monitor, control or use to futher their own strategic goals.

"Foreign states develop important relationships in Canada year round to further their own political platforms, and will use these relationships to their advantage notably around election time."

Under a federal protocol, the heads of key national security agencies would inform a special panel of senior bureaucrats of an interference attempt during an election period.

There would be a public announcement if the panel determined that an incident — or an accumulation of incidents — threatened Canada's ability to have a free and fair election.

There was no such announcement in 2021 or concerning the 2019 election. In both ballots, the Liberals were returned to government with minority mandates while the Conservatives formed the official Opposition.

Allegations of foreign interference in these elections — suggestions fuelled by anonymous leaks to the media — led to a chorus of calls for a public inquiry.

The commission of inquiry, led by Quebec judge Marie-Josée Hogue, resumes hearings on Wednesday.

The hearings will focus on the substance of allegations of foreign interference by China, India, Russia and others in the last two general elections.

The commission will hear from over 40 people, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, members of his cabinet, senior government officials, diaspora communities, political party representatives, Elections Canada and the office of the commissioner of Canada elections.

An initial report of findings from the commission is due May 3.

The inquiry will then shift to broader policy issues, looking at the ability of the government to detect, deter and counter foreign interference targeting Canada's democratic processes. A final report is expected by the end of the year.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 24, 2024.

Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/a ... 4670&ei=67

[kmaherali]

Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who turned 44 on Monday, was little known until he received the backing of Ousmane Sonko, Senegal’s most formidable opposition politician. Both men were released from jail only 10 days ago.


Supporters of Bassirou Diomaye Faye and the opposition leader Ousmane Sonko celebrating in Dakar on Sunday.Credit...John Wessels/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

With the concession of his main rival, a young political outsider backed by a powerful opposition figure has won a surprise outright victory in Senegal’s presidential election only 10 days after being released from jail.

Bassirou Diomaye Faye is the anointed candidate of Senegal’s popular and controversial opposition politician Ousmane Sonko. Mr. Faye’s main rival, the governing party candidate Amadou Ba, conceded in a statement congratulating his rival on Monday for winning in the first round.

Mr. Faye, who celebrated his 44th birthday on Monday, will become the West African country’s youngest ever president, and the youngest elected president currently serving in Africa. (There are younger leaders, but they came to power by force.) He had been jailed on charges of defamation and contempt of court, and was awaiting trial.

“I wish him a lot of success, for the well-being of the Senegalese people,” Mr. Ba said in a statement released Monday afternoon that addressed Mr. Faye as president.

The national electoral commission has not yet announced the tally, but Mr. Ba’s concession followed reports by local media that Mr. Faye had won more than 50 percent of the vote, ruling out a runoff.

Mr. Faye and Mr. Sonko have captivated young people by excoriating political elites, pledging to renegotiate contracts with oil and gas companies, and promising “monetary sovereignty” — Senegal is one of 14 countries that use the CFA, a currency pegged to the euro and backed by France.

Mr. Ba, who stepped down as prime minister in order to campaign, was backed by Senegal’s president, Macky Sall. Mr. Sall had served two terms, and for years refused to say whether he would try for a third. He threw the country into chaos when he suddenly called off the election, which was supposed to happen in February, and then, almost as suddenly, changed course.

On Monday, Mr. Sall also congratulated Mr. Faye, saying that the smooth election was a “victory for Senegalese democracy” — a democracy that the outgoing president’s critics had accused him of trying to subvert.

Senegal, a mainly Muslim country of 17 million people, has a history of peaceful transfers of power since gaining independence from France in 1960.

Residents of Dakar, Senegal’s coastal capital, began celebrating at 8 p.m. on Sunday, before many polling stations had even had a chance to count the contents of their ballot boxes. People danced, waved flags, and piled into cars and onto motorcycles, sounding a cacophony of horns and shouting “Get out, Amadou Ba!” as they raced through the streets.

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Mr. Faye holds up two fingers in a “V” as a gaggle of photographers holding up cameras capture the moment.

Mr. Faye after casting his ballot at the École Ndiandiaye polling station in Ndiaganiao, Senegal, on Sunday.Credit...Seyllou/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

And at midnight, supporters began to sing “Happy Birthday” to Mr. Faye, who has gone from obscurity to winning the presidency in a few short months.

But Mr. Faye was not the only winner. Many Senegalese casting their ballots for him saw him merely as a proxy for Mr. Sonko, 49, a fiery orator who was jailed and barred from running, and who tapped Mr. Faye to run in his place.

Mr. Faye is a former tax collector who was jailed on charges of defamation and contempt of court, after he accused magistrates of persecuting Mr. Sonko, who was himself convicted of defamation and, separately, of corrupting a minor, after he was accused of raping a young massage parlor employee.

Mr. Sonko has been eager to emphasize that a vote for Mr. Faye, known to many as Diomaye, was a vote for him.

“Diomaye is Sonko,” read ubiquitous posters bearing the two men’s youthful, glowing faces.

The two men have very different styles. In contrast with Mr. Sonko’s bombast, Mr. Faye is soft-spoken and serious, some who know him say. He is a keen soccer player who grew up in his family village near the city of Mbour and has two wives. He worked for 15 years in Senegal’s civil service.

“Many young Senegalese identify with him,” said Babacar Ndiaye, a political analyst at the West Africa Think Tank. He said that Mr. Faye had worked extensively on the party’s political program, and had earned a reputation for being ethical and hard-working. When Mr. Sonko chose him to be the presidential candidate in his place, Mr. Ndiaye said, “Everyone thought it was the right choice.”

Mr. Faye has pledged to reduce presidential powers, to make the judiciary more independent, and to reform land ownership. He has also said he will “change the CFA” — the regional currency — though it is unclear whether he and Mr. Sonko intend to reform or replace it.

The election Sunday unspooled peacefully, with many voters arriving early at polling stations and lining up quietly to cast their ballots.

It was in stark contrast to the previous two months, during which it was often unclear whether the poll would take place at all.

In early February, Mr. Sall stunned the nation when he called off the election, saying that there were allegations of corruption that needed investigation at the constitutional council, the country’s highest court.

Then the police occupied Parliament, throwing out opposition lawmakers so that legislation confirming Mr. Sall’s decision could be pushed through. The presidential election was postponed until December.

In the uproar that followed, the constitutional council ruled the delay unlawful, and Mr. Sall performed a U-turn. He agreed to hold the election quickly, and even released Mr. Sonko and Mr. Faye from jail, allowing them a quick-fire 10-day campaign.

Many observers saw the turn of events as proof of the resilience of democracy in Senegal, a country in a tough neighborhood. A string of West African countries — like Niger, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Mali — have experienced coups in recent years, and Senegal has been held up as an outpost of democracy and relative political stability.

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Supporters of Mr. Faye burned a shirt bearing the picture of Amadou Ba in Dakar, on Sunday.Credit...Zohra Bensemra/Reuters

Opposition candidates conceded one by one Sunday night through to Monday, congratulating Mr. Faye.

Over the past five years Mr. Sonko has grown his following significantly by excoriating Senegal’s political elites and evoking the vague but charged concept of “sovereignty,” aiming his rhetoric at Senegal’s abundant youth — half of the population is under 19.

And the youth have responded. Thousands have taken to the streets in support of Mr. Sonko, dozens of them losing their lives at the hands of the police.

Despite the crackdowns, young people have continued to show their support for what many simply call “the project” — Mr. Faye’s and Mr. Sonko’s plan for the country.

“I know with the project, many things will change,” said Abalaye Diop, 27, a motorcycle taxi driver who lives in Medina, a busy Dakar neighborhood, on Monday afternoon. “It will be different from the power of Macky Sall.”

Mr. Ba’s camp initially insisted that the result would at worst be a runoff. But by Monday afternoon, in his concession, he wished Mr. Faye the “energy and strength required” to do the job.

His comments echoed some of Mr. Sonko’s, made during a briefing shortly after getting out of jail.

“Once we are in power there will be a lot of challenges,” he said. “People will demand a lot from us, and we owe them a lot.”

Mady Camara contributed reporting.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/25/worl ... 778d3e6de3

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The four I’s

By many measures, President Biden is very unpopular. Since at least World War II, no president has had a worse disapproval rating at this point in his term.

Relative to his international peers, however, Biden looks much better. Many leaders of developed democracies have disapproval ratings even higher than Biden’s, as this chart by my colleague Ashley Wu shows:



A chart shows disapproval ratings for leaders in select developed democracies like the U.S., Germany, Britain and Japan. Most leaders shown have a disapproval rating of over 50 percent.

Source: Morning Consult | Data was collected from Feb. 26 to March 6, 2024. | By The New York Times

Many world leaders are also up for re-election. More than 60 countries — half of the world’s population — will vote or have voted this year. Most of the countries in the chart above will vote in national or European Union elections in the coming months.

Why are people so upset with their leaders? Some explanations are local, but four global issues have driven much of the public’s anger. Call them the four I’s: inflation, immigration, inequality and incumbency.

1. Inflation

The world has seen a sharp increase in prices over the past few years. As bad as inflation has been in the U.S., it has been worse in European countries more directly affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Rising prices anger voters. Your hard-earned money is worth less. “When prices rise, it feels like something is taken away from you,” my colleague Jeanna Smialek, who covers the U.S. economy, has said. And people direct much of that anger toward their leaders.

People also don’t like the solution to inflation. To slow price increases, central banks have raised interest rates. But higher interest rates also make loans, credit card payments and mortgages more expensive. This helps explain why people are so upset even as inflation has fallen.

2. Immigration

The U.S. and Europe have dealt with multiple migration and refugee crises in the past decade. Those crises have fueled anger against the more mainstream political parties that tend to be in charge in developed countries.

More immigration can have advantages, particularly for growing economies and reducing inflation. But for many people, other considerations win out. They worry that immigrants use government resources, take jobs, lower wages and change their country’s culture. Illegal immigration, in particular, upsets them by contributing to a broader sense of chaos and lawlessness.

And they blame their leaders for it. Sometimes, they will support once-fringe, far-right candidates — as happened in the Netherlands and Italy in the last couple years. These politicians often want to shut down most, if not all, immigration.

“There are a lot of people who are not right-wing themselves, but they really care about immigration,” said Sonnet Frisbie, deputy head of political intelligence at the polling firm Morning Consult. “They feel like centrist and center-left parties don’t represent their views.”

3. Inequality

Across the world, the rich have captured a growing share of income. Big companies keep getting bigger. A few individuals have amassed more wealth than entire countries. Many people now believe that the wealthiest have pulled ahead while everyone else has lagged behind (although some economists disagree).

The growing sentiment has contributed to greater distrust of elites, including national leaders. People feel that those in charge have taken advantage of their power to enrich themselves and their friends. That distrust now appears in approval ratings.

4. Incumbency

Incumbents typically have an electoral advantage over challengers. But that advantage can diminish over time. Voters tend to tire of national leaders the longer they’re in power — what political scientists call “the cost of ruling.” Consider that two-term presidents in the U.S. are rarely succeeded by a president of the same party. The cost of ruling “is a remarkably consistent pattern across countries,” said Lee Drutman, a political scientist at New America, a liberal think tank.

Narendra Modi in a long white shirt and a black vest stands onstage and points up. A crowd is visible behind him.

Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister. Matthew Abbott for The New York Times

Many current world leaders, or at least their political parties, have been in power for a while. Japan’s top party has led the country for most of the last seven decades. Leaders or parties in France, Canada and Britain have ruled for seven to 14 years. In the U.S., Democrats have held the White House for 11 of the last 15 years.

The trend is not universal. India’s prime minister is popular after nearly a decade in office. Germany’s chancellor is unpopular despite coming to power a little more than two years ago. Still, the cost of ruling applies more often than not.

The bottom line

Over the past several years, the world has often felt chaotic and uncertain. Many people hoped that the end of the Covid pandemic would bring normalcy. Instead, inflation spiked. Longer-term problems, such as illegal immigration and inequality, persist. National leaders have struggled to address these issues, often despite many years in power. The result is widespread disapproval of the people running the world. And many of them are now at risk of losing their jobs this year.