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Tag: National elections

  • Ron DeSantis’s Joyless Ride

    Ron DeSantis’s Joyless Ride

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    Real-life Ron DeSantis was here, finally. In the fidgety flesh; in Iowa, South Carolina, and, in this case, New Hampshire. Not some distant Sunshine State of potential or idealized Donald Trump alternative or voice in the far-off static of Twitter Spaces. But an actual human being interacting with other human beings, some 200 of them, packed into an American Legion hall in the town of Rochester.

    “Okay, smile, close-up,” an older woman told the Florida governor, trying to pull him in for another photo. DeSantis and his wife, Casey, had just finished a midday campaign event, and the governor was now working a quick rope line—emphasis on quick and double emphasis on working. The fast-talking first lady is much better suited to this than her halting husband. He smiled for the camera like the dentist had just asked him to bite down on a blob of putty; like he was trying to make a mold, or to fit one. It was more of a cringe than a grin.

    “Governor, I have a lot of relatives in Florida,” the next selfie guy told him. Everybody who meets DeSantis has relatives in Florida or a time-share on Clearwater Beach or a bunch of golf buddies who retired to the Villages. “Wow, really?” DeSantis said.

    He was trying. But this did not look fun for him.

    Retail politicking was never DeSantis’s gift. Not that it mattered much before, in the media-dominated expanse of Florida politics, where DeSantis has proved himself an elite culture warrior and troller of libs. DeSantis was reelected by 19 points last November. He calls himself the governor of the state “where woke goes to die,” which he believes will be a model for his presidency of the whole country, a red utopia in his own image.

    From the May 2023 issue: How did America’s weirdest, most freedom-obsessed state fall for an authoritarian governor?

    What does the on-paper promise of DeSantis look like in practice? DeSantis has performed a number of these in-person chores in recent days, after announcing his presidential campaign on May 24 in a glitchy Twitter Spaces appearance with Elon Musk.

    As I watched him complete his rounds in New Hampshire on Thursday—visits to a VFW hall, an Elks Club, and a community college, in addition to the American Legion post—the essential duality of his campaign was laid bare: DeSantis is the ultimate performative politician when it comes to demonstrating outrage and “kneecapping” various woke abuses—but not so much when it comes to the actual in-person performance of politics.

    The campaign billed his appearance in Rochester as a “fireside chat.” (The outside temperature was 90 degrees, and there was no actual fire.) The governor and first lady also held fireside chats this week at a welding shop in Salix, Iowa, and at an event space in Lexington, South Carolina. The term conjures the great American tradition started by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression. Those were scary times—grim visages of malnourished kids and food riots and businessmen selling pencils on the street. FDR’s cozy evenings around the radio hearth were meant to project comfort and avuncular authority.

    Sitting on gray armchairs onstage in Rochester—Casey cross-legged and Ron man-spread—the DeSanti reassured their audience that the Florida governor was the candidate best equipped to protect Americans from contemporary threats no less serious than stock-market crashes and bank closures. He was focused on a distinct set of modern menaces: “woke indoctrination” and “woke militaries” and “woke mind viruses” and “woke mobs” that endanger every institution of American life. He used woke more than a dozen times at each event (I counted).

    Also, DeSantis said he’s a big supporter of “the death penalty for pedophiles” (applause); reminded every audience that he’d sent dozens of migrants to “beautiful Martha’s Vineyard” (bigger applause); and promised to end “this Faucian dystopia” around COVID once and for all (biggest applause).

    Also, George Soros (boo).

    Mark Leibovich: Just wait until you get to know Ron DeSantis

    Casey talked at each New Hampshire stop about the couple’s three young children, often in the vein of how adorably naughty they are—how they write on the walls of the governor’s mansion with permanent markers and leave crayon stains on the carpets. Ron spoke in personal terms less often, but when he did, it was usually to prove that he understands the need to protect kids from being preyed upon by the various and ruthless forces of wokeness. One recurring example on Thursday involved how outrageous it is that in certain swim competitions, a girl might wind up being defeated by a transgender opponent. “I’m particularly worried about this as the father of two daughters,” DeSantis told the Rochester crowd.

    This played well in the room full of committed Republicans and likely primary voters, as it does on Fox. Clearly, this is a fraught and divisive issue, but one that’s been given outsized attention in recent years, especially in relation to the portion of the population it directly affects. By comparison, DeSantis never mentioned gun violence, the leading cause of death for children in this country, including many in his state (the site of the horrific Parkland massacre of 2018, the year before he became governor). DeSantis readily opts for the culture-war terrain, ignoring the rest, pretty much everywhere he goes.

    His whole act can feel like a clunky contrivance—a forced persona railing against phony or hyped-up outrages. He can be irascible. Steve Peoples, a reporter for the Associated Press, approached DeSantis after a speech at a VFW hall in Laconia and asked the governor why he hadn’t taken any questions from the audience. “Are you blind?” DeSantis snapped at Peoples. “Are you blind? Okay, so, people are coming up to me, talking to me [about] whatever they want to talk to me about.”

    No one in the room cared about this little outburst besides the reporters (who sent a clip of it bouncing across social media within minutes). And if the voters did care, it would probably reflect well on DeSantis in their eyes, demonstrating his willingness to get in the media’s face.

    Yair Rosenberg: DeSantis is making the same mistake Democrats did in 2020

    Journalists who managed to get near DeSantis this week unfailingly asked him about Donald Trump, the leading GOP candidate. In Rochester, NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez wondered about the former president’s claim that he would eliminate the federal government’s “administrative state” within six months of a second term. “Why didn’t you do it when you had four years?” DeSantis shot back.

    In general, though, DeSantis didn’t mention Trump without being prompted—at least not explicitly. He drew clear, if barely veiled, contrasts. “I will end the culture of losing in the Republican Party,” he vowed Thursday night in Manchester. Unsaid, obviously, is that the GOP has underperformed in the past three national elections—and no one is more to blame than Trump and the various MAGA disciples he dragged into those campaigns.

    “Politics is not about building a brand,” DeSantis went on to say. What matters is competence and conviction, not charisma. “My husband will never back down!” Casey added in support. In other words: He is effective and he will follow through and actually do real things, unlike you-know-who.

    “Politics is not about entertainment,” DeSantis said in all of his New Hampshire speeches, usually at the end. He might be trying to prove as much.

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    Mark Leibovich

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  • Sudan’s generals, pro-democracy group ink deal to end crisis

    Sudan’s generals, pro-democracy group ink deal to end crisis

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    KHARTOUM, Sudan — Sudan’s coup leaders and the main pro-democracy group signed a deal Monday to establish a civilian-led transitional government following the military takeover last year. But key players refused to participate, and no deadline was set for the transition to begin.

    The framework — signed by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo and the leaders of the Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change — appears to offer only the broadest outlines for how the country will resume its progression to democracy. That process was upended in October 2021, when Burhan unseated the civilian half of Sudan’s ruling Sovereignty Council with Dagolo’s backing.

    Since the coup, international aid has dried up and bread and fuel shortages, caused in part by the war in Ukraine, have become routine, plunging Sudan’s already inflation-riddled economy into deeper peril. Security forces have ruthlessly suppressed near-weekly pro-democracy marches. Deadly tribal clashes have flared in the country’s neglected peripheries.

    It’s not clear whether or how quickly the deal signed Monday can offer a way out for Sudan, given that it appears to leave many thorny issues unresolved and doesn’t have the support of key political forces, including the grassroots pro-democracy Resistance Committees. That network’s leaders called for demonstrations against the agreement.

    Several former rebel leaders, who have formed their own political bloc, have also rejected the deal.

    Many of the points in a draft of the deal were already promised in a 2020 agreement that saw Sudan’s previous transitional government make peace with several rebels in Sudan’s far-flung provinces.

    According to the draft, the deal envisions Sudan’s military eventually stepping back from politics. The document says it will form part of a new ’’security and defense council” under the appointed prime minister. But it does not address how to reform the armed forces, saying only they should be unified and controls should be imposed on military-owned companies.

    It makes specific mention of Sudan’s wealthy paramilitary force, the Rapid Support Forces, headed by Dagalo. The force amassed wealth through its gradual acquisition of Sudanese financial institutions and gold reserves in recent years.

    It also does not address creating a transitional judiciary system or say when the transitional government will be put in place. Only then will a two-year transition officially begin — the end goal of which is elections.

    Analysts have cast doubt over whether the aims of the agreement are achievable, given its lack of detail on key issues and the boycott of key players.

    ‘‘Realistically none of these complex processes can be dealt with within a transitional time frame of two years,’’ said Kholood Khair, founder and director of Confluence Advisory, a think tank in Khartoum.

    Sudan has been plunged into turmoil since the coup threw off course a democratic transition that began after three decades of autocratic rule by President Omar al-Bashir. The former leader was toppled in April 2019, following a popular uprising.

    The U.N. special envoy to Sudan, Volker Perthes, attended Monday’s signing and later, at a speech at the palace, described the deal as ‘‘Sudanese-owned and Sudanese-led.’’

    Monday’s development came after months of negotiations between the military and the Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change, facilitated by a mediating team of the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Britain.

    In a joint statement issued after the signing, the four countries commended the agreement.

    “A concerted effort to finalize negotiations and reach agreement quickly to form a new civilian-led government is essential to address Sudan’s urgent political, economic, security, and humanitarian challenges,” the group said.

    The hope is the deal could draw in new international aid, after donor funds dried up in response to the coup.

    Sudan has also seen a sharp increase in inter-tribal violence in the country’s west and south. In the southern Blue Nile province, two days of clashes between the Berta and Hausa killed over 170 peopl e in October. Last month some 48 were killed in tribal clashes in Darfur. Many commentators have attributed the rising tribal violence to the power vacuum caused by last year’s military takeover and the subsequent political and economic crisis.

    ———

    Jeffery reported from Cairo.

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  • Mexico’s López Obrador leads massive pro-government march

    Mexico’s López Obrador leads massive pro-government march

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    MEXICO CITY — Hundreds of thousands of people marched in Mexico’s capital Sunday in a show of support for President Manuel López Obrador, who before assuming the presidency had led some of the country’s biggest protests.

    The “people’s march” marked four years in office for the leftist leader and was a response to a large opposition march two weeks ago to protest López Obrador’s proposal to reform the country’s electoral authority.

    The president himself led Sunday’s march through central Mexico City, which was accompanied by mariachi music, singing and a festive atmosphere. Many participants had been bused in from provinces across Mexico in trips organized by the ruling Morena party, unions and social groups.

    The opposition insisted that many participants were forced to join the march, but López Obrador said he had not put “a penny” of the federal budget into the march. Demonstrators questioned said they had come voluntarily.

    But in many cases the transportation was provided by local governments or politicians who wanted to be well thought of inside the ruling party.

    Gaby Contreras, a former Morena mayor, brought a group from Teoloyucan, north of the capital, and was the only one of her group authorized to speak. “We are here to support the president.”

    Pedro Sánchez, a bricklayer who came with his wife from the Tehuantepec isthmus in southern Mexico, said his municipality organized everything. Hundreds of buses that had brought participants lined nearby streets.

    “I come from Sonora by plane and I paid for my ticket,” said lawyer and López Obrador supporter América Verdugo.

    Nelly Muñoz, an administrator from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said “it’s called ‘organization’ and and believe it or not, it’s what we’ve been doing since 2006.”

    That date was a reference to the year López Obrador came within 0.56% of the vote of winning the presidency and denounced his loss as fraudulent. Many supported him, launching a mass protest movement.

    López Obrador was elected to the presidency 12 years later and his Morena party won four of six races for governor in last year’s midterm elections, giving the ruling party control of 22 of Mexico’s 32 states, an important advantage heading into the 2024 presidential elections.

    But the government has been criticized for its increased use of the military, laws whose constitutionality has been questioned in the courts, and its support for controversial mega-projects, Some people who support the president are now are his critics.

    Clara Jusidman, founder of INCIDE Social, an NGO specialized in democracy, development and human rights, said that what is important isn’t the number of participants in the march, but “why they participated.”

    She said many Mexicans feel compelled to participate because they receive money transfers from the government, which is its main way of supporting those in need. Others want to be in the good graces of the party ahead of the 2024 local, state and presidential elections. The leading contenders to replace López Obrador as Morena’s presidential candidate in 2024 appeared in the march.

    But there was no shortage of fans of Mexico’s president, who maintains a high approval rating.

    Alberto Cervantes, who traveled from Los Angeles to join the march, had the president’s face and “AMLO 4T” tattooed on his arm. AMLO is the popular acronym for López Obrador’s name, and 4T refers to the “4th Transformation,” which López Obrador says he is carrying out in Mexico.

    Lorena Vaca, who waved a flag of the LGBTQ community, said she came to ask for more attention for women and transgenders.

    “There are things we don’t agree with… but that doesn’t mean we don’t support the Fourth Transformation process,” said Aurora Pedroche, a member of a critical sector within Morena who questions the party’s leadership but supports the president.

    Mexico’s opposition had called a massive march because they feared López Obrador planned to use his proposed reforms to compromise the electoral institute’s independence and make it more beholden to his party.

    López Obrador repeatedly criticized the march and days later said he would call his own march.

    “You can’t make a change overnight and Andrés Manuel is not infallible,” Pedroche said. “But we have worked hard and what we don’t want is for this to be reversed.”

    ———

    AP journalist Mark Stevenson contribution to this report.

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  • Taiwan votes on lower voting age, mayors, city councils

    Taiwan votes on lower voting age, mayors, city councils

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    TAIPEI, Taiwan — Voters headed to the polls across Taiwan in a closely watched local election Saturday that will determine the strength of the island’s major political parties ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

    Taiwanese citizens will be picking their mayors, city council members and other local leaders in all 13 counties and the six major cities. There’s also a referendum to lower the voting age from 20 to 18. Polls opened at 8 a.m. (0000GMT) Saturday.

    While international observers and the ruling party have attempted to link the elections to the long-term existential threat that is Taiwan’s neighbor, many local experts do not think China has a large role to play this time around.

    “The international society have raised the stakes too high. They’ve raised a local election to this international level, and Taiwan’s survival,” said Yeh-lih Wang, a political science professor at National Taiwan University.

    President Tsai Ing-wen, who also serves as the chairman of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, has spoken out many times about “opposing China and defending Taiwan” in the course of campaigning. But the DPP’s candidate Chen Shih-chung, who was running for mayor in Taipei, only raised the issue of the Communist Party’s threat a few times before he quickly switched back to local issues as there was little interest, experts said.

    During campaigning, there were few mentions of the large-scale military exercises targeting Taiwan that China held in August in reaction to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit.

    “So I think if you can’t even raise this issue in (the capital) Taipei,” Wang said. “You don’t even need to consider it in cities in the south.”

    Instead, campaigns resolutely focused on the local: air pollution in the central city of Taichung, traffic snarls in Taipei’s tech hub Nangang, and the island’s COVID-19 vaccine purchasing strategies, which had left the island in short supply during an outbreak last year.

    Candidates spent the last week before the elections in a packed public schedule. On Sunday, the DPP’s Chen marched through Taipei with a large parade filled with dancers in dinosaur suits and performers from different countries. Chiang Wan-an, the Nationalist party’s mayoral candidate, canvassed at a hardware market, while Vivian Huang, an independent candidate, visited lunch stalls at a market. All three made stops at Taipei’s famous night markets.

    The question is how the island’s two major political parties — the Nationalist and the incumbent DPP — will fare. Because both Tsai and the Nationalist’s chair Eric Chu handpicked candidates, the performance will impact their own standings within their party, as well as the party’s strength in the coming two years.

    “If the DPP loses many county seats, then their ability to rule will face a very strong challenge,” said You Ying-lung, chair at the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation that regularly conducts public surveys on political issues.

    The election results will in some ways also reflect the public’s attitude towards the ruling party’s performance in the last two years, You said.

    Observers are also watching to see if outgoing Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je’s Taiwan People’s Party’s candidates will pick up a mayoral seat. A 2024 presidential bid for Ko will be impacted by his party’s political performance Saturday, analysts say. Ko has been campaigning with his deputy, the independent mayoral candidate Huang, for the past several weeks.

    Food stall owner Hsian Fuh Mei said he was supporting Huang.

    “We want to see someone international,” he said. “If you look at Singapore, before we were better than Singapore, but we’ve fallen behind. I hope we can change direction.”

    Others were more apathetic to the local race. “It feels as if everyone is almost the same, from the policy standpoint,” said 26-year-old Sean Tai, an employee at a hardware store.

    Tai declined to say who he was voting for, but wants someone who will raise Taipei’s profile and bring better economic prospects while keeping the status quo with China. “We don’t want to be completely sealed off. I really hope that Taiwan can be seen internationally,” he said.

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  • Brazilian protests intensify; Bolsonaro stays silent

    Brazilian protests intensify; Bolsonaro stays silent

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    RIO DE JANEIRO — The two men were sitting at a bar on Nov. 21, sipping drinks for relief from the scorching heat of Brazil’s Mato Grosso state, when police officers barged in and arrested them for allegedly torching trucks and an ambulance with Molotov cocktails.

    One man attempted to flee and ditch his illegal firearm. Inside their pickup truck, officers found jugs of gasoline, knives, a pistol, slingshots and hundreds of stones — as well as 9,999 reais (nearly $1,900) in cash.

    A federal judge ordered their preventive detention, noting that their apparent motive for the violence was “dissatisfaction with the result of the last presidential election and pursuit of its undemocratic reversal,” according to court documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

    For more than three weeks, supporters of incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro who refuse to accept his narrow defeat in October’s election have blocked roads and camped outside military buildings in Mato Grosso, Brazil’s soy-producing powerhouse. They also have protested in other states across the nation, while pleading for intervention from the armed forces or marching orders from their commander in chief.

    Since his election loss, Bolsonaro has only addressed the nation twice, to say that the protests are legitimate and encourage them to continue, as long as they don’t prevent people from coming and going.

    Bolsonaro has not disavowed the recent emergence of violence, either. He has, however, challenged the election results — which the electoral authority’s president said appears aimed at stoking protests.

    While most demonstrations are peaceful, tactics deployed by hardcore participants have begun concerning authorities. José Antônio Borges, chief state prosecutor in Mato Grosso, compared their actions to that of guerrilla fighters, militia groups and domestic terrorists.

    Mato Grosso is one of the nation’s hotbeds for unrest. The chief targets, Borges says, are soy trucks from Grupo Maggi, owned by a tycoon who declared support for President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. There are also indications that people and companies from the state may be fueling protests elsewhere.

    Road blockades and acts of violence have been reported in the states of Rondonia, Para, Parana and Santa Catarina. In the latter, federal highway police said protesters blocking highways have employed “terrorist” methods including homemade bombs, fireworks, nails, stones and barricades made of burnt tires.

    Police also noted that roadblocks over the weekend were different from those carried out immediately after the Oct. 30 runoff election, when truckers blocked more than 1,000 roads and highways across the country, with only isolated incidents.

    Now, most acts of resistance are taking place at night, carried out by “extremely violent and coordinated hooded men,” acting in different regions of the state at the same time, federal highway police said.

    “The situation is getting very critical” in Mato Grosso state, chief state prosecutor Borges told the AP. Among other examples, he noted that protesters in Sinop, the state’s second most populous city, this week ordered shops and businesses to close in support of the movement. “Whoever doesn’t shut down suffers reprisals,” he said.

    Since the vote, Bolsonaro has dropped out of public view and his daily agenda has been largely vacant, prompting speculation as to whether he is stewing or scheming.

    Government transition duties have been led by his chief of staff, while Vice President Hamilton Mourão has stepped in to preside over official ceremonies. In an interview with newspaper O Globo, Mourão chalked up Bolsonaro’s absence to erysipelas, a skin infection on his legs that he said prevents the president from wearing pants.

    But even Bolsonaro’s social media accounts have gone silent – aside from generic posts about his administration, apparently from his communications team. And the live social media broadcasts that, with rare exception, he conducted every Thursday night during his administration have ceased. The silence marks an abrupt about-face for the bombastic Brazilian leader whose legions of supporters hang on his every word.

    Still, demonstrators, who have camped outside military barracks across Brazil for weeks, are certain they have his tacit support.

    “We understand perfectly well why he doesn’t want to talk: They (the news media) distort his words,” said a 49-year-old woman who identified herself only as Joelma during a protest outside the monumental regional military command center in Rio de Janeiro. She declined to give her full name, claiming the protest had been infiltrated by informants.

    Joelma and others say they are outraged with Bolsonaro’s loss and claim the election was rigged, echoing the incumbent president’s claims — made without evidence — that the electronic voting system is prone to fraud.

    Scenes of large barbecues with free food and portable bathrooms at several protests, plus reports of free bus rides bringing demonstrators to the capital, Brasilia, have prompted investigations into the people and companies financing and organizing the gatherings and roadblocks.

    The Supreme Court has frozen at least 43 bank accounts for suspicion of involvement, news site G1 reported, saying most are from Mato Grosso. Borges cited the involvement of agribusiness players in the protests, many of whom support Bolsonaro’s push for development of the Amazon rainforest and his authorization of previously banned pesticides. By contrast, President-elect da Silva has pledged to rebuild environmental protections.

    Most recently, protesters have been emboldened by the president’s decision to officially contest the election results.

    On Tuesday, Bolsonaro and his party filed a request for the electoral authority to annul votes cast on nearly 60% of electronic voting machines, citing a software bug in older models. Independent experts have said the bug, while newly discovered, doesn’t affect the results and the electoral authority’s president, Alexandre de Moraes swiftly rejected the “bizarre and illicit” request.

    De Moraes, who is also a Supreme Court justice, called it “an attack on the Democratic Rule of Law … with the purpose of encouraging criminal and anti-democratic movements.”

    On Nov. 21, Prosecutor-general Augusto Aras summoned federal prosecutors from states where roadblocks and violence have become more intense for a crisis meeting. Aras, who is widely seen as a Bolsonaro stalwart, said he received intelligence reports from local prosecutors and instructed Mato Grosso’s governor to request federal backup to clear its blocked highways.

    Ultimately that wasn’t necessary, as local law enforcement managed to break up demonstrations and, by Monday night, roads in Mato Grosso and elsewhere were all liberated, according to the federal highway police. It was unclear how long this would last, however, amid Bolsonaro’s continued silence, said Guilherme Casarões, a political science professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation university.

    “With his silence, he keeps people in the streets,” Casarões said. “This is the great advantage he has today: a very mobilized, and very radical base.”

    ———

    Associated Press reporter Carla Bridi in Brasilia, Brazil, contributed to this report.

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  • Turkish central bank cuts rates again despite high inflation

    Turkish central bank cuts rates again despite high inflation

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    ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey’s central bank delivered another outsized interest rate cut Thursday despite inflation running at more than 85% and other countries moving the opposite way to ease the pain of soaring prices.

    The central bank said its Monetary Policy Committee decided to lower the benchmark policy rate by 1.5 percentage points to 9%, following a series of similar jumbo cuts.

    The move is in line with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s unorthodox economic views that high borrowing costs cause high inflation, even though traditional economic thinking says raising interest rates help tame inflation.

    Erdogan had called for a single-digit interest rate by the end of the year. He is counting on lower borrowing costs to propel the economy as Turkey gears up for presidential and parliamentary elections next June.

    The bank had similarly cut borrowing costs by 1.5 points last month and by 1 point each in August and September. The Monetary Policy Committee announced, however, that the easing cycle would now come to a halt.

    “Considering the increasing risks regarding global demand, the Committee evaluated that the current policy rate is adequate and decided to end the rate cut cycle that started in August,” it said in a statement.

    Inflation hit a raging 85.51% in October, according to official statistics, making even basic necessities unaffordable for many. Independent researchers estimated, however, that actual price increases are much higher than the official figures.

    The European Central Bank, U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world have taken the reverse course of Turkey, rapidly raising interest rates to clamp down on soaring consumer prices. Sweden raised its key rate by three-quarters of a percentage point on Thursday.

    Their inflation rates are far below Turkey’s, running at 10.6% in the 19 countries using the euro currency, 9.3% in Sweden and 7.7% in the U.S. last month.

    The Turkish lira has lost some 28% of its value against the U.S. dollar since the beginning of the year — on top of taking an even worse battering in 2021.

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  • Brazil election body rejects Bolsonaro’s push to void votes

    Brazil election body rejects Bolsonaro’s push to void votes

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    RIO DE JANEIRO — The head of Brazil’s electoral authority on Wednesday rejected the request from President Jair Bolsonaro and his political party to annul ballots cast on most electronic voting machines, which would have overturned the Oct. 30 election.

    Alexandre de Moraes had issued a prior ruling that implicitly raised the possibility that Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party could suffer from such a challenge. He conditioned analysis of the request on the presentation of an amended report to include results from the first electoral round, on Oct. 2, in which the party won more seats in both congressional houses than any other, and he established a 24-hour deadline.

    Earlier Wednesday, party president Valdemar Costa and lawyer Marcelo de Bessa held a press conference and said there would be no amended report.

    “The complete bad faith of the plaintiff’s bizarre and illicit request … was proven, both by the refusal to add to the initial petition and the total absence of any evidence of irregularities and the existence of a totally fraudulent narrative of the facts,” de Moraes wrote in his decision hours later.

    He also ordered the suspension of government funds for the Liberal Party’s coalition until a fine of 23 million reais ($4.3 million) for bad faith litigation is paid.

    On Tuesday, de Bessa filed a 33-page request on behalf of Bolsonaro and Costa citing a software bug in the majority of Brazil’s machines — they lack individual identification numbers in their internal logs — to argue all votes they recorded should be nullified. De Bessa said that doing so would leave Bolsonaro with 51% of the remaining valid votes.

    Neither Costa nor de Bessa have explained how the bug might have affected election results. Independent experts consulted by The Associated Press said that, while newly discovered, it doesn’t affect reliability and each voting machine is still readily identifiable through other means. In his ruling on Thursday, de Moraes noted the same.

    He also wrote that the challenge to the vote appeared aimed at incentivizing anti-democratic protest movements and creating tumult, and ordered the investigation of Costa and the consultant hired to conduct an evaluation.

    “De Moraes’ message to the political establishment is: the game is over. Questioning the result of the elections is not fair play, and people and institutions who do that will be punished harshly,” said Maurício Santoro, a political science professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro.

    In the press conference on Wednesday, Costa said his intention is merely to prevent the results of the 2022 vote from haunting Brazil into the future.

    The electoral authority on Oct. 30 ratified the victory of Bolsonaro’s nemesis, leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and even many of the president’s allies quickly accepted the results. Protesters in cities across the country have steadfastly refused to do the same, particularly with Bolsonaro declining to concede.

    Bolsonaro spent more than a year claiming Brazil’s electronic voting system is prone to fraud, without ever presenting evidence.

    The South American nation began using an electronic voting system in 1996 and election security experts consider such systems less secure than hand-marked paper ballots, because they leave no auditable paper trail. But Brazil’s system has been closely scrutinized by domestic and international experts who have never found evidence of it being exploited to commit fraud.

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  • Bolsonaro contests Brazil election, demands votes be anulled

    Bolsonaro contests Brazil election, demands votes be anulled

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    BRASILIA, Brazil — More than three weeks after losing a reelection bid, President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday blamed a software bug and demanded the electoral authority annul votes cast on most of Brazil’s nation’s electronic voting machines, though independent experts say the bug doesn’t affect the reliability of results.

    Such an action would leave Bolsonaro with 51% of the remaining valid votes — and a reelection victory, Marcelo de Bessa, the lawyer who filed the 33-page request on behalf of the president and his Liberal Party, told reporters.

    The electoral authority has already declared victory for Bolsonaro’s nemesis, leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and even many of the president’s allies have accepted the results. Protesters in cities across the country have steadfastly refused to do the same, particularly with Bolsonaro declining to concede.

    Liberal Party leader Valdemar Costa and an auditor hired by the party told reporters in Brasilia that their evaluation found all machines dating from before 2020 — nearly 280,000 of them, or about 59% of the total used in the Oct. 30 runoff — lacked individual identification numbers in internal logs.

    Neither explained how that might have affected election results, but said they were asking the electoral authority to invalidate all votes cast on those machines.

    The complaint characterized the bug as “irreparable non-compliance due to malfunction” that called into question the authenticity of the results.

    Immediately afterward, the head of the electoral authority issued a ruling that implicitly raised the possibility that Bolsonaro’s own party could suffer from such a challenge.

    Alexandre de Moraes said the court would not consider the complaint unless the party offers an amended report within 24 hours that would include results from the first electoral round on Oct. 2, in which the Liberal Party won more seats in both congressional houses than any other.

    The bug hadn’t been known previously, yet experts said it also doesn’t affect results. Each voting machine can still be easily identified through other means, like its city and voting district, according to Wilson Ruggiero, a professor of computer engineering and digital systems at the Polytechnic School of the University of Sao Paulo.

    Diego Aranha, an associate professor of systems security at Aarhus University in Denmark, who has participated in official security tests of Brazil’s electoral system, agreed.

    “It does not undermine the reliability or credibility in any way,” Ruggiero told The Associated Press by phone. “The key point that guarantees correctness is the digital signature associated with each voting machine.”

    While the machines don’t have individual identification numbers in their internal logs, those numbers do appear on printed receipts that show the sum of all votes cast for each candidate, said Aranha, adding the bug was only detected due to the efforts by the electoral authority to provide greater transparency.

    Bolsonaro’s less than two-point loss to da Silva on Oct. 30 was the narrowest margin since Brazil’s 1985 return to democracy. While the president hasn’t explicitly cried foul, he has refused to concede defeat or congratulate his opponent — leaving room for supporters to draw their own conclusions.

    Many have been protesting relentlessly, making claims of election fraud and demanding that the armed forces intervene.

    Dozens of Bolsonaro supporters gathered outside the news conference on Tuesday, decked out in the green and yellow of Brazil’s flag and chanting patriotic songs. Some verbally attacked and pushed journalists trying to enter the venue.

    Bolsonaro spent more than a year claiming Brazil’s electronic voting system is prone to fraud, without ever presenting evidence.

    Brazil began using an electronic voting system in 1996 and election security experts consider such systems less secure than hand-marked paper ballots, because they leave no auditable paper trail. But Brazil’s system has been closely scrutinized by domestic and international experts who have never found evidence of it being exploited to commit fraud.

    The Senate’s president, Rodrigo Pacheco, said Tuesday afternoon that the election results are “unquestionable.”

    Bolsonaro has been almost completely secluded in the official residence since his Oct. 30 defeat, inviting widespread speculation as to whether he is dejected or plotting to cling to power.

    In an interview with newspaper O Globo, Vice President Hamilton Mourão chalked up Bolsonaro’s absence to erysipelas, a skin infection on his legs that he said prevents the president from wearing pants.

    But his his son Eduardo Bolsonaro, a federal lawmaker, has been more direct.

    “We always distrusted these machines. … We want a massive audit,” the younger Bolsonaro said last week at a conference in Mexico City. “There is very strong evidence to order an investigation of Brazil’s election.”

    For its audit, the Liberal Party hired the Legal Vote Institute, a group that has been critical of the current system, saying it defies the law by failing to provide a digital record of every individual vote.

    In a separate report presented earlier this month, the Brazilian military said there were flaws in the country’s electoral systems and proposed improvements, but didn’t substantiate claims of fraud from some of Bolsonaro’s supporters.

    Analysts have suggested that the armed forces, which have been a key component of Bolsonaro’s administration, may have maintained a semblance of uncertainty over the issue to avoid displeasing the president. In a subsequent statement, the Defense Ministry stressed that while it had not found any evidence of fraud in the vote counting, it could not exclude that possibility.

    ———

    Biller reported from Rio de Janeiro. Associated Press writer Mark Stevenson in Mexico City contributed to this report.

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  • Incumbent expected to win Kazakh presidential election

    Incumbent expected to win Kazakh presidential election

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    ASTANA, Kazakhstan — Kazakhstan’s incumbent president is widely expected to secure an easy victory in Sunday’s snap election that comes after bloody unrest shook the country this year and he moved to stifle the influence of his authoritarian predecessor.

    Five candidates are on the ballot against President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. With a short campaign period that began in late October, they had little opportunity to mount significant challenges. Tokayev, apparently confident of holding a strong advantage, stayed away from a nationally televised election debate.

    The national elections commission said about 39% of the electorate had voted by midday (0600 GMT).

    The election for a seven-year term comes as Tokayev has taken steps to keep Kazakhstan’s distance from longtime ally and dominant regional power Russia. He pointedly said the country did not recognize the Ukrainian regions that Russia declared to be sovereign states at the outset of the conflict that began in February.

    Kazakhstan has taken in hundreds of thousands of Russians who fled after President Vladimir Putin issued a conscription order in September.

    When Tokayev became president in 2019 following the resignation of Nursultan Nazarbayev, he was widely expected to continue the authoritarian course of the man who had led the resource-rich country since it gained independence from the Soviet Union. Nazarbayev remained highly influential as head of the national security council, and the capital was renamed Nur-Sultan in his honor.

    Then a wave of violence arose in January, when provincial protests initially sparked by a fuel price hike engulfed other cities, notably the commercial capital, Almaty, and became overtly political as demonstrators shouted “Old man out!” in reference to Nazarbayev. More than 220 people, mostly protesters, died as police harshly put down the unrest.

    Amid the violence, Tokayev removed Nazarbayev from his security council post. He restored the capital’s previous name of Astana, and the Parliament of Kazakhstan repealed a law granting Nazarbayev and his family immunity from prosecution.

    One of Nazarbayev’s nephews, Kairat Satybaldy, in September was sentenced to six years in prison for embezzlement. Nazarbayev, after casting his vote on Sunday, said “It has to be thought that the decision of the court was just.”

    Tokayev later pushed through reforms that included strengthening the parliament, reducing presidential powers and limiting the presidency to a single seven-year term — meaning he could stay in office until 2029, if he wins Sunday’s election.

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  • Malaysians vote in elections as old party, reformers clash

    Malaysians vote in elections as old party, reformers clash

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    KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysians began casting ballots Saturday in a tightly contested national election that will determine whether the country’s longest-ruling coalition can make a comeback after its electoral defeat four years ago.

    Political reformers under opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim are gunning for a second victory — but with three main blocs vying for votes, analysts said the outcome is hard to predict and could lead to new alliances if there is a hung Parliament.

    Polling booths opened at 7:30 a.m. (2330 GMT) in two states on Borneo island, and half an hour later on the Malaysian Peninsula. Long lines had already formed in the capital Kuala Lumpur and other cities as voters rushed to cast ballots ahead of afternoon thunderstorms predicted in parts of the country.

    More than 21 million Malaysians are eligible to cast ballots to fill 222 seats in federal Parliament and choose representatives in three state legislatures. The Election Commission has extended voting time from nine to 10 hours, with results expected to be out late in the day.

    The main battle is between the United Malays National Organization-led alliance and Anwar’s Pakatan Harapan, or Alliance of Hope. The Perikatan Nasional, or National Alliance, which is a Malay-based bloc led by former Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, is seen as a dark horse. Many polls have put Anwar’s bloc in the lead, but short of winning a majority. But two research houses have predicted a win for the UMNO-led Barisan Nasional, or National Front alliance.

    Apathy among voters worried about the economy and rising costs of living and the addition of some 6 million mostly young voters since 2018 polls are adding to uncertainties in the tight race. The prospect of flash floods due to seasonal monsoon rains may also affect voters’ turnout.

    “The choice today is between sticking with the status quo … or opting for a different future, with the hope that Harapan will improve lives,” said Bridget Welsh, a Southeast Asian political expert.

    Anwar’s bloc emerged the strongest in the race but it is unclear if this will translate into a victory given Malaysia’s gerrymandering and uneven proportion of voters in constituencies, she said. UMNO had lost the popular vote in past elections but still won a majority in Parliament due to a skewed electoral system that gives power to rural Malays, its traditional supporters.

    Once an omnipotent force credited with developing and modernizing Malaysia, anger over government corruption led to UMNO’s shocking defeat in 2018 polls to Anwar’s bloc that saw the first regime change since Malaysia’s independence from Britain in 1957.

    The watershed polls had sparked hopes of reforms as once-powerful UMNO leaders were jailed or hauled to court for graft. But political guile and defections led to the government’s collapse after 22 months. UMNO bounced back as part of a new government but infighting led to continuous political turmoil. In all, Malaysia’s had three prime ministers since 2018 polls.

    Initially confident of a strong comeback due to a fragmented opposition, UMNO President Ahmad Zahid Hamidi had pushed incumbent caretaker Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob to call snap polls. But the UMNO campaign has been relatively muted as infighting and corruption charges against Zahid cast a shadow over its election promise for stability and prosperity.

    The opposition has warned that a UMNO victory would result in Zahid, who is fighting dozens of graft charges, taking over as prime minister and escaping the corruption allegations. Zahid has dropped eight party leaders aligned to Ismail from the polls, but he and UMNO leaders insist Ismail remains the party’s candidate.

    Anwar, 75, has put up a strong fight as he crisscrossed the country, often drawing large crowds with his message for change and his oratory skills. Thousands of people chanted his battle cry of “We Can” at his final rally late Friday as Anwar urged them not to let corrupt leaders dictate the country’s future.

    A second victory at the ballot box would cap Anwar’s storied political journey, a former deputy prime minister whose sacking and imprisonment in the 1990s led to massive street protests and a reform movement that saw his bloc rise into a major political force.

    Anwar was in prison during the 2018 vote for a sodomy charge that critics say was trumped up. Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad led the alliance’s campaign and became the world’s oldest leader at 92 after the victory. Anwar was pardoned shortly after and would have succeeded Mahathir had their government not crumbled.

    The stakes are high for Anwar, who is contesting a new federal seat in Tambun in northern Perak state in a calculated gamble to showcase his alliance’s strength. His bloc has promised a reset in government policies to focus on merits and needs, rather than race, and good governance to plug billions of dollars it said was lost to corruption. Critics say the affirmative action policy that gives majority Malays privileges in business, housing and education has been abused to enrich the elites, alienate minority groups and has sparked a brain drain.

    But this has been a sore point with rural Malays, who have been constantly warned by UMNO of the risk of Chinese economic domination if the opposition won. Anwar’s alliance includes a Chinese-majority party that has long been used as the bogeyman by UMNO. Malays form two-thirds of Malaysia’s 33 million people, which include large minorities of ethnic Chinese and Indians.

    The National Alliance, UMNO’s ally-turned rival, ran a sleek campaign to woo Malay supporters uncomfortable with corruption in UMNO and greater pluralism espoused by Anwar. Its leader Muhyiddin defected from Mahathir’s government in early 2020, causing its collapse. He became prime minister under a tieup with UMNO but resigned after 17 months due to infighting. Anwar’s supporters have accused Muhyiddin and leaders of his Islamic ally of hate speech against ethnic minority groups in their bid to win Malay votes.

    Mahathir, 97, is also seeking support under a new Malay movement that isn’t expected to make much headway but may split the vote. His popularity has faded and the elections are likely to be the last for Mahathir.

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  • ‘Did not end well’: New Pence book details split with Trump

    ‘Did not end well’: New Pence book details split with Trump

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    NEW YORK — Former Vice President Mike Pence blames Donald Trump for endangering his family “and all those serving at the Capitol” on Jan. 6 in a new memoir released Tuesday.

    In “So Help Me God,” Pence recounts, for the first time in his own words, the Republican former president’s extraordinary effort to push him to overturn the results of the 2020 election and shares his account of the day thousands of rioters stormed the Capitol, with some chanting “Hang Mike Pence.”

    “They had come to protest the result of the election and to prevent Congress from fulfilling its responsibility to open and count the Electoral College votes,” Pence writes. “And, as I later learned, many had come looking for me.”

    The book, which traces Pence’s life in politics — from serving as youth coordinator for a local Democratic Party to watching then-Vice President Al Gore certify his election loss days after Pence had been sworn in as a member of Congress — largely defends Trump, glossing over and whitewashing many of his most contentious episodes. “I had always been loyal to President Donald Trump,” the book begins.

    But Pence, who spent years refusing to publicly criticize his old boss, makes clear that Jan. 6, 2021, was a breaking point in which, he writes, Trump’s “reckless words had endangered my family and all those serving at the Capitol.”

    “For four years, we had a close working relationship. It did not end well,” Pence writes, summing up their time in the White House. Still, he adds, “we parted amicably when our service to the nation drew to a close. In the months that followed, we spoke from time to time, but when the president returned to the rhetoric that he was using before that tragic day and began to publicly criticize those of us who defended the Constitution, I decided it would be best to go our separate ways.”

    The book, published by Simon & Schuster, comes as Pence appears increasingly likely run for president in 2024, a move that would put him in direct conflict with Trump, who is expected to formally launch his own reelection campaign in Florida on Tuesday night.

    Pence, who in the book never directly states that Democrat Joe Biden won fairly, writes that when Trump first suggested holding a rally in Washington on Jan. 6, the day Pence was set to preside over the election’s certification, he thought it was a good idea. “My first thought was that a rally that day might be useful as a way to call even more attention to the proceedings on the floor of the House and Senate,” he writes.

    Instead, Pence describes sitting in the Senate chamber and presiding over the certification when the Senate parliamentarian leaned over to inform him that rioters had breached the building and a member of his Secret Service detail rushing over to insist they leave. Pence refused to vacate the building and was instead ushered to a Senate loading dock, where he spent hours, surrounded by staff and family members, making calls to military and congressional leaders to coordinate the government’s response, as the president — who never bothered to check in on Pence’s safety — sat cloistered, watching TV.

    “All around was a blur of motion and chaos: security and police officers directing people to safety, staffers shouting and running for shelter. I could see the intensity in the eyes of the Secret Service detail; it was audible, too, in the voices of the Capitol Police. I could hear the fall of footsteps and angry chanting,” Pence writes. Still, Pence insists he was “not afraid,” only angry at what was unfolding.

    At 2:24 p.m., as Pence remained in hiding, Trump fired off that infamous tweet saying Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.”

    “I just shook my head,” Pence said he responded. “The truth was, as reckless as the president’s tweet was, I really didn’t have time for it. Rioters were ransacking the Capitol. … The president had decided to be part of the problem. I was determined to be part of the solution. I ignored the tweet and got back to work.”

    Pence also describes Trump’s campaign to pressure him to reject the results of the election by rejecting Electoral College votes or sending them back to the states, even though the Constitution makes clear that the vice president’s role is purely ceremonial.

    During one lunch on Nov. 16, 2020, Pence said he told Trump that “if the legal challenges came up short and if he was unwilling to concede, he could simply accept the results of the elections, move forward with the transition, and start a political comeback, winning the Senate runoffs in Georgia, the governor’s race in Virginia in 2021, and the House and Senate in 2022.”

    “That accomplished, I said, he could run for president in 2024 and win,” Pence writes. “He seemed unmoved, even weary, at the prospect.”

    “‘I don’t know, 2024 is so far off,’” Pence writes that Trump told him “before returning to the status of election challenges in various states.”

    At another lunch, Pence said he encouraged Trump “not to look at the election ‘as a loss — just an intermission’” and said if he “still came up short” after exhausting every legal option, Trump should “take a bow” and later run again.

    “He nodded, pointed at me as if to say, ‘That’s worth considering,’ and walked into the back hallway,” Pence writes. “I will always wish he had.”

    But as the lawsuits Trump’s legal team was pushing continued to fail, Pence writes that Trump’s mood darkened and he became increasingly irate. Pence says Trump berated him, telling him, “You’re too honest,” and predicting that “hundreds of thousands are gonna hate your guts” and “people are gonna think you’re stupid.”

    “As the days wore on, it was becoming clear that there would be a real cost to me politically when I presided over the certification of the 2020 election,” Pence writes. “I always knew that I did not possess the authority to overturn the election. I knew it would be hurtful to my friend for me to participate in the certification. But my duty was clear.”

    After the Capitol was cleared of the rioters, Congress reconvened and Pence presided over the certification of his and Trump’s loss. For several days the two men did not speak. But when they finally met, five days later, Pence said they spent more than 90 minutes together, alone.

    “I told him that I had prayed for him for the past four and a half years, and I encouraged him to pray,” Pence said he told Trump. “’Jesus can help you through this,’ I said. ‘Call on Him.’ He didn’t say anything.”

    “With genuine sadness in his voice, the president then mused, ‘What if we hadn’t had the rally? What if they hadn’t gone to the Capitol?’ Then he said, ‘It’s too terrible to end like this.’”

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  • Slovenia elects first woman president in a runoff vote

    Slovenia elects first woman president in a runoff vote

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    LJUBLJANA, Slovenia — Liberal rights advocate Natasa Pirc Musar won a runoff Sunday to become Slovenia’s first female head of state, and said she will seek to bridge the deep left-right divide in the Alpine nation of 2 million.

    With nearly all of the votes counted in the small European Union nation, Pirc Musar led Slovenia’s conservative former Foreign Minister Anze Logar by 54% to 46%. Her victory boosts the country’s liberal bloc following the center-left coalition victory in Slovenia’s parliamentary election in April.

    “My first task will be to open a dialogue among all Slovenians,” she said as her election team celebrated. “In the democratic election, Slovenians have shown what kind of a country they want.”

    “All my life I’ve advocated the same values: democracy, human rights, tolerance. It’s time to stop dealing with the past. Many things have to be done in the future,” she declared.

    Logar conceded defeat, saying he hopes Pirc Musar “will carry out all the promises” that she made during the campaign.

    Pirc Musar, 54, will be the first woman to serve as president since Slovenia became independent amid the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991. A prominent lawyer, Pirc Musar had represented former U.S. first lady Melania Trump in copyright and other cases in her native Slovenia.

    She trailed Logar in the first round of voting two weeks ago.

    But since none of the seven contenders who competed in the first round managed to gather more than 50% support to claim outright victory, Logar and Pirc Musar went to a runoff. Analysts in Slovenia had predicted that centrist and liberal voters would rally behind Pirc Musar.

    Pirc Musar will succeed President Borut Pahor, a centrist politician who had already served two terms.

    While the presidency is largely ceremonial in Slovenia, the head of state still is seen as a person of authority. Presidents nominate prime ministers and members of the constitutional court, who are then elected in parliament, and appoints members of the anti-corruption commission.

    Logar, 46, served under former populist Prime Minister Janez Jansa, who moved Slovenia to the right while in power and faced accusations of undemocratic and divisive policies. Jansa was ousted from power in the parliamentary election in April.

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  • Popular Istanbul mayor on trial, could face political ban

    Popular Istanbul mayor on trial, could face political ban

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    ISTANBUL — A Turkish court resumed the trial of Istanbul’s mayor Friday on charges of insulting members of Turkey’s Supreme Electoral Council, a case critics allege is an attempt to remove a key opponent of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan from the political scene.

    Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a member of the opposition Republican People’s Party, faces up to four years in prison if found guilty of the charge and could also be barred from holding office. The court in Istanbul might deliver its verdict on Friday.

    Imamoglu was elected to lead Turkey’s largest city in March 2019. His win was a historic blow to Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, which had controlled Istanbul for a quarter-century. The party pushed to void the municipal election results in the city of 16 million, alleging irregularities.

    The challenge resulted in a repeat of the election a few months later. Imamoglu won again, that time with a comfortable majority.

    His trial is based on accusations that he insulted members of the electoral council with a Nov. 4, 2019 statement in which he described canceling legitimate elections as “foolishness.”

    The mayor denies insulting members of the council, insisting his words were a response to Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu calling him “a fool” and accusing Imamoglu of criticizing Turkey during a visit to the European Parliament.

    Government critics regard the trial as an attempt to prevent the popular mayor from running against Erdogan in presidential and parliamentary elections currently scheduled for June 2023.

    If convicted, Imamoglu could lose his post as mayor and be replaced by someone close to Erdogan’s ruling party.

    Several mayors from the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party, or HDP, who were also elected in 2019, were removed from office over alleged links to Kurdish militants and replaced by state-appointed trustees.

    Dozens of HDP lawmakers and thousands of party members were arrested on terror-related accusations as part of a government crackdown on the party.

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  • Global stocks decline ahead of US inflation update

    Global stocks decline ahead of US inflation update

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    BEIJING — Global stock markets fell Thursday ahead of a U.S. inflation update that will likely influence Federal Reserve plans for more interest rate hikes as investors waited to see who will control Congress after this week’s elections.

    London, Shanghai, Frankfurt and Tokyo declined. U.S. futures were higher. The euro fell back below $1.

    Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index tumbled Wednesday as votes were counted to decide whether Republicans take control of Congress, possibly leading to changes that can unsettle markets. Investors were rattled by the crypto industry’s latest crisis of confidence and weaker profit reports from The Walt Disney Co. and some other companies.

    Forecasters expect U.S. government data Thursday to show inflation eased in September but stayed near a four-decade high. That might reinforce arguments that rates have to stay elevated for an extended period to slow economic activity and extinguish inflation.

    “An upside surprise today would present a challenge for officials who expect to slow the pace of rate hikes,” Rubeela Farooqi of High-Frequency Economics said in a report.

    In early trading, the FTSE 100 in London was 0.1% lower at 7,285.86. The DAX in Frankfurt lost 0.1% to 13,647.47 and the CAC 40 in Paris shed 0.2% to 6,417.98.

    On Wall Street, futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 0.3%.

    On Wednesday, the S&P 500 lost 2.1%, erasing gains from a three-day rally leading up to Election Day.

    Disney sank 13.2% for the largest loss in the S&P 500 after reporting quarterly results that fell short of analysts’ expectations.

    The Dow fell 2% and the Nasdaq composite, dominated by tech companies, tumbled 2.5%.

    Facebook parent Meta Platforms rose 5.2% after saying it will cut costs by laying off 11,000 employees, or about 13% of its workforce. It is down nearly 70% for the year.

    In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 1.7% to 16,081.04 and the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo sank 1% to 27,446.10. The Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.4% to 3,036.13.

    The Kospi in Seoul declined 0.9% to 2,407.70 and Sydney’s S&P-ASX 200 was off 0.5% at 6,964.00.

    India’s Sensex shed 1% to 60,447.97. New Zealand, Bangkok and Jakarta declined while Singapore and Malaysia gained.

    The Philippines’ market benchmark lost 0.5% after the government reported the economy grew by 7.6% in the three months ending in September.

    Investors worry rate hikes this year by the Fed and central banks in Europe and Asia to cool inflation might tip the global economy into recession. Traders hope indicators that show U.S. housing sales and other activity weakening might prompt the Fed to back off plans for more rate hikes.

    In the United States, Republicans were within nine seats of the 218 needed to control the House of Representatives as votes still were being counted in some states. Control of the Senate depended on races in Nevada and Arizona that hadn’t been decided.

    The outcome will determine how the next two years of President Joe Biden’s term play out. Republicans are likely to launch a spate of investigations into Biden, his family and his administration if they take power. A GOP takeover of the Senate would hobble the president’s ability to appoint judges.

    Still, the election “impact on markets is pretty irrelevant beyond the very near term,” said David Chao of Invesco in a report. “Investors should be worried about inflation, since that will help to dictate the Fed’s future path.”

    Forecasters expect Thursday’s data to show inflation decelerated to 7.9% in September from the previous month’s 8.3%. However, prices were expected to rise 0.6% compared with August, accelerating from July’s 0.1% increase.

    Core inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy prices to show a clearer trend, is expected to accelerate to 6.5% from August’s 6.3%. That suggests costs of rent, medical services, autos and other goods and services still are rising in response to strong demand.

    Traders expect the Fed to raise rates again next month but by a smaller margin of one-half percentage point after a series of 0.75 percentage-point increases. The Fed’s key lending rate is a range of 3.75% to 4%, up from close to zero in March. A growing number of investors expect it to exceed 5% next year.

    Also Wednesday, cryptocurrencies fell amid worries about the industry’s financial strength after a big player, Binance, called off a deal to buy troubled rival FTX. That at least temporarily ended hopes for a bailout after FTX users scrambled to pull out their money.

    Bitcoin fell 14% from a day earlier to $15,900. That is down 77% from last year’s high of $69,000.

    The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which helps dictate rates for mortgages and other loans, fell to 4.08% from 4.13% late Tuesday. The two-year yield, which tends to more closely track expectations for Fed action, dropped to 4.60% from 4.66%.

    In energy markets, benchmark U.S. crude shed 49 cents to $85.34 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the price basis for international oil trading, lost 42 cents to $92.23 per barrel in London.

    The dollar gained to 146.31 yen from Wednesday’s 145.56 yen. The euro declined to 99.83 cents from $1.0073.

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  • Brazil armed forces’ report on election finds no fraud

    Brazil armed forces’ report on election finds no fraud

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    RIO DE JANEIRO — The defense ministry released a report Wednesday highlighting flaws in Brazil’s electoral systems and proposing improvements, but there was nothing to substantiate claims of fraud from some of President Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters protesting his Oct. 30 defeat.

    It was the first comment by the military on the runoff election, which has drawn protests nationwide even as the transition has begun for President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s inauguration Jan. 1. Thousands have been gathering outside military installations in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Brasilia and other cities calling for intervention by the armed forces to keep Bolsonaro in office.

    When the defense ministry announced this week that it would present its report on the election, some Bolsonaro supporters rejoiced, anticipating the imminent revelation of a smoking gun. That didn’t happen.

    “There is nothing astonishing in the document,” Diego Aranha, an associate professor of systems security at Aarhus University in Denmark, who has been a member of the Brazilian electoral authority’s public security tests, told The Associated Press. “The limitations found are the same ones analysts have been complaining about for decades … but that doesn’t point to evidence of irregularity.”

    Defense Minister Paulo Nogueira wrote that “it is not possible to say” with certainty the computerzed vote tabulation system hasn’t been infilitrated by malicious code, but the 65-page report does not cite any abnormalities in the vote count. Based on the possible risk, however, the report suggests creating a commission comprised of members of civil society and auditing entities to further investigate the functioning of the electronic voting machines.

    Bolsonaro, whose less than two-point loss was the narrowest margin since Brazil’s 1985 return to democracy, hasn’t specifically cried foul since the election.

    Still, his continued refusal to concede defeat or congratulate his opponent left ample room for supporters to draw their own conclusions. And that followed more than a year of Bolsonaro repeatedly claiming Brazil’s electronic voting system is prone to fraud, without ever presenting any evidence — even when ordered to do so by the electoral authority.

    In the months leading up to the vote, as polls showed him trailing da Silva, Bolsonaro pushed for the military to take on an expanded role in the electoral process. The election authority, in a gesture apparently aimed at placating the president, allowed for armed forces’ unprecedented participation. The report presented Wednesday was signed by the defense minister and representatives from the army, navy and air force.

    The electoral authority said in a statement it “received with satisfaction the defense ministry’s final report that, like all other oversight bodies, did not point to the existence of any fraud or inconsistency in the electronic voting machines and 2022 electoral process.”

    Bolsonaro didn’t immediately comment on the report, nor did the presidential palace respond to an AP email. His party’s leader said Tuesday the president would question election results only if the report provided “real” evidence.

    Da Silva, speaking Wednesday in the capital, Brasilia, on his first visit since the election, told reporters that the vote was clean and Brazil’s electronic voting machine system is an achievement.

    “No one will believe coup-mongering discourse from someone who lost the elections,” da Silva said. “We know that the institutions were attacked by some government authorities.”

    Brazil began using an electronic voting system in 1996. Election security experts consider such systems less secure than hand-marked paper ballots, because they leave no auditable paper trail. Brazil’s system is, however, closely scrutinized and domestic authorities and international observers have never found evidence of it being exploited to commit fraud. Outside security audits have been done to prevent the system’s software from being surreptitiously altered. In addition, prior to election day, tests are conducted to assure no tampering has occurred.

    The electoral authority said in its statement Wednesday that it would analyze the defense ministry’s suggestions. Aranha, the system security professor, said the military’s suggestions to address flaws aren’t specific and would actually make an audit even more difficult.

    This year, the armed forces also conducted a partial audit, comparing hundreds of voting stations’ results to the official tally. The idea was first floated by Bolsonaro, who in May said they “will not perform the role of just rubber stamping the electoral process, or taking part as spectators.”

    The federal government’s accounts watchdog carried out a partial audit similar to that of the military, tallying votes in 604 voting machines across Brazil. It found no discrepancies. Likewise, Brazil’s Bar Association said in a report Tuesday that it had found nothing that pointed to suspicion of irregularities.

    “There are important lessons from all this,” said Paulo Calmon, a political science professor at the University of Brasilia, who continued: “primarily, the idea to formally involve the armed forces in electoral processes is an error that should never be repeated.”

    ———

    Associated Press writer Carla Bridi reported from Brasilia. AP videojournalist Juan Arraez and writer David Biller in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.

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  • 4 Palestinians killed in flare-up as Israel counts votes

    4 Palestinians killed in flare-up as Israel counts votes

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    RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Israeli forces killed at least four Palestinians in separate incidents on Thursday, including one who had stabbed a police officer in east Jerusalem and three others in Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank.

    The violence flared as Israel tallied the final votes in national elections held this week, with former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expected to lead a comfortable majority backed by far-right allies.

    Israeli troops operating in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, a militant stronghold, killed at least two Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad said one of those killed was a local commander. Residents said he was killed while at the butcher, where he was preparing meat ahead of his wedding this weekend. The Israeli military did not immediately provide details on the operation.

    Earlier Thursday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said a Palestinian man was killed by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank. Israeli police said it happened during a raid in the territory and alleged the man threw a firebomb at the forces.

    In a separate incident Thursday, a Palestinian stabbed a police officer in Jerusalem’s Old City, police said, and officers opened fire on the attacker, killing him. The officer was lightly wounded.

    The violence came as a political shift is underway in Israel after national elections, with former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set to return to power in a coalition government made up of far-right allies, including the extremist lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir, who in response to the incidents said Israel would soon take a tougher approach to attackers.

    “The time has come to restore security to the streets,” he tweeted. “The time has come for a terrorist who goes out to carry out an attack to be taken out!”

    The violence was the latest in a wave of Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem that has killed more than 130 Palestinians this year, making 2022 the deadliest since the U.N. started tracking fatalities in 2005.

    The violence intensified in the spring, after a wave of Palestinian attacks against Israelis killed 19 people, prompting Israel to launch a months-long operation in the West Bank it says is meant to dismantle militant networks. The raids have been met in recent weeks by a rise in attacks against Israelis, killing at least three.

    Israel says most of those killed have been militants. But youths protesting the incursions and people uninvolved in the fighting have also been killed.

    Also on Thursday, Israel said it was removing checkpoints in and out of the city of Nablus. Israel had imposed the restrictions weeks ago, clamping down on the city in response to a new militant group known as the Lions’ Den. The military has conducted repeated operations in the city in recent weeks, killing or arresting the group’s top commanders.

    Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, and has since maintained a military occupation over the territory and settled more than 500,000 people there. The Palestinians want the territory, along with the West Bank and east Jerusalem, for their hoped-for independent state.

    ___

    Goldenberg reported from Tel Aviv, Israel.

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  • With Bolsonaro tamed in defeat, Brazil steps back from brink

    With Bolsonaro tamed in defeat, Brazil steps back from brink

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    RIO DE JANEIRO — In the run-up to Brazil’s presidential election, many feared a narrow result would spell the death knell for Latin America’s largest democracy.

    So far, however, the worst has been averted, despite a nail-biting victory for former leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva over far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, and ongoing protests by Bolsonaro’s supporters across the country.

    The conservative leader’s allies quickly recognized da Silva’s victory, the military stayed in the barracks and vigilant world leaders swooped in to offer support for da Silva and nip in the bud even the thought of anything resembling the Jan. 6 insurrection that overtook the U.S. Capitol.

    “All of Bolsonaro’s escape valves were shut off,” said Brian Winter, a longtime Brazil expert and vice president of the New York-based Council of the Americas. “He was prevailed upon from all sides not to contest the results and burn down the house on his way out.”

    Although Bolsonaro has refused to congratulate da Silva or disavow die-hard protesters who remained on the streets Wednesday, Brazil’s institutions generally seem to have held up.

    That leaves a more vexing challenge: how the 77-year-old da Silva, universally known as Lula, unites a deeply divided country, rights a wobbly economy and delivers on the outsize expectations spurred by his return to power.

    One thing is clear, if anyone can do it, it’s the charismatic da Silva — whose political skills are admired even by his detractors.

    “That’s what we need, someone not only who can address inequality but also inspire our emotions and ideas,” said Marcelo Neri, director of the Getulio Vargas Foundation’s social policy center, who led the Ministry of Strategic Affairs in the Cabinet of da Silva’s handpicked successor, Dilma Rousseff.

    In many ways, the conservative movement Bolsonaro helped ignite — if not the politician himself — has emerged stronger from the vote, Winter said. His allies were elected as governors in several key states and his Liberal Party has become the largest in Congress, curtailing da Silva’s ability to advance his own agenda after a decadelong malaise that has left millions of Brazilians hungrier than when da Silva last held office in 2010.

    What’s more, Brazil’s demographics seem to favor Bolsonaro’s aggressive brand of identity politics — including an anti-LGBTQ agenda and hostility to environmentalists — that have earned him the moniker “Trump of the Tropics.”

    The country’s own statistics institute forecasts that the number of Brazilians identifying as evangelical Christians — who preelection polls show overwhelmingly favored Bolsonaro and skew right — will overtake Roman Catholics within a decade.

    Thousands of Bolsonaro’s supporters thronged a regional army headquarters in Rio on Wednesday, demanding that the military step in and keep him in power. Outside a military building in the state of Santa Catarina, hundreds of protesters gave the Nazi salute while chanting the national anthem. Meanwhile, truckers maintained about 150 roadblocks across the country to protest Bolsonaro’s loss, despite the Supreme Court’s orders to law enforcement to dismantle them.

    Since the return of democracy in the 1980s, all Brazilian leaders have been guided to varying degrees by a common belief in strong state-led enterprises, high taxes and aggressive wealth redistribution policies.

    Bolsonaro initially attempted to run a more austere, business-friendly government, that is, until the social devastation wreaked by COVID-19 and his own sinking electoral prospects ultimately led him to loosen spending controls and emulate the policies he once attacked.

    How da Silva will govern is less clear. He squeaked out a narrow victory of barely 2 million votes after forming a broad coalition of players. And with promises to maintain a generous welfare program in place through 2023, he will have limited fiscal space to spend on other priorities.

    His running mate from another party, former Sao Paulo Governor Geraldo Alckim, was a nod to centrist, fiscally conservative policies that made da Silva the darling of Wall Street during his early years in power. This week, da Silva tapped Alckim to lead his transition team.

    Also standing alongside him on the victory stage Sunday night, however, were several stalwarts of the left who have been implicated in numerous corruption scandals that have plagued his Workers’ Party and paved the way for Bolsonaro’s rise.

    Although da Silva’s supporters have downplayed the concerns about corruption — the Supreme Court annulled the convictions that kept him behind bars for nearly two years — for many Brazilians he is a symbol of the culture of graft that has long permeated politics. As a result, he’s likely to be held to a higher ethical standard in a country where political support is often obtained in exchange for Cabinet appointments and budgets.

    “This wasn’t just a fever dream by his opponents,” Winter said of the corruption allegations that have long dogged da Silva’s party.

    Da Silva’s victory coincides with a string of recent victories by the left in South America, including in Chile and Colombia, whose leaders revere the former union boss. During his first stint in power, da Silva led a so-called pink wave that promoted regional integration, rivaled U.S. dominance and put the rights of overlooked minorities and Indigenous groups at the center of the political agenda.

    Under Bolsonaro, Brazil largely retreated from that leadership role, even if the sheer size of its economy alone means a return to leadership is never far off.

    Scott Hamilton, a former U.S. diplomat, said that da Silva will have to make a tough choice on whether to use Brazil’s considerable leverage to pursue an ambitious foreign policy to tackle entrenched problems or simply use his star power on the world stage to shore up support at home.

    “Basking in not being Bolsonaro will get him lots of positive attention in itself,” said Hamilton, whose last post, until April, was as consul general in Rio. “The more ambitious path would involve trying to help resolve some of the toughest political issues where democratic governments in the region are in trouble or extinguished.”

    ———

    Goodman reported from Miami.

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  • Colombia’s President promises to deepen ties with Venezuela

    Colombia’s President promises to deepen ties with Venezuela

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    BOGOTA, Colombia — The presidents of Colombia and Venezuela met on Tuesday and said they would improve trade and security cooperation, as both countries seek to normalize relations following the election of Colombia’s first leftist leader.

    After the meeting in Venezuela’s presidential palace, Colombian President Gustavo Petro said it was “suicidal” for the governments of Venezuela and Colombia to have become estranged from each other recently, adding that the border between the countries had been forgotten and “turned over” to criminal mafias.

    Colombia’s president said both countries would now look for ways to share intelligence on drug trafficking groups, and added that he would lobby for Venezuela’s re-entry into the Andean Community of Nations, a regional trade and investment group that Venezuela withdrew from in 2006. Petro has asked for Venezuela’s support in peace talks with the National Liberation Army, or ELN, a Colombian rebel group that operates on both sides of the border.

    Petro’s efforts to engage with Venezuela’s socialist government mark a radical departure from Colombia’s recent policy: Before Petro was elected in June, Colombia backed U.S. efforts to isolate Maduro’s government, sanction its oil exports and force Maduro into holding free and fair elections.

    The United States, Colombia and dozens of other countries stopped recognizing Maduro as Venezuela’s legitimate leader in 2019, after he won an election that was widely seen as undemocratic and backed a claim to Venezuela’s presidency by the former National Assembly leader Juan Guaidó.

    Petro changed course as soon as he was sworn into office and re-established diplomatic ties with the Maduro government. On Tuesday opposition leaders in Venezuela criticized Petro’s meeting with Maduro, with Guaidó tweeting that Petro was helping to “normalize” the violation of human rights in Venezuela by “visiting dictator Maduro and calling him a president.”

    The International Criminal Court is currently investigating Maduro’s government for human rights violations that include the torture and arbitrary detention of protesters in 2017. In a recent letter addressed to Petro, Human Rights Watch pointed out that there are still more than 240 political prisoners in Venezuela and asked Petro to seek concrete human rights commitments from the Maduro administration as both nations re-establish diplomatic and military ties.

    The watchdog group added that military cooperation with Venezuela should be banned until Venezuela security forces stop backing drug traffickers and rebels. Evidence collected by Human Rights Watch and a U.N. Fact Finding Mission suggests that Venezuela’s military conducted joint operations with the ELN last year to root out another rebel group and allowed them to take over gold mines in eastern Venezuela.

    Following the meeting Maduro said that he had listened to Petro’s proposals and was also interested in developing a deal between both countries to produce fertilizer, which has become more expensive for many countries in Latin America, due to the war in Ukraine.

    “It was an intense, fruitful and extensive meeting” Maduro said.

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  • Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro does not concede election in 1st public speech since results released 2 days ago

    Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro does not concede election in 1st public speech since results released 2 days ago

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    Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro does not concede election in 1st public speech since results released 2 days ago

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  • Brazil’s Lula to reclaim presidency after beating Bolsonaro

    Brazil’s Lula to reclaim presidency after beating Bolsonaro

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    RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazilians delivered a very tight victory to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in a bitter presidential election, giving the leftist former president another shot at power in a rejection of incumbent Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right politics.

    Da Silva received 50.9% of the vote and Bolsonaro 49.1%, according to the country’s election authority. Yet the morning after the results came in — and congratulations had poured in from world leaders — Bolsonaro still had yet to publicly concede or react in any way, even as truckers blockaded some roads across the country in protest.

    Bolsonaro’s campaign had made repeated — unproven — claims of possible electoral manipulation before the vote, raising fears that, if he lost, he would not accept defeat and try to challenge the results.

    For da Silva, the high-stakes election was a stunning comeback. His imprisonment for corruption sidelined him from the 2018 election won by Bolsonaro, who has used the presidency to promote conservative social values while also delivering incendiary speeches and testing democratic institutions.

    “Today the only winner is the Brazilian people,” da Silva said in a speech Sunday evening at a hotel in downtown Sao Paulo. “It’s the victory of a democratic movement that formed above political parties, personal interests and ideologies so that democracy came out victorious.”

    Da Silva is promising to govern beyond his party. He says he wants to bring in centrists and even some leaning to the right, and to restore the kind of prosperity the country enjoyed when he last served as president from 2003-2010. Yet he faces headwinds in a politically polarized society.

    Bolsonaro’s four years in office have been marked by proclaimed conservatism and defense of traditional Christian values. He claimed that his rival’s return to power would usher in communism, legalized drugs, abortion and the persecution of churches – things that didn’t happen during da Silva’s earlier eight years in office.

    This was the country’s tightest election since its return to democracy in 1985, and the first time that a sitting president failed to win reelection. Just over 2 million votes separated the two candidates; the previous closest race, in 2014, was decided by a margin of roughly 3.5 million votes.

    Some of Bolsonaro’s supporters outside his home in Rio on Sunday night screamed about electoral fraud. And overnight, truck drivers who backed Bolsonaro blocked several roads across the country, including a stretch of the Rio de Janeiro-Sao Paulo highway, local media reported. Videos posted on social media early Monday morning showed traffic at a complete halt. Similar reports popped up in several other states.

    Da Silva’s win extended a wave of recent leftist triumphs across the region, including Chile, Colombia and Argentina.

    The president-elect will inherit a nation straining against itself after he is inaugurated on Jan. 1, said Thomas Traumann, an independent political analyst who compared Sunday’s results to Biden’s 2020 victory.

    “The huge challenge that Lula has will be to pacify the country,” he said. “People are not only polarized on political matters, but also have different values, identity and opinions. What’s more, they don’t care what the other side’s values, identities and opinions are.”

    Among world leaders offering congratulations on Sunday night was U.S. President Joe Biden, who in a statement highlighted the country’s “free, fair, and credible elections.” The European Union also commended the electoral authority for its effectiveness and transparency throughout the campaign.

    Bolsonaro had been leading throughout the first half of the count and, as soon as da Silva overtook him, cars in the streets of downtown Sao Paulo began honking their horns. People in the streets of Rio de Janeiro’s Ipanema neighborhood could be heard shouting, “It turned!”

    Da Silva’s headquarters in downtown Sao Paulo hotel only erupted once the final result was announced, underscoring the tension that was a hallmark of this race.

    “Four years waiting for this,” said Gabriela Souto, one of the few supporters allowed in due to heavy security.

    Outside Bolsonaro’s home in Rio, ground-zero for his support base, a woman atop a truck delivered a prayer over a speaker, then sang excitedly, trying to generate some energy as the tally grew for da Silva. But supporters decked out in green and yellow barely responded. Many perked up when the national anthem played, singing along loudly with hands over their hearts.

    For months, it appeared that da Silva was headed for easy victory as he kindled nostalgia for his presidency, when Brazil’s economy was booming.

    Bolsonaro’s administration has been widely criticized for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the worst deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in 15 years. But he has built a devoted base by presenting himself as protection from leftist policies that he says infringe on personal liberties while producing economic turmoil and moral rot. He sought to shore up support in an election year with vast government spending.

    “We did not face an opponent, a candidate. We faced the machine of the Brazilian state put at his service so we could not win the election,” da Silva told the crowd in Sao Paulo.

    Da Silva built an extensive social welfare program during his tenure at president that helped lift tens of millions into the middle class. The man universally known as Lula left office with an approval rating above 80%, prompting then U.S. President Barack Obama to call him “the most popular politician on Earth.”

    But he is also remembered for his administration’s involvement in vast corruption revealed by sprawling investigations.

    Da Silva was jailed for 580 days for corruption and money laundering. His convictions were later annulled by Brazil’s top court, which ruled the presiding judge had been biased and colluded with prosecutors. That enabled da Silva to run for president for the sixth time.

    Da Silva has pledged to boost spending on the poor, reestablish relationships with foreign governments and take bold action to eliminate illegal clear-cutting in the Amazon rainforest.

    “We will once again monitor and do surveillance in the Amazon. We will fight every illegal activity,” da Silva said in his speech. “At the same time, we will promote sustainable development of communities in the Amazon.”

    The president-elect has pledged to install a ministry for Brazil’s original peoples, which will be run by an Indigenous person.

    But as da Silva tries to achieve these and other goals, he will be confronted by strong opposition from conservative lawmakers.

    Unemployment this year has fallen to its lowest level since 2015 and, although overall inflation slowed during the campaign, food prices are increasing at a double-digit rate. Bolsonaro’s welfare payments helped many Brazilians get by, but da Silva has been presenting himself as the candidate more willing to sustain aid going forward and raise the minimum wage.

    In April, he tapped center-right Geraldo Alckmin, a former rival, to be his running mate. It was another key part of an effort to create a broad, pro-democracy front to not just unseat Bolsonaro, but to make it easier to govern.

    Building bridges among a diverse — and divided — country will be key to his success, said Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo.

    “If Lula manages to talk to voters who didn’t vote for him, which Bolsonaro never tried, and seeks negotiated solutions to the economic, social and political crisis we have,” Melo said, “then he could reconnect Brazil to a time in which people could disagree and still get some things done.”

    ———

    Carla Bridi contributed to this report from Brasilia.

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