Israeli voters poised to send first Reform rabbi to Knesset

March 19, 2021

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — In years of going against Israel’s religious and political mainstream, Rabbi Gilad Kariv has learned to handle conflict. He has argued controversial civil rights cases before Israel’s Supreme Court. And as an activist, he has lobbied at the Knesset, the 120-seat parliament for a country facing its fourth election in two years.

So after locking up a spot that put him on the brink of joining the Knesset, it did not rock Kariv's world when powerful Orthodox lawmakers responded by threatening to boycott him. The 47-year-old lawyer and father of three is poised next week to become the first Reform movement rabbi to hold a seat in parliament, a political ascent that marks a key victory for religious pluralism in Israel and for the millions of American Jews who practice liberal streams of their religion.

Kariv's rise to the fourth-highest seat in the center-left Labor party would also put the Reform movement closer to the center of power inside Israel, rather than remaining a feature of the far-flung diaspora. The politically powerful Orthodox establishment has treated Kariv as a threat, suggesting he is the face of a “clownish” and “illegitimate" cult of pretenders.

Kariv shrugs off the hostility. “If an Israeli politician and politicians in general need to have the skin of an elephant, a thick skin," Kariv said in an interview at Labor headquarters in Tel Aviv. “Then an Israeli Reform rabbi needs the skin of a mammoth.”

He spoke not far from the spot where, during the first Palestinian uprising in 1987, he said he and his fellow teenage activists demonstrated weekly for a two-state peace agreement with the Palestinians and were spit upon by passers-by.

Kariv himself was raised in a secular Tel Aviv family. Like most Jewish Israeli boys, he celebrated his bar mitzvah, and early on, he considered becoming Orthodox. He first encountered Reform Judaism during a high school trip to the United States. After returning home, he joined one of Israel’s first Reform congregations, rising to become its leader.

The Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism now lists more than 50 congregations, representing a still-small but growing slice of a country whose Jewish rituals are largely controlled by Orthodox leaders. About 3% of Israeli Jews say they belong to the Reform movement.

About a third of American Jews, about 2 million people, identify as Reform. Non-Orthodox American Jews also tend to hold much more liberal views on social and political issues than Israel's increasingly right-leaning society. That has translated into rising tensions between the world's two largest Jewish communities over issues like religious pluralism, West Bank settlement construction and how to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians.

Those differences were on display during the Trump administration, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s close ties with the former U.S. president alienated many American Jews. Just talking about “Western liberal democratic values, you’re losing big parts of the Israeli audience,” said Kariv.

But Kariv, who is both a rabbi and a lawyer, believes Israel's Zionist ideals include respect for human rights and the LGBT community, assisting African migrants who have made their way to Israel and protecting the environment. He is a strong advocate of a two-state solution with the Palestinians, believes West Bank settlement construction should be frozen and borders should be worked out in negotiations.

Such positions will put Kariv at odds on many issues with Netanyahu's religious and nationalist partners, if the Israeli leader wins another term in Tuesday's vote. Even if Netanyahu's opponents manage to form a more moderate coalition, Kariv isn't likely to change much policy on his own as a new member of the parliament. But he'll have influence and a louder microphone just for having a seat inside the government. That's expected to raise his profile on volatile issues, such as a recent Supreme Court decision allowing people who convert to Judaism inside Israel through the Reform or Conservative movements to become citizens.

The March 1 ruling, 15 years in the making, only affects about 30 people a year. But like Kariv's rise, the symbolism of the ruling challenged the Orthodox establishment's monopoly on defining what and who qualifies as Jewish. Several members of the Knesset have vowed to challenge the decision via legislation.

As a lawmaker, Kariv would have a voice in the parliament's debate. He's said that if Israel wants to be the nation-state of the Jewish world, then it must recognize all the denominations of Judaism with equality.

“To be inside the Knesset means he’s at the table. He’s at the lectern, wearing a kippah as an Israeli," said Rabbi Rick Jacobs, head of the Reform movement in the U.S. who has lobbied the Knesset with Kariv, his Israeli counterpart, for nine years. Now, Jacobs said, “instead of writing op-eds, he's going to be standing at the plenum.”

This equal footing would give some added legitimacy to a movement the Orthodox leaders have dismissed. They see Reform Judaism as a threat unlike secularism, said one expert. “Reform Judaism conveys an alternative interpretation of Judaism," said Shmuel Rosner, senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute in Jerusalem. Many Orthodox leaders “don't want to have any discussion about it.”

United Torah Judaism, an ultra-Orthodox party, released a campaign video just after the court decision that cast non-Orthodox converts in Israel as akin to dogs wearing skullcaps. The ferocious blowback might work in Kariv's favor.

Kariv "is a strong individual and he’s been very outspoken," said Jay Ruderman, president of The Ruderman Foundation, a Boston-based group that educates Israeli lawmakers about American Jewry, and himself an Orthodox Jew. “In the Knesset, it will be a bumpy ride.”

But if Kariv's critics keep up the hostility, Ruderman added, “they will make him more well-known.” And in a closely split parliament, pragmatism may end up prevailing. Rosner said the threatened, pre-election boycott of Kariv could easily fade if the Orthodox politicians need him in a tight vote.

“We should all remember that this is politics,” he said. “People can be enemies in public and still trade horses privately.”

Netanyahu courts Arab voters in election-year turnabout

January 20, 2021

JERUSALEM (AP) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has spent much of his long career casting Israel's Arab minority as a potential fifth column led by terrorist sympathizers, is now openly courting their support as he seeks reelection in the country's fourth vote in less than two years.

Few Arabs are likely to heed his call, underscoring the desperation of Netanyahu’s political somersault. But the the relative absence of incitement against the community in this campaign and the potential breakup of an Arab party alliance could dampen turnout — to Netanyahu's advantage. He might even pick up just enough votes to swing a tight election.

Either way, Netanyahu's overtures have shaken up the Arab community. The Joint List, an alliance of Arab parties that secured a record 15 seats in the 120-member Knesset last March, is riven by a dispute over whether it should work with Netanyahu's right-wing Likud at a time when less objectionable center-left parties are in disarray.

Its demise would leave the community with even less representation as it confronts a terrifying crime wave, coronavirus-fueled unemployment and persistent inequality. But given the complexities of Israel's coalition system, a breakaway Arab party could gain outsized influence if it is willing to work with Netanyahu or other traditionally hostile leaders.

The struggle was on vivid display last week when Netanyahu traveled to Nazareth, the largest Arab-majority city in Israel, his third visit to an Arab district in less than two weeks. Outside the venue, dozens of people, including a number of Arab members of parliament, protested his visit and scuffled with police, even as the city's mayor welcomed and praised him.

“Netanyahu came like a thief to try to scrape together votes from the Arab street,” said Aida Touma-Suleiman, a prominent lawmaker from the Joint List. "Your attempt to dismantle our community from within won’t succeed.”

Arabs make up around 20% of Israel's population. They have full citizenship, including the right to vote, and have a large and growing presence in universities, the health care sector and other professions. But they face widespread discrimination and blame lax Israeli law enforcement for a rising wave of violent crime in their communities.

They have close familial ties to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, and largely identify with their cause. That has led many Jews to view them as sympathetic to Israel's enemies, sentiments fanned by Netanyahu and other right-wing politicians.

On the eve of elections in 2015, Netanyahu warned his supporters that Arabs were voting in "droves." During back-to-back elections in 2019, his campaign sent poll observers to Arab districts and pushed for cameras in voting booths, in what critics said was a ploy to intimidate Arab voters and whip up false allegations of election fraud.

Those moves backfired spectacularly. The Joint List, an unwieldy alliance of Islamists, communists and other leftists, boosted turnout and emerged as one of the largest blocs in parliament. At times, it looked like it might help deny Netanyahu a majority coalition or even emerge as the official opposition.

But last May, after three deadlocked elections in less than a year, Netanyahu formed a coalition with his main rival and the Joint List was left out in the cold. In the coming election, polls indicate a coalition of right-wing and centrist parties committed to ending Netanyahu's nearly 12-year rule would be able to oust him without the Arab bloc.

No Arab party has ever asked or been invited to join a ruling coalition. In Nazareth, Netanyahu claimed his remarks in 2015 were misinterpreted — that he was merely warning Arab voters not to support the Joint List.

“All Israel’s citizens, Jews and Arabs alike, must vote," he said. In other Arab towns, he has visited coronavirus vaccination centers, boasting about his success in securing millions of doses and encouraging residents to get inoculated.

Netanyahu's Arab outreach seems to have given a green light to centrist and left-leaning politicians to do the same, with less concern that their right-wing rivals will use it against them. Opposition leader Yair Lapid, Netanyahu's main center-left opponent, said over the weekend that he was open to forming a government with external support from the Joint List.

The Joint List is meanwhile showing signs of breaking up. Mansour Abbas, the head of an Islamist party, has expressed openness in recent months to working with Netanyahu to address issues like housing and law enforcement. An aide to Abbas declined requests for an interview.

A full-scale breakup of the Joint List could further reduce turnout and potentially leave one or more of its four parties with too little support to cross the electoral threshold. Thabet Abu Rass, the co-director of the Abraham Initiatives, which works to promote equality among Jews and Arabs, says Netanyahu may attract a small number of Arab voters, but that far more of them would simply boycott the election.

“They are waiting to see if there is going to be a Joint List or not, and if you ask me, it’s not going to happen,” he said. "There are a lot of deep differences this time.” A poll carried out in December forecast Arab turnout at around 55%, far lower than the 65% seen last March.

Although Arab parties have historically performed worse on their own, some feel the parties might be more effective individually. In Israel's political system — which requires would-be prime ministers to assemble majority coalitions — small parties often wield outsized influence.

“When we speak about the Palestinian community in Israel, we don’t speak about one bloc, we have different ideologies,” said Nijmeh Ali, a policy analyst at Al-Shabaka, an international Palestinian think tank. “Sometimes you need to break up in order to gain power."

Netanyahu appears to be focused on the margins ahead of a tight race that could determine not only whether he remains in office, but whether he secures immunity from prosecution on multiple corruption charges. With only a few seats, a pragmatic politician like Abbas could determine Netanyahu's fate.

“This is the new thing in Arab politics," said Arik Rudnitzky, a research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. “They are ready to hold direct negotiations with Likud.” He said it doesn't mean they will be part of a governing coalition, but they could offer outside support to secure benefits for the Arab public. “It might be a win-win situation," he said.

Associated Press reporters Areej Hazboun in Jerusalem and Ami Bentov in Nazareth, Israel, contributed to this report.

Marcos victory opens old wounds for martial law victims in Philippines

May 13, 2022

By Thomas Maresca

MANILA, May 13 (UPI) -- As Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. was closing in on the presidency of the Philippines earlier this week, playwright Boni Ilagan thought back to a morning almost 50 years ago.

Ilagan, then a 23-year-old student activist, was on the run from Bongbong's father -- dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. -- who had declared martial law and was hunting down political opponents and dissidents.

In April 1974, Ilagan's luck ran out. An intelligence unit burst into the safe house where he and his fellow publishers of an underground newspaper were hiding.

"They started the torture right there in the house," Ilagan, now 70, told UPI. "I think they wanted us to be demoralized immediately, so that we could offer no resistance."

For the next two years, he was held prisoner at Camp Crame, the headquarters of the Philippine National Police in Manila. Ilagan's captors burned his feet with a flat iron. They made him lie between two cots, suspended by only his head and feet, and beat him when he sagged or fell -- the torturers called it "San Juanico Bridge," named after a span Marcos built as a gift for his wife Imelda, now 92 years old.

Iligan's voice caught as he described how interrogators forced a stick into his penis, trying to get him to talk.

"It took a long time before I was able to share the details of this," he said. "I was in denial."

According to Amnesty International, the Marcos administration detained 70,000 people on charges of subversion, tortured 34,000 and "salvaged" 3,240 -- a euphemism for extrajudicial killings.

Ilagan's sister Rizalina was also arrested and "disappeared" in 1977, her name inscribed on a memorial wall that Boni visited after casting his vote on Monday.

With the presumptive victory of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in the presidential election -- he won by a landslide of more than 16 million votes, according to still-unofficial results -- the memories of those dark years have grown closer than ever.

"It's unimaginable," Ilagan said. 'It's like a nightmare that I thought had been lost forever and now has been revived."

Another student activist, Neri Colmenares, was just 18 when he was arrested in 1978. He would spend a total of four years in prison, subject to frequent beatings and electric shocks.

However, Colmenares said it was the mental torture -- such as being forced to play Russian roulette with a loaded revolver -- that was worse.

"After three days of beatings, your body is so numb that no more pain can be added," he told UPI. "It was the mental torture that actually broke a lot of activists. I always say that it is probably because the mind is limitless. Therefore, the pain is limitless."

Both men have been active in keeping the memory of the martial law era alive and warning of the dangers of returning the Marcos clan to power.

Ilagan, a renowned playwright whose works portrayed the human rights violations of the Marcos dictatorship, is one of the leaders of the activist group Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses and Martial Law.

Colmenares, a 62-year-old human rights lawyer and former congressman, ran an unsuccessful campaign for a Senate seat this week on a ticket closely allied with Leni Robredo, the main opponent of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in the presidential race.

"I was competing against Marcos more than I was competing for my senatorial position," Colmenares said. "Because among the candidates, I think I'm the only one who was tortured and arrested during Marcos era, so I felt a personal obligation."

Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has never apologized or admitted to any wrongdoing from the two decades of rule that saw his family plunder up to $10 billion from the country. Instead, he ran on a campaign slogan of "together we will rise again" and praised his dictator father as a "political genius."

Meanwhile, opponents have been faced with a "firehose of disinformation," according to fact-checking group Tsek.ph, much of which has set out to rehabilitate the family's image and cast the Marcos era as a kind of golden age of the Philippines.

"Marcos has been exceptionally effective in using disinformation spread on social media to rebrand his family's history and create a devoted following," Liz Derr, founder of TrollExposer, a U.S.-based organization that roots out accounts and groups responsible for fake news on Facebook, told UPI.

"He has conditioned his followers to be impervious to fact checking and reliable sources," Derr said.

One widespread myth, used to explain the notorious kleptocracy's wealth, claims that Ferdinand Marcos Sr. was paid thousands of tons of gold when he worked as a lawyer for the descendants of a Philippine royal family.

Other accounts claim that only terrorists were arrested under martial law -- not activists or critics such as Ilagan and Colmenares. The lies are especially targeted at voters too young to have firsthand memories of the Marcos era, which ended when he was driven into exile by a popular uprising in 1986.

"I felt some resentment against the young people for believing," Ilagan said. "But I realized it was not their fault. It was the fault of our government, our institutions who failed to ensure that the lessons of history, especially during martial law, were taught."

"My main obligation is to tell people my story," Ilagan said. "So I tell my story. And I tell the story of my sister."

Source: United Press International (UPI).

Link: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2022/05/13/philippines-ferdinand-marcos-martial-law-Philippines/2611652445128/.

Virus fallout, slow internet worry businesses in German vote

September 17, 2021

GOLSSEN, Germany (AP) — A mill owner in eastern Germany hopes the next government will restore supply chains disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. A brewer in the country’s south wants a more predictable strategy for responding to the virus and a better cellphone network. A hotel owner in the west wants money, fast, to clean up after devastating floods.

A crowded race to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel after she decided not to extend her 16 years in office has left many Germans uninspired and undecided ahead of the Sept. 26 parliamentary election. While some of the issues that voters say are most important to them — including climate change and the economy — are global or national in scope, many have local and personal priorities.

Looming over the election in Europe’s biggest economy, as elsewhere, is uncertainty over how much more disruption the pandemic will cause — and small business owners are especially hoping a new leader might help them avoid a repeat of the pain of the last 18 months.

But they are also interested in how the next chancellor will guide efforts to rebuild areas hit by flash floods in July and address unfinished business from the Merkel era — such as improving Germany's internet and cellphone service or reducing its onerous bureaucracy.

At the Kanow Mill in Golssen, in the rural, eastern state of Brandenburg, owner Christian Berendt is grateful for the financial support his seventh-generation family vegetable oil business has received as part of efforts by authorities to strengthen local business.

But, while he said that parts of the formerly communist east have developed well, many rural areas there and across the country still need help. “Rural structures have to be strengthened” in a coordinated, long-term way, he said.

In the shorter term, Berendt, 37, hopes the next government can ease the problems still being caused by the pandemic. His mill suffered because it missed out on business at local markets and trade fairs, but it has stepped up direct shipments to customers. Still, disruption to supply chains, for packaging and some seeds, continue to plague him.

“At the moment, you either have very, very long delivery times or you have to pay a horrendous price,” he said. A few hundred kilometers (miles) southwest in Salz, in the Rhoen hills in Bavaria, brewer Florian Rehbock is also worried about the pandemic — and hopes the next administration can soften its blows. When restaurants and bars, which make up 85% of Rehbock's business were shuttered during lockdowns, the brewer was forced to throw out large quantities of beer that takes weeks to prepare.

“There was no support for the beer that was destroyed — it was just gone. That's serious for a small company like me and can even endanger livelihoods,” he said. “I would like ... the new government to set itself up better strategically, that we don't just get day-to-day policies that go one way one week, another the next.”

Rehbock, who brews his beer in several small breweries, said some of his customers fear another lockdown after the election. Average daily deaths from the virus have more than doubled over the past two weeks, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, and the vaccination campaign has slowed to a crawl. Still, Germany has generally managed the pandemic better than many of its peers and its daily death toll remains below that of neighboring France, which has a smaller population, for instance. All three candidates for chancellor say no new lockdown will be needed, at least as things stand.

But the 41-year-old Rehbock, who has been self-employed since 2016, said his concerns go beyond the pandemic. “Germany is not the optimal location” for entrepreneurs, he said, citing problems that include complications in registering with tax authorities and getting construction permits.

He also bemoaned that in rural areas like his, a good internet connection is hard to come by and so is reliable cellphone coverage. "If you're on the phone with clients, you can expect that on at least a third of calls, the call drops out from time to time,” he said.

Rather than talking about grandiose plans for a state-of-the-art 5G network, “I'd say start with a normal cellphone network — that would be enough for me for the time being,” he said. Across the country in Gemuend, near the Belgian border, Manfred Pesch has no time to focus on national issues. He is still cleaning up at his waterside Hotel Friedrichs after the small Urft river swelled to a raging torrent in mid-July.

Germany's parliament last week approved a 30 billion-euro ($35 billion) rebuilding fund for the swath of the country's west affected by the flooding. Overseeing that long-term effort will fall to the next administration.

“The help must really come quickly,” said Pesch, 55. “At the moment, to be honest, what's really important is that we get our problems here solved. I don't have any time really to see the other problems, because I'm in such difficulty.”

The flood compounded the struggles he and others in the tourism business already faced because travel dried up during the pandemic and many staff left. “We have to hope that tourism will return and a lot of young people will again find their way into catering,” he said. “If we overcome the pandemic, and we can look to a positive future, that would be super.”

Moulson reported from Berlin. Associated Press journalists Christoph Noelting in Salz, Germany, and Daniel Niemann in Gemuend, Germany, contributed to this report.

Greenland election shows divide over rare-earth metals mine

 April 06, 2021

HELSINKI (AP) — Greenland is holding an early parliamentary election Tuesday focused in part on whether the semi-autonomous Danish territory should allow international companies to mine the sparsely populated Arctic island's substantial deposits of rare-earth metals.

Lawmakers agreed on a snap election after the center-right Democrats pulled out of Greenland's three-party governing coalition in February, leaving the government led by the center-left Forward party with a minority in the national assembly, the 31-seat Inatsisartut.

One of the main reasons the Democrats withdrew was a deep political divide over a proposed mining project involving uranium and rare-earth metals in southern Greenland. Supporters see the in the Kvanefjeld mine project as a potential source of jobs and economic prosperity.

Former Prime Minister Kim Kielsen pushed to give the green light to mine owner Greenland Minerals, an Australia-based company with Chinese ownership, to start operation. Erik Jensen - Kielsen’s recent successor as Forward party leader - is opposed to granting the company a mining license.

Recent election polls showed the left-leaning Community of the People party (Inuit Ataqatigiit), a staunch opponent of the mine project, in position to become the largest party in the Greenlandic Parliament.

The opposition party has stated that a majority of Greenland’s 56,000 inhabitants, most of them indigenous Inuit people, are against the project, largely for environmental reasons. The mining proposal is relevant beyond Greenland. The largely ice-covered island has the world’s largest undeveloped deposits of rare-earth metals, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Estimates show the Kvanefjeld mine could hold the largest deposit of rare-earth metals outside China, which currently accounts for more than 90% of global production. Rare-earth metals are used in a wide array of sectors and products, including smartphones, wind turbines, microchips, batteries for electric cars and weapons systems.

Greenland, the world’s largest island that is not a continent, has its own government and Parliament, and relies on Denmark for defense, foreign and monetary policies. Voting in Tuesday's election is set to end at 2200 GMT. Initial results are expected on Wednesday.

Spain: Catalan vote to test pandemic's impact on separatism

February 12, 2021

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Over 5 million voters will be called to the polls on Sunday in Spain’s northeast Catalonia for an election that will measure the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the restive region’s secessionist movement.

Pro-independence lawmakers have held power in the regional government based in Barcelona for the past decade. And although pro-union Socialist Salvador Illa, Spain's former health minister, is hoping to end the separatists’ hegemony on local power, the outcome is far from clear according to the polls.

Participation in the election will likely be lowered by a worrying rate of COVID-19 infections. As of Wednesday, Catalonia was reporting an accumulated incidence rate of 391 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the past two weeks, which while below Spain’s current average is still considered dangerous by epidemiologists. More than 9,000 of Spain’s confirmed total of 63,000 virus deaths were in Catalonia.

The election comes after authorities had to tighten restrictions on social activities to stem another surge in infections. So while Catalans will be free to vote all day on Sunday, eating establishments will still only open for breakfast and lunch and a curfew will send everyone home by 10 p.m.

Interim regional president Pere Aragonès had wanted to postpone the election that he had called before a post-Christmas surge in infections, but a court ruled that it should go forward. Two other Spanish regions postponed elections in the summer until contagion rates dropped. Neighboring Portugal, which is being hammered by the virus, held a national election last month.

Catalan authorities are taking extra precautions, including using traditional food markets, sports pavilions, and an old bull ring in the city of Tarragona, which are better ventilated, as polling stations for the first time.

“We can guarantee that the polling stations will be safe,” Bernat Solé, the leading Catalan government official in charge of the vote’s preparations, said this week. While mail-in voting is up to a record 284,000 requests, voters are being encouraged to stagger their voting throughout the day.

Those particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 are encouraged to vote between 9 a.m. and noon. The general population is supposed to vote from noon until 7 p.m. That leaves the final hour until polls close at 8 p.m. for those voters who are either infected or quarantined due to recent contact with an infected person.

Poll workers will be provided with high-grade face masks, as well as a full protection suit — gloves, body covering, and face shield — for use during that final hour when the contagion risk is the highest. Authorities have also made 80,000 tests available for workers who want to be tested before election day.

This election will be the first since an incredibly divisive vote in 2017 in the aftermath of a failed attempt by a secessionist-controlled Catalan government to declare independence from the rest of Spain. Pro-secession forces maintained a slim majority, holding 70 seats in the 135-member chamber, in that December 2017 vote but on less than half of the popular vote thanks to election laws that give more weight to underpopulated areas.

With nine parties running, no single one is expected to win an outright majority. Political observers expect that the secession question will still hold sway over the electorate and only further entrench the roughly equal split in the population.

“I don’t think much will change,” said Ana Sofía Cardenal, political science professor at the Open University of Catalonia. “The separatists will still be the most mobilized part of the electorate, and they will likely win another majority of seats, but not in votes.”

The two main pro-secession parties, Aragonès’ left-wing Republic Left of Catalonia and the center-right Together for Catalonia, will be vying to see which can claim the leadership of the forces who want an independent Catalan state between Spain and France.

However, unlike in recent years, they are not promising another breakaway bid in the short term. In-fighting between the two parties, which had formed a coalition government, eventually led to Sunday’s early election.

Their immediate goal is a government amnesty for the jailed leaders of the 2017 secession attempt. Illa, who stepped down from the Health Ministry last month, is poised to greatly boost the Socialist Party of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and lead the bloc of pro-union parties. The Socialists are forecast to inflict big losses on the liberal Citizens, which failed to capitalize on its victory in the 2017 election and was left in the opposition.

The new actor in the race is the far-right Vox party, which is set to enter the regional chamber for the first time, likely at the expense of the traditional conservative Popular Party, the leading opposition to Sánchez’s left-wing government on the national level. The Popular Party has scaled down its once-harsh rhetoric against the separatists in the election campaign.

“The Popular Party has a lot at stake,” Cardenal said. “If Vox beats it, the Popular Party’s strategy not only in Catalonia but across Spain will be affected.”

Renata Brito contributed to this report.

Armenia to hold early parliamentary election in June

March 18, 2021

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Armenia’s prime minister on Thursday set an early parliamentary election for June as he sought to defuse the country’s political crisis. The opposition, which has demanded Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s resignation, demanded that he step down before the vote.

Armenia has been gripped by political tensions after suffering a humiliating defeat last year in an armed conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory within Azerbaijan that Armenia-backed separatists controlled for more than 25 years.

The opposition has pushed for Pashinyan’s resignation, and its supporters have been blocking government buildings and barricaded streets to press the demand. Pashinyan has refused to step down, defending a November peace deal that ended the six weeks of fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh as the only way to prevent Azerbaijan from overrunning the entire region.

More than 6,000 people were killed in the fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh, which lies within Azerbaijan but was under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994.

The Russia-brokered peace deal let Azerbaijan reclaim control over large parts of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas. Pashinyan has staunchly rejected the opposition’s demand to step down before the vote. The 45-year-old former journalist has retained significant public backing despite the defeat in Nagorno-Karabakh, with thousands rallying in his support to counter the opposition-led pressure for his resignation.

On Thursday, Pashinyan rejected a court ruling that challenged his decision to dismiss the country’s top military officer, a legal controversy that deepened the nation’s political crisis. The administrative court in the capital, Yerevan, ruled Wednesday that the chief of the military’s General Staff, Col. Gen. Onik Gasparyan, should stay on the job pending his appeal of the dismissal order.

A statement issued by Pashinyan’s office dismissed the court’s ruling as unlawful. Gasparyan, meanwhile, showed up at his workplace Thursday, according to his lawyer.

Polling booths go to voters in Portugal's pandemic election

January 19, 2021

MONTIJO, Portugal (AP) — Local councils in Portugal sent out teams Tuesday to gather votes from people in home quarantine and from residents of elderly care homes before a presidential election being held amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Authorities have taken exceptional measures to ensure that voting in Sunday's ballot is possible, even with the country currently in lockdown. For 48 hours across the country, crews wearing protective clothing and accompanied by a police officer were collecting the votes of people who had registered for the service. The voters are given a ballot paper and privacy to mark their choice.

At an elderly care home in Montijo, a town 30 kilometers (18 miles) east of Lisbon, the visiting team set up a makeshift polling booth for eight voters Tuesday. Olivia Bibe, an 87-year-old resident of the home, went to the booth in her wheelchair and was thrilled to have her say.

“I was very interested to vote for a person I like very much and that I know will do a lot for everyone," she said. Her son-in-law, António Porfírio, said Bibe and her friends at the home were keen to vote.

“These small things matter a lot to them," he said. "They feel they are not forgotten and it is important while they are confined here in this period to feel that support and participate as usual.” All votes are kept for days in a locked box until deemed safe to handle and count.

The election is taking place against a backdrop of almost daily records of new COVID-19 cases, deaths and hospitalizations in Portugal. Tuesday's total of 218 deaths in 24 hours — a fatality every seven minutes — was a new high.

But fewer than 13,000 people -- about 15% of those eligible -- signed up for the vote-collecting service, officials said, amid complaints from voters that they were given too little notice about the possibility.

Authorities pointed out that residents of care homes were often outside their officially registered voting district, making it impossible for them to cast their ballot where they are living. On Sunday, 12,000 polling stations will be open, 2,000 more than usual, to help avoid large gatherings of people.

Early voting last Sunday drew a record turnout, with long queues forming in some areas. Some 10.8 million people, 1.5 million of them living abroad, are eligible to vote in the ballot, which will elect a head of state for a five-year term.

Barry Hatton reported from Lisbon.

Virus collides with politics as German election year starts

January 09, 2021

BERLIN (AP) — The coronavirus pandemic is colliding with politics as Germany embarks on its vaccination drive and one of the most unpredictable election years in the country's post-World War II history.

After months of relatively harmonious pandemic management, fingers are being pointed as the center-left junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition government takes aim at what it says has been a chaotic start to vaccinating the population.

The discord is likely a sign of the times to come. An electoral marathon in Germany starts in mid-March, when two of six state elections scheduled this year will be held, and culminates on Sept. 26, when voters choose a new national parliament. Germany's choices will help set the tone for Europe in the coming years.

Merkel, who has led Germany since 2005, plans to step down at the September election. It's the first election since post-war West Germany's inaugural vote in 1949 in which there is no incumbent chancellor seeking another term.

Surveys have shown high approval ratings for the 66-year-old Merkel during the pandemic. She has taken a science-led, safety-first approach that has helped her center-right party into a strong poll lead, although Germany has struggled since the fall to get the coronavirus under control.

“We can be glad in Germany and Europe to have such an experienced chancellor as Angela Merkel in this pandemic,” Health Minister Jens Spahn said Wednesday. But with the new year, the end of the Merkel era is looming closer. This week, the center-left Social Democratic Party, which only reluctantly entered a coalition with the longtime leader after Germany's last election, latched onto frustration with the slow start of vaccinations to open political hostilities.

“It was always clear that the start of vaccinations would be the point at which we would see the end of the tunnel,” the party's general secretary, Lars Klingbeil, said. “And now we see that we are in a much worse position than other countries. We ordered too little vaccine. There is barely a prepared strategy.”

The responsibility for that, he said, lies with Spahn, a rising star in Merkel's Christian Democratic Union. Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, who is Merkel's vice chancellor and the Social Democrats' candidate for chancellor in this year's federal election, reportedly sent Spahn a list of questions about vaccine-related issues.

Spahn rejected the criticism, saying politicians must learn from mistakes but that Germany's vaccination campaign is going according to expectations. “It has been clear for weeks and months ... that we would have too little vaccine in the beginning” because production capacities are still limited, he said, not because too little was ordered.

The health minister also noted that a deliberate decision was made to vaccinate the most vulnerable people in nursing homes first, and that process is relatively time-consuming. Germany had vaccinated nearly 477,000 people by Friday, a week-and-a-half after it started giving shots against the coronavirus. That's a better showing than in several European countries, but critics point to faster progress in the U.K., the United States and Israel.

Some in the governing coalition and elsewhere have accused the European Union of bungling the ordering of vaccines. But Merkel insists that having the EU take the lead in ordering doses was and is the right thing to do.

Germany's management of the public health emergency was a relative bright spot in Europe during the early phase of the pandemic. However, virus-related deaths increased significantly in the past two months, and the government this week extended and tightened the country's second lockdown.

Spahn is a tempting target for political opponents not just as health minister, but because it's still unclear which center-right candidate will seek Merkel's job — and he is a possible contender. Her party is choosing a new leader on Jan. 16. That person likely will have the best chances of running for chancellor. It's unclear whether any of the three main candidates for CDU party leader — conservative-leaning Friedrich Merz, a one-time rival of Merkel; Armin Laschet, a more liberal state governor; and prominent lawmaker Norbert Roettgen — will be able to match Merkel's broad appeal. Spahn is bidding to be Laschet's deputy.

At some point after that, the center-right bloc of Merkel's CDU and its Bavaria-only sister party, the Christian Social Union, will choose a candidate for chancellor. Bavarian governor Markus Soeder, the Christian Social Union's leader, has gained stature during the pandemic as a strong advocate of tough shutdown measures, and is viewed as another possible contender to succeed Merkel. Or the two parties could turn to someone other than their leaders.

The parties currently in Germany's government are traditionally the country's biggest. But the Social Democrats, who provided three of Germany’s eight post-war chancellors, are very weak in polls after serving as Merkel's junior governing partners for all but four years of her tenure.

The party has lower support in polls than the environmentalist Greens, who are likely to make their first run for the chancellery this year but have yet to nominate a candidate. The co-leader of the Greens, Robert Habeck, described the squabbling in the governing coalition as “pathetic.”

“The (vaccination) strategy is OK, but its implementation is miserable,” he told German television channel n-tv. It remains to be seen how polls will develop as the political battleground takes shape in 2021.

While that happens, Merkel's coalition risks regaining its lackluster pre-pandemic image, a result of persistent squabbling. Government spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer assured reporters Wednesday that “of course the government is fully functional" — the kind of statement that had become scarce in recent months.

In Portugal presidential race, how high can a populist fly?

January 22, 2021

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — With the moderate incumbent candidate widely seen as the sure winner of Sunday’s presidential election in Portugal, the most intriguing question for many Portuguese is how well a brash new populist challenger will fare in a ballot skewed by a surging COVID-19 pandemic.

Mainstream populism, which has upended political assumptions elsewhere in Europe in recent years, is a novelty in Portugal. But that could change as taxpayers squeezed by the economic downturn, vexed by hefty bailouts for banks and galled by corruption look for somewhere to vent their anger. A significant political shift in Portugal could help add fresh momentum to a continental trend.

Lawyer and former TV soccer pundit André Ventura leads a right-wing populist party called CHEGA! (ENOUGH!), founded in 2019. Nobody expects him to win on Sunday, as he is polling around 11% compared with more than 60% for incumbent Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. Even so, Ventura, 37, could conceivably place second among the seven candidates, drawing a level of support that until recently was unthinkable and sending a shudder through Portuguese politics.

A recent surge in the COVID-19 pandemic that has placed Portugal among the worst-hit countries in the world for new daily infections and deaths has added an unpredictable ingredient into the contest, even though the head of state is not directly involved in organizing the country's response.

A potentially low turnout as voters, especially the elderly, possibly shy away from busy polling stations could upset expectations and allow determined populist sympathizers to capture a bigger share of the ballot.

Ventura's showing “is quite something for a new party,” says Marina Costa Lobo, a senior researcher at Lisbon University’s Institute for Social Sciences. “He has gained a lot of visibility, a lot of exposure.”

Like other populists, Ventura portrays himself as leading common people against an entrenched and corrupt elite. French far-right populist Marine le Pen flew in for one of his campaign events in Lisbon. Ventura has participated in rallies in Italy held by Matteo Salvini, leader of the right-wing League party.

Ventura occupies his party’s single seat in Portugal’s 230-seat parliament. But he punches above his weight by generating headlines. He is eloquent, happy to scrap in public and disdained by mainstream parties. His firebrand speeches have whipped up public support, especially on social media. He calls his supporters the “Portuguese Popular Army.”

He has complained that “minorities are living at our expense” and questions recent liberalizing trends. He asked in parliament last year, “You can change sex at 16 but you can’t go to a bullfight! Doesn’t this country have things the wrong way round?”

Ventura ticks the populist boxes. He wants heavier prison sentences, including currently disallowed life terms, for some crimes and chemical castration for convicted pedophiles and rapists before their release from prison. He opposes letting migrants, especially Muslims, into Europe and supports police demands for higher pay. He also wants to reduce the number of lawmakers in parliament and their salaries.

Major scandals in recent years have provided grist for his cause. Corruption cases against a former prime minister and against the head of the country’s largest private bank, which went bankrupt, have fueled outrage and tainted Portugal’s two main parties, the center-left Socialists and the center-right Social Democrats.

Taxpayers, meanwhile, shelled out more than 20 billion euros ($24 billion) to help banks between 2008 and 2019. That’s a substantial sum in one of the European Union’s smaller economies. The election frontrunner, incumbent Rebelo de Sousa, is the kind of target Ventura relishes: An establishment figure with a 46-year political career, including a stint as leader of the Social Democratic Party.

Over his past five years as president, the gaunt 72-year-old has displayed the patrician bearing and cordial manner expected of a head of state. Though a president in Portugal has no legislative power, which lies with the government and parliament, the role carries considerable influence.

But Rebelo de Sousa’s once cozy relationship with the head of what was Portugal’s biggest private bank, including luxury vacations spent together, and his long spell at the heart of power, have left him vulnerable to attacks from Ventura and the election’s five other candidates.

Even so, Rebelo de Sousa has during his term kept his approval rating above 60% and is held in affection by many in this country of 10.3 million. He cultivates an image of man of the people: Portuguese capture photos of him standing alone in line with his groceries at the supermarket, having a shave at a barber’s shop and chatting with excited children on the beach near his house in Cascais, an old fishing town 30 kilometers (18 miles) west of Lisbon. His small security detail keeps a discreet distance.

On Sunday, more Portuguese are likely to value those traits than Ventura’s pugnacity.

Assad is looking for legitimacy through the ballot box but a rump Syria awaits

January 7, 2021

Saad Kiwan

The Middle East is going through a dangerous transitional phase, in which more than one arena may explode at any moment, from Syria to Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Iraq and Yemen. They are all open spaces that Iran controls either directly or through its proxies, in their political, economic and demographic composition, as well as their social fabric.

Tehran is waiting for US President-elect Joe Biden to enter the White House and give them some relief after Donald Trump's economic blockade and sanctions, especially over the past year. The US dealt the Iranian leadership two major blows by assassinating the commander of the Quds Force in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, General Qasem Soleimani, and the father of the Iranian nuclear program, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

Soleimani travelled far and wide across the Arab world, moving his multinational militias to export the Khomeinist revolution. A US drone strike killed him at Baghdad International Airport. Fakhrizadeh was killed in broad daylight in the heart of Tehran, sending a strong warning to the Iranian government.

The Iranians will not be rid of Trump's evil until he actually leaves the White House, as he is ready to launch a military strike against them, even on his last day in office. The US President set his sights from the moment of his election to limit Tehran's regional influence, before any other regional or international goal.

At the time, Trump announced that he was not interested in bringing down Bashar Al-Assad, but rather wanted to remove Iranian forces from Syria. However, he kept US troops in northern Syria, and a few days ago he reinforced them on the Syrian-Iraqi border, at Al-Tanf, which Iran seeks to establish as a strategic route to the Mediterranean and Beirut. The use of sanctions throughout this time has turned into painful political, economic, financial and military pressure across the region from Iraq to Syria to Lebanon.

Despite Trump having just two weeks left in the White House, yesterday the US Treasury imposed new sanctions targeting the Central Bank of Syria. It hit entities and individuals, including Assad's wife who, as head of the Syria Trust for Development, became a member of the Evaluation Body of UNESCO's Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. This step was an attempt to legitimize the regime in international forums.

Syria has turned into a confrontation zone between Tehran and Washington, as well as Moscow, Ankara and Tel Aviv, in anticipation of the approach that soon-to-be President Biden will adopt. He has already announced positions against the Syrian regime, as well as Turkey and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Assad is now seeking to beat such developments and use his allies to guarantee himself a fourth term of office since 2000 in the next presidential election. This is an option for Iran and a fait accompli for Russia, which is still betting on negotiating with the US and reining in Turkey's activity in northern Syria. This, of course, contradicts UN Resolution 2254, which includes a process for the transition of power in Syria, followed by the holding of free and fair elections under the supervision of the UN. In other words, Assad's departure from the political scene. However, is it possible to hold an election with any credibility in a country occupied by five armies?

Assad lives in denial and acts as if he is still has power across Syria. The reality is that he is a prisoner of those who protect him and keep him on the throne in Al-Muhajireen Palace in Damascus. He has no authority over the south or the north of "his" country.

Today, Assad is looking for legitimacy through the ballot box, not through pledges or referendums, as was the custom in Baathist Syria, and under all such tyrannical regimes in the Arab region for decades. He is now struggling to prepare his presidential campaign.

This is based on three factors: security, where he is reconfiguring the military, parts of which are loyal to Iran and others to Russia, and has appointed a new commander for the Special Forces; the media, which he is trying to win over by using foreign journalists, especially Lebanese affiliated with the axis of resistance, in an attempt to dispel suspicions of their subordination to the regime; and his fear that the presidential election will make him president over little more than a rump Syria.

There are a number of areas of influence outside his control, such as the Autonomous Administration areas, the north under Turkish control, and the south. He sent his new foreign minister, Faisal Al-Miqdad, to Moscow to convince the Russians to help prevent elections in north-west Syria and Idlib, as well as in the south, and in the Kurdish areas controlled and run by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). It seems that the regime is trying to tempt the Russians into choosing the opposition candidate to compete against Assad for the presidency, as a prelude to him possibly becoming the president in the post-Assad era.

However, Assad's dreams will remain illusory, or turn into nightmares, because Russian President Vladimir Putin's calculations are different; he does not have the luxury of being able to waste time given Moscow's intervention in the Middle East, which has been costly politically, militarily, financially and strategically. When Putin decided to intervene five years ago to save Assad, he was not betting on him or his crumbling regime. He saw it as an opportunity to restore the role of the former Soviet Union and put his foot in a strategic country giving himself influence in the region. This was while US President Barak Obama was hesitant and withdrew from any role in Syria, preferring to sign the nuclear agreement with Iran in the summer of 2015, two months before Russia's military intervention.

Then Trump turned things upside down, taking the nuclear issue back to square one and imposing a new reality not only on Putin, but also on his successor in the White House. Today, Iran is besieged by sanctions and its economy is bleeding, while Iraq's government is under the US umbrella, and Lebanon, where Iranian proxy Hezbollah is based, is paralyzed without a government and on the verge of collapse.

The Assad regime, meanwhile, is besieged by sanctions and boycott and accountability laws like America's Caesar and Magnitsky Acts, which respectively impose sanctions on parties and people who deal with the regime or provide it with any assistance, and authorize the US government to impose sanctions on human rights violators. As for sovereignty, in terms of land in Syria this is distributed between Russia, America, Turkey and Iran; in terms of air space, it belongs to Israel. The part ruled by Assad does not balance the weight of the next round of negotiations between Moscow and Washington, which wants to add Iran to the equation.

Source: Middle East Monitor.

Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20210107-assad-is-looking-for-legitimacy-through-the-ballot-box-but-a-rump-syria-awaits/.

World warily watches America's postelection aftershocks

January 13, 2021

PARIS (AP) — For America's allies and rivals alike, the chaos unfolding during Donald Trump's final days as president is the logical result of four years of global instability brought on by the man who promised to change the way the world viewed the United States.

From the outside, the United States has never looked so vulnerable — or unpredictable. Alliances that had held for generations frayed to a breaking point under Trump — from his decision to back out of the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear deal, to quitting the World Health Organization amid a pandemic.

And then, by seeking to overturn his loss to Joe Biden, Trump upended the bedrock principle of democratic elections that the United States has tried — and sometimes even succeeded — in exporting around the world. How long those aftershocks could endure is unclear.

“It is one of the biggest tasks of the future for America and Europe — to fight the polarization of society at its roots,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said. “We will only be able to preserve the belief in togetherness, in democracy as the most humane form of statehood, and the conviction in science and reason if we do it together.”

But in many ways Europe has already moved on, forging ahead on the deal with Iran, negotiating a trade agreement with China spearheaded by Germany, and organizing global actions to protect the environment.

On the same day an angry mob stormed the Capitol to try to overturn the presidential election won by Biden, a record number of Americans died of coronavirus. One other recent event also showed U.S. vulnerability: the cyberespionage operation still working its way through an untold number of government computers and blamed on elite Russian hackers.

World leaders who saw the deadly violence in Washington “will need to consider whether these events are an outlier event — a ‘black swan’ — or whether these extremist white supremacist groups will continue to be a significant influence on the direction of U.S. foreign and domestic policy, instead of receding with the end of the Trump administration," the Soufan Group, a global intelligence and security firm, wrote Tuesday.

People tend to think of fragile countries “in terms of war as the biggest problem, rather than violence, and thinking in terms of state collapse as the biggest problem rather than states that internally disintegrate,” said Rachel Kleinfeld, a scholar of democracy and violence at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Kleinfeld, like many others, said the assault on the U.S. Capitol may have come to a head in a matter of weeks but was years in the making.

And the U.S. capacity to fight for democracy was already tarnished before the mob egged on by Trump sought to overturn his election loss. For many, those events were merely confirmation. Adversaries including Russia, China and Iran used the violence to question U.S. democracy more generally.

In an internal note on the State Department's “dissent channel” obtained by The Associated Press, American diplomats said Trump’s actions had made their job harder. “It is critical that we communicate to the world that in our system, no one — not even the president — is above the law or immune from public criticism,” the note said. “This would be a first step towards repairing the damage to our international credibility.”

Trump showed no contrition, however, saying Tuesday his fiery rally remarks to supporters were “totally appropriate.” In Iraq, a country that still struggles with the controversial legacy of a U.S.-led invasion in the name of democracy, many people followed the Washington events with a mixture of shock and fascination.

Then-U.S. President George W. Bush boasted that Iraq would become a model of democracy in a region ruled by dictators. Instead, the country fell into protracted war between Sunnis and Shiites in which tens of thousands of people died. Although it has an active parliament and regular elections, it is a dysfunctional democracy based on a sectarian power sharing agreement, with corrupt parties haggling over ministries and posts so they can give jobs to supporters while lining their own pockets.

Ahmad al-Helfi, a 39-year-old Iraqi political cartoonist, said what happened at the U.S. Capitol is a blow to the democracy it tried to bring to Iraq and other countries. “By mobilizing his followers in an effort to overturn the results of the election, Trump confirmed that instead of exporting democracy to Iraq, America imported the chaos, non-peaceful transition of power, and failure to accept election results,” al-Helfi said.

Anahita Thoms, a German lawyer and trade expert who spent years living and working in the United States, said last week's events would indelibly mark America’s image abroad. Thoms is a board member of the Atlantic Bridge, a think tank promoting cooperation between Europe and the U.S. — the kind of organization founded in the aftermath of World War II when the U.S. helped to rebuild the economies of many countries in western Europe that had been destroyed by the war.

Germany was one country that benefited the most from those U.S. financial and democracy-building efforts. Looking ahead, she said American officials may have a tougher time promoting democracy abroad.

“The U.S. remains a country that lives its democratic values. But this aspiration, which is presented very strongly to the outside world, mustn’t get too many cracks," Thoms said. "I think a lot of diplomatic skill is going to be necessary to counter those pictures.”

The International Crisis Group, which normally focuses on global war zones, wrote its first assessment ever about the risk of election-related violence in the United States in October. Stephen Pomper, who helped lead the work on the report and lives in the D.C. area, said in the best of circumstances, the United States could eventually point to the decision of Congress to resume certification of Biden's election after the breach as a first step in successfully protecting its democracy.

“Look, we created these institutions. They did become a source of resiliency for us. They helped us get through this very difficult period. Let us help you develop the same kind of resiliency,” he said, describing a hypothetical future conversation between the U.S. and a struggling government. “That would be a positive story to be able to tell at some point, but I don’t think the pieces are quite there yet.”

Pope Francis was more optimistic, telling Italian broadcaster Mediaset: "Thank God this exploded” into the open because “we have been able to see why this is, and how it can be remedied.”

Associated Press writers Kirsten Grieshaber and Frank Jordans in Berlin, Abdulrahman Zeyad in Baghdad, Matt Lee in Washington; and Frank Bajak in Boston contributed.

Virus, economy top concerns as Lithuanians vote in runoff

October 24, 2020

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — The coronavirus pandemic is the main domestic issue as Lithuania holds a parliamentary runoff election Sunday, and the winner will have to tackle a rapidly deteriorating public health sector and high unemployment.

The election is widely expected to bring about a change in the southernmost Baltic nation, which has been governed by a center-left coalition for four years. In the first round of this month's voting, three center-right opposition parties finished with a combined lead.

In the second round, 68 of the 141 seats in Lithuania's legislative assembly, the Seimas, are up for grabs. The other seats were allotted after the Oct. 11 first round of voting. More than 7% of Lithuania’s 2.5 million voters have already cast early ballots for the runoff, according to election authorities who set up special drive-in polling stations because of the pandemic.

Lithuania fared comparatively well during the first wave of the pandemic, but like elsewhere in Europe this fall, the nation of 3 million people has reported worrying spikes in recent weeks. Overall, it has seen over 9,100 infections and 126 reported deaths.

After weeks of hesitation, the Lithuanian government imposed a quarantine in 12 of 60 districts that starts on Monday. Opposition lawmakers have criticized the government for not doing enough to stabilize the latest outbreak.

The economic impact of the pandemic has hit Lithuania hard: it's unemployment rate was over 14% in September compared to 9% in February. The outgoing parliament had drafted a 2021 budget with a 4-billion euro ($4.7 billion) deficit.

The election's first round resulted in the conservative Homeland Union party winning 23 seats, or 24.8% of the vote, while the ruling Farmers and Greens party only grabbed 16 seats, or 17.5%. “If the conservatives are successful on Sunday, they would very likely try to form a new ruling coalition with other two center-right partners — the Freedom Party and the Liberal movement,” Vilnius University political scientist Tomas Janeliunas told The Associated Press. “Yet this would be a rather fragile majority.”

Some 54 Homeland Union candidates made it into the runoff, while the Farmers and Greens have 32 contenders. Together, the Freedom Party and the Liberal movement have 21 candidates. Two other center-left parties that have crossed the 5% support threshold into parliament could join the Farmers and Greens in a new coalition but they have few candidates in the runoff.

Lithuania, a member of the European Union and NATO, has kept strong democratic traditions and sustainable economic growth since declaring independence from the Soviet Union in 1990. It has also played a major diplomatic role as the protests in Belarus, its southern neighbor, unfold against that nation’s authoritarian leader.

Armenia's prime minister offers to discuss early election

December 25, 2020

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Armenia's prime minister said Friday he was ready to discuss the possibility of holding an early parliamentary election, but rejected opposition demands to step down over his handling of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan.

Opposition supporters have rallied for weeks, urging Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to step down over the Nov. 10 peace deal that saw Azerbaijan reclaim control over large parts of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas. The Russia-brokered agreement ended 44 days of fierce fighting in which the Azerbaijani army routed Armenian forces.

Pashinyan has defended the peace deal as a painful but necessary move to prevent Azerbaijan from overrunning the entire Nagorno-Karabakh region. He argued Friday that his critics lack broad public support for their demand.

“I'm not clinging to the prime minister's seat, but I can't carelessly treat the post given to me by the people,” he said on Facebook. Pashinyan added that he was ready to hold consultations with the nation's political parties to discuss calling an early parliamentary election next year.

Opposition supporters on Friday continued blocking streets in the Armenian capital and engaged in occasional scuffles with police. Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan but was under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994. That war left Nagorno-Karabakh itself and substantial surrounding territory in Armenian hands.

Heavy fighting that erupted in late September marked the biggest escalation of the decades-old conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, killing more than 5,600 people on both sides. The Russia-brokered peace agreement stipulated that Armenia hand over control of some areas it holds outside Nagorno-Karabakh’s borders. Azerbaijan also retained control over areas of Nagorno-Karabakh it had taken during the conflict.

The peace deal was celebrated in Azerbaijan as a major triumph, and triggered outrage and mass protests in Armenia.

Associated Press writer Vladimir Isachenkov contributed to this report from Moscow.

'Big win for democracy': Bosnian city of Mostar gets a vote

December 19, 2020

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Irma Baralija is looking forward to Sunday, when she intends to vote and hopes to win her race as the southern Bosnian city of Mostar holds its first local election in 12 years.

To make that vote possible in her hometown, the 36-year-old Baralija had to sue Bosnia in the European Court of Human Rights for letting a stalemate between two major nationalist political parties prevent her, along about 100,000 other Mostar residents, from voting or running in a municipal election for over a decade.

By winning in court in October 2019, Baralija believes she has “busted the myth (that nationalist parties) have been feeding to us, that an individual cannot move things forward, that we matter only as members of our ethnic groups.”

Parties representing only one ethnic group have dominated Bosnian politics since the end of the country’s devastating 1992-95 war, which pitted its three main ethnic factions — Serbs, Croats and Muslims — against each other after the break-up of Yugoslavia.

“I hope that my example will inspire citizens of Mostar, when they vote on Sunday, to be brave, to realize that as individuals we can bring positive change,” said Baralija, who is running for a city council seat on the ticket of the small, multi-ethnic Our Party.

Divided between Muslim Bosniaks and Catholic Croats, who fought fiercely for control over the city during the 1990s conflict, Mostar has not held a local poll since 2008, when Bosnia’s constitutional court declared its election rules to be discriminatory and ordered that they be changed.

The dominant nationalist Bosniak and Croat political parties, the SDA and the HDZ respectively, have spent over a decade failing to agree about how to do that. Meanwhile, Mostar was run by a de facto acting mayor, HDZ’s Ljubo Beslic, and his office, which included SDA representatives, with no local council to oversee their work or the allocation of nearly 230 million euros from the city’s coffers they have spent over the years.

Left without fully functioning institutions, Mostar — one of the impoverished Balkan country's main tourist destinations — has seen its infrastructure crumble, trash repeatedly pile up on its streets and hazardous waste and wastewater treatment sludge dumped in its only landfill, which was supposed to be for non-hazardous waste.

An agreement between the two parties, endorsed by the top European Union and U.S. diplomats in Bosnia, was finally reached in June — eight months after the court in Strasbourg had ruled in favor of Baralija and gave Bosnia six months to amend its election laws so a vote can be held in Mostar.

Mostar is divided in half by the Neretva River. During the war, Croats moved to the western side and Muslims to the east. Since the fighting stopped, the city has had two post offices, two electricity and water suppliers, two phone networks, two public hospitals and more — one crumbling set for each ethnic group.

On Sunday, several small, multi-ethnic parties will be vying for seats in the city council after campaigning on bread-and-butter issues. But the nationalist HDZ and SDA parties hope that, among them, they will secure a two-thirds majority in the council and keep their grip on power.

While acknowledging that the nationalists have armies of faithful voters whom they mobilize by stoking ethnic mistrust, non-nationalist election candidates in Mostar hope the past 12 years has shown that those two parties are too corrupt and incompetent.

“I think that many people finally realized that the abstract, ethnic interests are meaningless while their children are leaving (Mostar) in droves in search of decent jobs and a decent life” elsewhere in Europe, said Amna Popovac, a candidate from the multi-ethnic Platform for Progress party.

The nationalists are now promising to fix the city’s many problems as if “Martians and not they were running Mostar, unchecked, for the past 12 years,” she added. Miljan Rupar’s name will also be on the ballot. The 35-year-old, who is running as a candidate from the multi-ethnic Social Democrat Party, decided to get involved in politics after realizing that over 38 friends and relatives, including his sister, had left Mostar “for good” in search of a better life abroad.

Rupar wants his city focused on the future, just like the international school where he teaches physics, the United World College branch in Mostar. The school is one of 17 around the globe and run by a movement founded in 1962 with the aim of overcoming Cold War divisions by bringing high-achieving youngsters from all over to live and learn together.

“When I walk into the classroom or attend our bi-weekly assembly and see students and teachers from all over the world, including from various parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina, who share the same values and goals, it gives me hope,” he said.

Political journalist Faruk Kajtaz, however, thinks that hope could prove to be treacherous in the divided city, despite local voters’ well-justified grievances. He notes that not just Mostar but all of Bosnia has long been politically and administratively fragmented along ethnic lines.

“Maybe too much is expected from the people of Mostar,” he said. “(But) just the fact that citizens of Mostar will finally get a chance to vote for their local legislators is in itself a big win for democracy.”

Kemal Softic in Mostar, Bosnia, contributed to this report.

'With reservations': Trump voters grapple with Biden's win

December 16, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — Robert Reed says he will always believe the 2020 election was stolen from President Donald Trump. The retired police officer-turned-construction worker believes fraud marred the vote, no matter how many courts rejected that claim. Still, a day after the Electoral College made Joe Biden's win official, the ardent Trump supporter from the suburbs of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was ready to move on.

“I think it’s pretty much over,” Reed said of Trump’s ongoing quest to overturn the results of the election. ”I trust the Electoral College.” For weeks, Trump has been on a mission to convince his loyal base that his victory was stolen and the contest was rigged. With help from conservative media, polls show he's had considerable success. But now that the Electoral College has formalized Biden's win and Republican officials, including Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, are finally acknowledging Biden as president-elect, many Trump voters across the country seem to be doing the same.

Interviews with voters, along with fresh surveys of Republicans, suggest their unfounded doubts about the integrity of the vote remain. But there is far less consensus on what should be done about it and whether to carry that resentment forward.

For some, like Reed, the Electoral College vote was the clear end of a process. Others have vowed to continue to protest with demonstrations like the one that turned violent in Washington, D.C., over the weekend. And some said they hoped GOP leaders would press for more investigations to put the doubts Trump sowed to rest.

They are people like Scott Adams, a retiree and Trump voter living in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, who said he accepts Biden’s victory — but “with reservations.” Adams said he's heard too much discussion about irregularities in the vote count on Fox News Channel and conservative talk radio to trust the election's outcome and doesn’t feel he’ll ever know the true margin of victory. (Biden won the Electoral College by a vote of 306 to 232.)

But Adams doesn’t think the election was rigged enough to change the outcome, even if he believes it was “rigged enough that it should be questioned more.” He'd like to see more investigations. Republicans across the country — from local officials to governors to Attorney General William Barr — have said repeatedly there is no evidence mass voter fraud affected the outcome. Trump and his allies brought a flurry of lawsuits, but nearly all have been dismissed by judges. The Supreme Court, which includes three Trump-nominated justices, denied requests to hear a pair of cases aimed at invalidating the outcome of the election in key battleground states.

Still, coming to terms with this pile of evidence has been difficult for many Trump voters. They expressed disbelief that Trump could have lost, given the huge crowds he drew to his rallies. Some said their suspicions were heightened by the mainstream media's reluctance to air Trump's baseless claims. And they repeatedly pointed to the slower-than-usual vote count as evidence something had gone awry.

“Something's not right here,” said Reed, 61, who lives in East Lampeter Township. The explanation is well known — in many states, an influx of mail-in ballots, overwhelmingly cast by Democrats, were tallied later than ballots cast in person. Still, Reed said he thought the courts should have spent more time investigating.

“I’ll always believe that it was stolen from him. I’ll really never be able to have peace of mind that it wasn’t,” he said. Others were less willing to go along. “I don’t trust that result. I think that the election was a fraud. I think the election was stolen. I don’t know how anybody could not think that. All you have to do is look at the results,” said Katherine Negrete, 55, a teacher living in Peoria, Arizona.

Negrete is among those who holds out hope that Trump can win if the Supreme Court intervenes (there is no indication that will happen) or Congress chooses to accept an “alternative slate” of Trump electors from several states. Election experts have said that scheme has no legal pathway and Republican Senate leaders have discouraged it.

Still, Negrete said, “hopefully Congress will do the right thing" and she expressed frustration with dwindling options. “I don’t know what we can do about that. If we don’t have the courts that stand up for us,” she said. "If we don’t have an attorney general that will stand up and say, ‘This was wrong and we need to investigate it.’ What are we supposed to do? Do we need to fight brother against brother? It’s crazy.”

Biden has vowed to bring Americans together and work across the aisle. His success on both fronts may depend on how many Republicans hold on to their election grievances. A Quinnipiac University poll from earlier this month found that 38% of registered voters, including 77% of Republicans, said they believe there was widespread fraud in the presidential election.

And a recent Fox News poll found 36% of voters, including 77% of Trump voters, believe the election was stolen from Trump. However, the same poll also found that about 8 in 10 voters overall, and about half of Trump voters, said they will at least give Biden a chance as president.

Matt Vereline, 52, a member of the pro-Trump group “Long Island Loud Majority” is not in the mood for reconciliation. Vereline, who lives in Bohemia, New York, is convinced “there was a lot more voter fraud than we know about,” though he's not sure whether it changed the outcome. But that won't keep him from rallying around what he thinks was an injustice. After all, that's what Democrats did to Trump, he says.

“Did they not cry for four years about Russian collusion, which wasn’t proven? So now I’m going to to cry about voter fraud for four years," he said. “They didn’t accept it. Why should I accept Biden? I know I can't do nothing about it. I know a rally is not going to change the course of who gets elected president. It’s whatever will be will be. But if my friends want to get together and complain about it in a peaceful way and voice our opinions, I’m going."

Others believe Biden won fair and square. Steve Volkman, a Republican who works in construction in Mesa, Arizona, said he made peace with Trump’s loss weeks ago. “I voted for Trump, but people gotta get over it,” Volkman said, while leaning against his pickup truck. “For sure, he (Biden) won the majority vote — landslide. To me, it’s already over.”

Catherine Templeton, a South Carolina Republican who served in former Gov. Nikki Haley’s administration, said that, despite the level of support for Trump in red states like her own, she felt sure voters would be willing to accept Biden as president.

“Obviously, South Carolina supports President Trump, but I think you’ll see when Republicans don’t get their way, they move on,” said Templeton, who lives in Charleston. “It’s time to move on.” It remains to be seen, for now, how lingering concerns over the integrity of the vote will affect turnout in future elections. Both parties have been focused on Georgia, where a pair of runoff elections will determine which party controls the U.S. Senate.

Denise Adams, 50, said she has her doubts about “questionable activity” in the general election. But she turned out to vote early on Monday in Kennesaw, a suburb northwest of Atlanta. “I don’t want to lose our freedoms,” she said, repeating misleading GOP claims that the Democrats would usher in “socialism.” “We’re losing our rights and freedoms in our country.”

“I’ve never had a problem before now trusting it, but now I feel like there may be something going on that I don’t trust,” echoed Melissa McJunkin, 40, who remains concerned about the integrity of her vote after hearing stories of voter fraud in the general election, but turned out anyway.

“I think it’s important for what’s going to happen next,” she said.

Cooper reported from Mesa, Arizona. Associated Press writers Emily Swanson in Washington, Nicholas Riccardi in Atlanta, Sophia Tulp in Rome, Georgia, and Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.

Lithuanians to choose new parliament amid virus tensions

October 10, 2020

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Lithuanian voters will choose a new parliament Sunday for a nation that has seen a recent surge in COVID-19 cases and whose center-right coalition government has faced strong criticism over soaring virus-related unemployment.

The Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union, the party that leads a majority coalition with three smaller partners, hopes to remain in power in the southernmost Baltic republic. Pre-election polls showed they are marginally ahead of the opposition conservative Homeland Union-Christian Democrats, the Social Democrats, the populist Labor party and the center-right Liberal Movement.

Five or six parties are expected to cross the 5% threshold to enter the 141-seat Seimas parliament but none is likely to get more than 20% support, so horse-trading talks to form a coalition are expected after the election.

The recent sharp rise in virus infections and new restrictions may force many voters to stay at home, affecting turnout among Lithuania’s 2.4 million registered voters. A second round of voting has been set for Oct. 25 in constituencies where no candidate gets a majority.

Many Lithuanians complain that government did not do enough to help companies during the nation's coronavirus lockdown, as the unemployment rate jumped from 9% in February to more than 14% in October. Others say the strict health regulations focused on fighting the virus left thousands of other patients without proper access to health services.

Supporters of the ruling coalition say this coastal Baltic country was among the lucky ones that suffered relatively lightly in the pandemic. So far Lithuania has seen 5,500 confirmed coronavirus cases and and just above 100 deaths.

Lithuania has kept strong democratic traditions since regaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1990. It has also played a major role as the protests in neighboring Belarus unfold against that nation's authoritarian leader.

Lithuania has granted shelter to Belarus opposition figure Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled Belarus after challenging President Alexander Lukashenko in the country's Aug. 9 presidential vote. Officials said Lukashenko won a sixth term in office but opposition members say the election was riddled with fraud.

Together with its Baltic neighbors Estonia and Latvia, Lithuania swiftly imposed sanctions against Belarusian leaders, and the European Union — a 27-nation bloc that includes the three Baltic nations — eventually followed suit with sanctions. Belarus is not an EU member.

N. Carolina Senate race upended by sexting, virus diagnosis

October 04, 2020

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina's intensely competitive and expensive U.S. Senate race has been upended by personal and health disruptions that sent sharp tremors and uncertainty through the campaigns and an electorate already casting ballots.

Democratic nominee Cal Cunningham acknowledged and apologized for exchanging sexually suggestive text messages with a woman who’s not his wife, but he said he won’t drop out of the race. And just a few hours earlier Friday evening, his opponent, Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, announced he has tested positive for COVID-19. The first-term senator has “mild symptoms,” and the positive test forced Tillis to cancel in-person events as several members of his campaign staff headed into quarantine, less than five weeks until Election Day.

“It’s chaos — it’s really what I see it is,” David McLennan, a political science professor at Meredith College in Raleigh, said in a Saturday interview. In the text message exchanges, Cunningham tells the woman he wants to kiss her and she says she wants to spend the night with him. The messages were first reported by the website NationalFile.com.

“I have hurt my family, disappointed my friends, and am deeply sorry. The first step in repairing those relationships is taking complete responsibility, which I do,” Cunningham said in his statement late Friday.

Cunningham, who is married with two teenage children, added he's staying in the Senate race: “I will continue to work to earn the opportunity to fight for the people of our state.” The race is the nation's most expensive Senate campaign and considered key to determining the power balance in the chamber. Democrats need to gain four seats in November to take control. The developments come as voting already has gone on for four weeks in North Carolina, as 341,000 completed mail-in absentee ballots already have been accepted and will be counted. Early in-person voting begins Oct. 15.

McLennan and Gary Pearce, a longtime state Democratic consultant, said it's unclear how much of an effect the text messages will have on the election. “Most Democrats are really scared by it, but then you wonder has everything changed in the age of (President Donald) Trump,” Pearce said, adding the electorate’s increased polarization since 2016 could lead many Democrats to stick with Cunningham simply because the party's victory is paramount.

Screengrabs of the messages show Cunningham told public relations strategist Arlene Guzman Todd, “Would make my day to roll over and kiss you about now,” to which she replies, “You’re so sweet. I would enjoy that.”

Another shows Guzman Todd tell Cunningham, “the only thing I want on my to do list is you,” to which Cunningham replies, “Sounds so hot and so fun!” A spokeswoman for Cunningham’s campaign, Rachel Petri, confirmed on Saturday the authenticity of the text messages. It’s unclear when the messages were sent, but at one point Cunningham says he’s “Nervous about the next 100 days,” which could be a reference to the Senate election. One hundred days before the election would be July 26.

An email trying to reach Guzman Todd at the California-based communications firm that lists her as an employee, as well as voice messages left with what public records indicate are her phone numbers, weren’t returned Saturday. Public records show she had a Raleigh residence briefly until 2015. Guzman Todd is married to someone who has served in the U.S. Army, according to the NationalFile.com report.

Cunningham, 47, is an attorney and Iraq War veteran who still serves as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve. He served one term in the state Senate in the early 2000s and lost a Democratic primary runoff for U.S. Senate in 2010.

As for Tillis, a spokesman for the Republican said Tillis has “mild symptoms” and will be staying at home for 10 days. Cunningham tweeted that he wished Tillis a “quick recovery." The two candidates shared a debate stage on Thursday night. Petri said Cunningham tested negative for COVID-19 on Saturday and will be tested again Monday. No other debates are scheduled.

The Tillis campaign, citing its own health concerns, deferred on Saturday questions about the text messages to Cunningham. National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesperson Jesse Hunt said Cunningham must disclose more so voters can decide his fitness for office: “These are very troubling allegations and Cal needs to be fully transparent with the voters of North Carolina."

National Democrats who helped recruit Cunningham for the race stood with him. “We are confident that he will bring the same courage and determination to the Senate as he has while serving our country in uniform,” Lauren Passalacqua with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said.

Tillis, 60, was diagnosed with the virus days after attending the Supreme Court nomination ceremony in the White House Rose Garden for Amy Coney Barrett on Sept. 26. The judiciary committee member didn't say in his statement where he believes he caught the virus but did say he had tested negative for the virus on the same day as the White House event. Tillis was wearing a mask at the ceremony and has been among the most consistent Republicans to preach the use of face coverings. In late August, Tillis apologized for listening maskless in person to Trump's Republican nomination acceptance speech outdoors at the White House. McLennan said the positive test could place more questions upon Tillis.

The race is second only to the presidential campaign in terms of overall outside spending, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. More than $97 million already has been spent by independent expenditure groups in the general election, center data says.

Cunningham, who outraised Tillis during the first half of the year, announced Thursday that his campaign would report collecting $28.3 million in the third quarter — a record haul for any North Carolina candidate. Tillis' campaign hasn't announced his third quarter fundraising totals.

Biden transition gets govt OK after Trump out of options

November 24, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal government recognized President-elect Joe Biden as the “apparent winner” of the Nov. 3 election on Monday, formally starting the transition of power after President Donald Trump spent weeks testing the boundaries of American democracy. He relented after suffering yet more legal and procedural defeats in his seemingly futile effort to overturn the election with baseless claims of fraud.

Trump still refused to concede and vowed to continue to fight in court after General Services Administrator Emily Murphy gave the green light for Biden to coordinate with federal agencies ahead of his Jan. 20 inauguration. But Trump did tweet that he was directing his team to cooperate on the transition.

Monday’s fast-moving series of events seemed to let much of the air out of Trump’s frantic efforts to undermine the will of the people in what has amounted to a weekslong stress test for American democracy. But Trump’s attempts to foment a crisis of confidence in the political system and the fairness of U.S. elections haven’t ended and are likely to persist well beyond his lame-duck presidency.

Murphy, explaining her decision, cited "recent developments involving legal challenges and certifications of election results.” She acted after Michigan on Monday certified Biden’s victory in the battleground state, and a federal judge in Pennsylvania tossed a Trump campaign lawsuit on Saturday seeking to prevent certification in that state.

It also comes as an increasing number of Republicans were publicly acknowledging Biden’s victory, after weeks of tolerating Trump’s baseless claims of fraud. The president had grown increasingly frustrated with the flailing tactics of his legal team.

In recent days, senior Trump aides including chief of staff Mark Meadows and White House counsel Pat Cipollone had also encouraged him to allow the transition to begin, telling the president he didn’t need to concede but could no longer justify withholding support to the Biden transition.

Yohannes Abraham, executive director of the Biden transition, said the decision “is a needed step to begin tackling the challenges facing our nation, including getting the pandemic under control and our economy back on track.”

Murphy, a Trump appointee, has faced bipartisan criticism for failing to begin the transition process sooner, preventing Biden’s team from working with career agency officials on plans for his administration. The delay denied Biden access to highly classified national security briefings and hindered his team's ability to begin drawing up its own plans to respond to the raging coronavirus pandemic.

Murphy insisted she acted on her own. “Please know that I came to my decision independently, based on the law and available facts. I was never directly or indirectly pressured by any Executive Branch official—including those who work at the White House or GSA—with regard to the substance or timing of my decision,” she wrote in a letter to Biden.

Trump tweeted moments after Murphy's decision: “We will keep up the good fight and I believe we will prevail! Nevertheless, in the best interest of our Country, I am recommending that Emily and her team do what needs to be done with regard to initial protocols, and have told my team to do the same.”

Max Stier, president and CEO of the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, criticized the delay but said Biden’s team would be able to overcome it. “Unfortunately, every day lost to the delayed ascertainment was a missed opportunity for the outgoing administration to help President-elect Joe Biden prepare to meet our country’s greatest challenges," he said. "The good news is that the president-elect and his team are the most prepared and best equipped of any incoming administration in recent memory.”

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said the GSA action “is probably the closest thing to a concession that President Trump could issue.″ Noting that the nation “faces multiple crises that demand an orderly transition,″ Schumer urged Democrats and Republicans to “unite together for a smooth and peaceful transition that will benefit America.″

Murphy’s action came just 90 minutes after Michigan election officials certified Biden’s 154,000-vote victory in the state. The Board of State Canvassers, which has two Republicans and two Democrats, confirmed the results on a 3-0 vote with one GOP abstention. Trump and his allies had hoped to block the vote to allow time for an audit of ballots in Wayne County, where Trump has claimed without evidence that he was the victim of fraud. Biden crushed the president by more than 330,000 votes there.

Some Trump allies had expressed hope that state lawmakers could intervene in selecting Republican electors in states that do not certify. That long-shot bid is no longer possible in Michigan. “The people of Michigan have spoken. President-elect Biden won the State of Michigan by more than 154,000 votes, and he will be our next president on January 20th,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, said, adding it’s “time to put this election behind us.”

Trump was increasingly frustrated by his legal team, led by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, whose erratic public performances drew bipartisan mockery in recent weeks. Still, the legal challenges were expected to continue, as Trump seeks to keep his supporters on his side and keep his options open for opportunities post-presidency.

In Pennsylvania on Saturday, a conservative Republican judge shot down the Trump campaign’s biggest legal effort in the state with a scathing ruling that questioned why he was supposed to disenfranchise 7 million voters with no evidence to back their claims and an inept legal argument at best.

But the lawyers still hope to block the state’s certification, quickly appealing to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, which ordered lawyers to file a brief Monday but did not agree to hear oral arguments.

The campaign, in its filings, asked for urgent consideration so it could challenge the state election results before they are certified next month. If not, they will seek to decertify them, the filings said.

Biden won Pennsylvania by more than 80,000 votes. Pennsylvania county election boards voted Monday, the state deadline, on whether to certify election results to the Department of State. The boards in two populous counties split along party lines, with majority Democrats in both places voting to certify. After all counties have sent certified results to Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, she must then tabulate, compute and canvass votes for all races. The law requires her to perform that task quickly but does not set a specific deadline.

In Wisconsin, a recount in the state’s two largest liberal counties moved into its fourth day, with election officials in Milwaukee County complaining that Trump observers were slowing down the process with frequent challenges. Trump’s hope of reversing Biden’s victory there depends on disqualifying thousands of absentee ballots —- including the in-person absentee ballot cast by one of Trump’s own campaign attorneys in Dane County.

Associated Press writers Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia, Jonathan Lemire in New York, Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pa., Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta and John Flesher in Traverse City, Mich., contributed to this report.

Pro-Western candidate wins Moldovan presidential election

November 16, 2020

CHISINAU, Moldova (AP) — Maia Sandu, a former World Bank economist who favors closer ties with the European Union, has won Moldova's presidential runoff vote, decisively defeating the staunchly pro-Russian incumbent, according to preliminary results released Monday.

Sandu captured over 57% of the vote, leaving the incumbent, Igor Dodon, behind by over 15 points, according to preliminary data from the Central Election Commission, CEC, that said nearly 100% of the vote has been counted.

Sunday’s election was seen as a referendum on two divergent visions for the future of the small Eastern European nation sandwiched between Ukraine and Romania. Sandu and Dodon, who Russian President Vladimir Putin identified as his preferred candidate, have been rivals since he narrowly defeated her in the 2016 presidential race.

“People voted in very large numbers ... they voted because they care, because they want their voices to be heard,” Sandu, who promised during the campaign to secure more financial support from the EU, said late Sunday after it became apparent she was leading. “People want the ones in power to offer solutions to their problems.”

On Monday, Dodon conceded after the results were published and congratulated Sandu. “I call for calm and peace, absolutely no disturbances or protests, we must not allow any destabilization of the country," he said.

The current pro-Russian government controls only 51 of 101 seats in the parliament. The new president can dissolve parliament if the prime minister resigns and there are two failed attempts to find a successor.

Commenting on Sandu's win, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that Moscow respects “the choice of the Moldovan people” and hopes to establish “a working relationship” with the new president.

“We know that Maia Sandu said she would work in the interests of the Moldovan people, and we’re convinced that building good and close relations, cooperation in all areas with our country, Russia, is in the interest of the Moldovan people,” Peskov told reporters.

Ever since gaining independence a year after the Soviet collapse in 1991, Moldova has been divided between those favoring closer relations with Europe and those who prefer stronger links with Moscow.

Moldova is one of the poorest countries in Europe with nearly 1.2 million of its people estimated to be living abroad. It relies heavily on remittances, and closer ties with the EU are generally seen as more likely than those with Moscow to lead to a long-elusive political stability and economic recovery.

Yet in this election, those choices might have been overshadowed by the heavy social and economic toll inflicted on Moldova by the coronavirus pandemic. So far, the nation of 3.5 million people has tallied close to 89,000 virus cases and over 2,000 deaths. On Saturday, it reported a record 1,411 new daily infections.

In 2014, while it was run by a pro-European coalition, Moldova signed a deal on closer political and economic ties with the EU, now a bloc of 27 nations. However, Brussels has since been increasingly critical of Moldova’s progress on reforms.