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By Ryan Moser and Cailtin Sherman

Our current crisis has made it clear that Gov. Phil Murphy has the best interests of New Jerseyans at heart. His decision to conduct local elections on May 12 entirely by mail shows that. Every registered voter will automatically receive their ballot and can return it without paying for postage.

His more recent decision to delay our primary elections until July 7 does as well. Unfortunately, his plans to continue that election with in-person voting, rather than opting for universal vote by mail, puts our health and our democracy at risk.

As we saw in Wisconsin, attempting to hold an in-person election in these times not only risks a public health disaster, but may also damage the legitimacy of the results. The majority of our poll workers are in high-risk groups, and reducing the number of polling locations to lower their risks means more crowding and longer lines. On the other hand, we know that the risk of contracting COVID-19 from mail is minimal, and that universal vote by mail, though not perfect, increases voter participation.

With New Jerseys additional window of time, and with federal election security funding from the CARES Act, Gov. Murphy must make every effort to ensure voters have safe options to cast their ballots securely and with confidence. To achieve this, the Hudson County Progressive Alliance calls on New Jersey to invest in a universal Vote By Mail system, ease barriers to requesting absentee ballots, and increase local election workforces.

Gov. Murphy originally supported moving to vote by mail but seems to have changed his mind recently. This change of heart comes after public comments from some prominent political leaders. Recently, David Wildstein of the New Jersey Globe reported that Hudson County Democratic Organization Chair Amy DeGise is against a universal vote-by-mail primary in Hudson County. She claims that it is not in the culture in Hudson, because our strongest voting blocs are not going to vote by mail.

At a time when the culture of all our institutions -- from our schools and churches to our very streets -- is being forced to change, we cant let appeals to the way weve always done things get in the way of maintaining health and safety.

She went on to claim that those voters who are likely to vote by mail are those who dont typically vote. The participation of such voters must seem like a bad thing to DeGise. We beg to differ.

DeGises resistance to vote by mail seems little more than another attempt by the Democratic Party establishment of Hudson County to assure that their chosen candidates win primary elections, this time by limiting safe, secure options for voters. Such voter suppression tactics are expected from Republicans, such as those who caused the disaster in Wisconsin. They are surprising from a self-branded progressive like DeGise.

Vote by mail gives access to many voters who are not normally able to get to the polls: those with mobility issues, those who work multiple jobs, and those who simply struggle to balance the demands of family and work. In our current world, this includes those who worry about contracting a potentially fatal virus from a crowded polling place.

None of us should have to choose between our health and our democracy.

Responding to similar critiques on Twitter, DeGise claims that she advocated to postpone the election, but keep in-person voting, because vote by mail does not ensure safety and that the cognitively and visually impaired, seniors, (and) non-English speakers ... all have issues with vote by mail.

However, both the CDC and the WHO have explained that the risk of transmission of COVID-19 through the mail is low. In addition, many states that have universal vote by mail set aside times, including Election Day, for voters who need assistance to cast their ballots in person. Further, vote by mail allows seniors, non-native English speakers, and other groups to take the time to review their ballots at home, or alongside a friend or loved one who can offer assistance.

DeGise is right that universal vote by mail will not magically solve accessibility issues for all voters. However, if we act now, we can create a vote-by-mail system that will work for New Jersey.

This starts with changes to our current mechanism for requesting mail-in ballots. Right now, the application to receive a ballot in the mail must be printed and mailed to the clerks office. However, many people do not have access to a printer at home. We need an online application system so that people displaced by COVID-19 can easily update their information and receive their ballots where they are now, even if that is not where they are registered to vote.

In order to handle the increased pressure that this will put on our local governments, the state must invest in local Boards of Elections so they can significantly increase their workforces. Raising public awareness, tracking requests, and mailing and tabulating final votes, in addition to offering in-person assistance to those who may still need help, will be a monumental task.

To have all this ready by July 7, we urge Gov Murphy to make needed investments now in these reforms to vote by mail, and for our local leaders like Amy DeGise to embrace them.

The final word from DeGise on this issue is that she wants to ensure (the) entire enfranchisement of (her) entire community. We think thats a great idea. And we think that vote by mail is a safe and powerful first step toward making that happen.

Ryan Moser of Jersey City and Caitlin Sherman of Weehawken are members of the Hudson County Progressive Alliance.

Send letters to the editor and guest columns for The Jersey Journal to jjletters@jjournal.com.

Read the original:
Vote by mail is the best choice for health and democracy | Opinion - NJ.com

The issue of democratic backsliding in Central and Eastern Europe has received substantial attention in recent years, and many observers are now concerned the coronavirus crisis could exacerbate the problem. Licia Cianetti and Sen Hanley write that while there are genuine threats to democracy in countries like Hungary and Poland, viewing the entire region through the lens of backsliding may obscure more than it reveals.

In recent years, Central and Eastern European (CEE) democracies once hailed as remarkable success stories of democratic transformation have increasingly attracted media and academic attention as cases of democratic reversal. The consensus is that democracies across the region are in decline and some might be backsliding towards semi-authoritarian hybrid regimes or even full authoritarianism. Since the election of illiberal populist governments with absolute parliamentary majorities in Hungary in 2010 and Poland in 2015, these two once model democratisers are now seen as models of democratic backsliding a trend that some fear may be turbocharged by the ways in which these government have dealt with the coronavirus emergency.

Figure 1: Mentions of democratic backsliding in Google Scholar results

Scholarly interest in the phenomenon of democratic backsliding has exploded in the last decade. Although there has been much dispute both over labels some scholars prefer terms like democratic erosion and the mix of causes driving the process, the basic contours of democratic backsliding are widely agreed: it is gradual, led by democratically-elected governments (often right-wing populist) and begins with attacks on constitutional checks-and-balances, the judiciary and media pluralism. The dynamic is, as Nancy Bermeo puts it, one of slow but relentless executive aggrandisement.

Threats to democracy, especially in one-time democratic trailblazers, are serious, and merit serious scrutiny and serious action. There is a risk, however, that reading the entire region through the lenses of backsliding may obscure as much as it reveals. Indeed, the growing pessimistic consensus about democratic regression in Central and Eastern Europe risks repeating in reverse some of the same mistakes of the previous optimistic consensus about the regions democratic progress.

A reverse transition paradigm?

In 2002, Thomas Carothers published a celebrated critique of what he termed the transition paradigm. He identified five flawed underlying assumptions that policymakers and democracy promoters held about democratisation. Chief among these were the assumption that a country moving away from authoritarianism was in transition towards democracy and a tendency to think in terms of a linear path with options all cast in terms of the speed and direction with which countries move on the path, not in terms of movement that does not conform with the path at all.

He also questioned an over-focus on elections as watershed moments of democratic change and the underestimation of the importance of having a functioning state in place. Instead of asking how is the transition going? he argued that analyses should ask what is happening politically? and sketched two common real-life scenarios that transitioning states were more likely to settle into: a corrupt, feckless pluralism or more authoritarian dominant power politics.

Carothers famous and controversial essay was in places overstated. In hindsight, it reads as a prescient warning not just of the prevalence of hybrid regimes manipulating democratic institutions for authoritarian ends in the post-Soviet space and Africa, but also of the weakness of many supposedly consolidated democracies in Central and Eastern Europe. Many bore more than a passing resemblance to Carothers scenario of feckless pluralism. However, more importantly for the current debate on Central and Eastern European democracies, it serves as a warning that we should not fall into a possible backsliding paradigm with flawed assumptions which are a mirror image of the transition paradigm.

Through this lens, all democracies in the region become potential backsliders, and their political life is analysed only in terms of the extent (and forms) of their backsliding. Any change or event risks ending up being investigated only as a potential signal that a country is backsliding, about to backslide, prone to backsliding, or resilient to backsliding. In other cases, forms of (un) democratic change that may fit backsliding only awkwardly such as the Czech Republic have been crammed into a narrative defined by the experiences of Hungary and Poland.

However, while many democracies in Central and Eastern Europe are in aggregate deteriorating, genuine backsliders where democratic fundamentals are in slow motion free fall appear the exception not the rule. Anna Lhrmann and Staffan I. Lindbergs rigorous measurement of autocratisation episodes using the V-Dem dataset finds that, of the EUs 10 CEE member states, only Hungary and Poland have experienced democratic erosion. Two more cases (Serbia and North Macedonia) appear if we add in the four CEE candidate states.

The risk of a backsliding paradigm, focusing on a limited number of worst cases, is that it limits our capacity to think about the range of (un) democratic transformation taking place elsewhere in the region. To understand the bulk of CEE cases, where there is neither clear democratic progress nor sharp regress, we are left either with the shaky-looking notion of non-backsliding states being consolidated democracies, or loose and as yet under-theorised, residual categories centring on qualified or low-quality stability, arrested development or stagnation.

A paradigm that allows for only three possible directions of travel may blind us to trajectories that dont follow a linear pattern of advance, stasis or retreat. Even stagnant does not mean immobile with the possibility, for example, of near misses or swerves into and out of authoritarianism; some archetypically backsliding phenomena such as political populism may be deeply ambiguous in their effects, particularly those with a centrist anti-corruption orientation such as Slovakias new main governing party OLaNO, while classic bulwarks of democracy such as local civil society can be harnessed to bolster backsliding and illiberalism.

Backsliding through elections only?

The backsliding paradigm is in less danger of reproducing some of the other flaws of its predecessor. Nevertheless, rereading Carothers classic essay suggests some additional pitfalls to be avoided.

Elections were seen in the transition paradigm as being central too central according to Carothers in cementing democratic breakthroughs. They seem, implicitly, to play a similar watershed role now in the emerging backsliding paradigm, kickstarting the process by putting illiberal or democratic disloyal politicians into power. However, turning Carothers thinking around, the election of such politicians does not necessarily lead to backsliding (for example, if institutions are robust and checks and balances too entrenched). At the same time, not all agents of backsliding need be elected politicians corrupt private interests can capture parties and institutions warping democracy so much that it tips into a special kind of authoritarian hybrid regime the interpretation Michal Klma gives of the decline of standard West European style party politics in the Czech Republic.

Echoes of the transition paradigms over-optimistic underplaying of social-structural determinants can also be found in the emerging reverse transition paradigm. Many accounts of backsliding in Central and Eastern Europe have tended to dwell on the immediate political context such as electoral volatility, polarisation or the rise of populist actors and ideologies; external shocks such as the Great Recession, the refugee crisis or the woes of the Eurozone; or changes in external actors policies such as the fading out of the EUs accession conditionalities. The fact that one-time democratic front-runners such as Hungary and Poland succumbed to backsliding has tended to reinforce the view of backsliding as contagion driven by the rise of illiberal ideas and unscrupulous elites that can spread regardless of structural conditions.

This is in some ways unsurprising. The ongoing nature of the process makes the backsliding paradigm prone to presentism, over-focusing on a limited selection of current events at the expense of wider historical and social context. When it comes to explanatory factors, many of the usual suspects such as human development, inequality, or ethno-linguistic divisions do, at best, a patchy job in distinguishing CEE backsliders from countries with more variegated patterns of (un)democratic development. The coronavirus crisis stands as a sobering reminder of the reality and power of exogenous shocks. Moreover, as Albert O. Hirschman famously pointed out, some of the most unhelpful paradigms are precisely those which pessimistically see change as blocked off by structural factors.

But any sense that backsliding can happen anywhere and everywhere and perhaps already is happening will need to be qualified by a reappraisal of constraining cultural, social and economic limits a process already underway in scholarly reassessment of the rash of panicky it could happen here reactions to the election of Donald Trump, whose authoritarian instincts have damaged but not derailed American democracy, despite the fact that systematic gerrymandering of congressional boundaries and efforts at voter suppression make some key elements of US democracy deeply flawed.

The limits of paradigms

No one would deny that processes of democratic backsliding have taken hold in countries such as Hungary and Poland and some other Third Wave democracies beyond Europe. But it is important not to look at the whole of the CEE region as potential Hungaries. Seeing the entire region through a very narrow lens limits our ability to make sense of much of it.

Not all that is bad about democracy in Central and Eastern Europe is an effect of backsliding or a sign of incipient backsliding. As Hirschman reminds us, large-scale social change typically occurs as a result of a unique constellation of highly disparate events and is therefore amenable to paradigmatic thinking only in a very special sense. This applies both to CEE states unfortunate enough to exemplify the backsliding paradigm and to the less well reflected upon journeys of those that do not.

A longer, fully referenced version of this piece has been uploaded as a working paper in the APSA pre-print service here. The authors welcome comments and feedback.

Please read our comments policy before commenting.

Note: This article gives the views of theauthors, not the position of EUROPP European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics.

_________________________________

About the authors

Licia Cianetti Royal Holloway, University of LondonLicia Cianetti is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Sen Hanley UCL School of Slavonic and East European StudiesSen Hanley is an Associate Professor in Comparative Central and East European Politics at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies.

Read more from the original source:
We must go beyond the 'backsliding paradigm' to understand what's happening to democracy in Central and Eastern Europe - EUROPP - European Politics...

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By Marcia Cury

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaros statements are at first shocking, leaving one wondering what he really means. But they are not surprising in the context of the paranoid rhetoric that has always characterized his administration. Since the start of the Coronavirus pandemic that is ravaging the world, for which the World Health Organization (WHO) has established preventive measures, the President of Brazil stands out for his public statements refusing to take any precautions. Contrary to all predictions of the consequences of infection, Bolsonaro insists on minimizing the risks posed by the virus and defies social distancing guidelines. He calls the disease a fantasy and hysteria whipped up by the media.[1]

Jair Bolsonaros remarks and inaction fit into his pattern of political practices. But in the middle of an unprecedented crisis, his behavior is sounding alarm bells about the near term social and political fallout.

Bolsonaro the Science Denier

Jair Bolsonaro has never been the center of attention for implementing important projects during his long political career, but rather for his cavalier attitude towards dictatorship, racism, homophobia, and gender equality, which are sensitive subjects in such an unequal and violent society as that of Brazil. A denial of science guides most of his speeches on a wide variety of topics, and this has been no different during the pandemic. He first showed this irresponsible approach when he said on national TV that he opposed the preventive measures instituted by the governors and mayors. He criticized the social distancing guidelines by saying that unemployment might have a worse impact on society.[2] According to Bolsonaro, people should live their lives normally because it will only be possible to create antibodies and a barrier to the disease if some people get infected.[3] His public appearances, during which his followers gather in the streets to greet him, have also been common and drawn the attention of the international press.

The ProSul hemispheric[4] meeting held by video conference on March 16, 2020, convened to discuss joint measures to confront the pandemic, was marked by the absence of the Brazilian president. At this important event, the country was represented by Foreign Minister Ernesto Arajo. In another display of his lack of commitment to mitigation efforts, Bolsonaro skipped the meeting of heads of the Judicial, Legislative, and Executive Branches of the Government of Brazil to establish common objectives for fighting the spread of the virus in the country. Instead, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, the Minister of Health, represented the Executive Branch.

In recent weeks Bolsonaros image has suffered as people begin to question his capacity to handle the crisis, including high-ranking public officials who have publicly expressed disagreement with his approach to containing the virus. The population is caught up in public confrontations between the Minister of Health, who defends social distancing policies, and the statements and practices of Jair Bolsonaro, who constantly questions the seriousness of the pandemic. This divergence of opinion has rattled the Presidents legitimacy, even among military officers, who, for a time, backed the Minister of Health when the President threatened to fire him. The growing breach, however, came to head on Thursday April 16, when President Bolsonaro fired his minister, Luiz Henrique Mandetta.[5]

The conflicting messages emanating from the chief executive and his health minister have led the population to pay less attention to mitigation measures and relax social distancing. Another controversy revolves around the Presidents public advocacy for increasing production of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 patients. Bolsonaro has promoted this drug on radio and TV, although it is still the subject of research and debate among doctors and scientists as to whether it really is an effective treatment for the virus.[6]

Echoing Trumps controversial strategy

It is striking that, just like U.S. President Donald Trump, Bolsonaro is using the pandemic to fuel his unrelenting ideological war. In the context of an unprecedented crisis, this is jeopardizing the economy and the countrys fragile democratic stability.

The Brazilian president continues to act as if this were a political campaign and all he needs to do is whip up his base. Now he is trapped by economic indicators that are no longer showing signs of strong growth. The pandemic can transform this precarious economic slowdown into a crisis.. Added to this is his constant preoccupation with remaining in power and his dream of reelection. Taking his usual stance of someone who has no concept of the responsibility inherent in his position, Bolsonaro reverts to anti-establishment discourse, a persecution complex, and extremist ideas to exacerbate the conflict, in a desperate attempt to hang onto the support of his base as well as his authorityboth of which are increasingly fragile.

The show put on by Bolsonaro and his ideological promoters is a peculiar relaunching of an imaginary Cold War scenario in which the pandemic is supposedly just hysteria mounted by the opposition for political gain. For example, the president used primarily social media to spread fake news stories of shortages at a food distribution center in Minas Gerais, supposedly caused by the stay-at-home policy. The story was immediately refuted and Bolsonaro took down his posts.[7]

A war of words can be costly for the economy. His most recent attacks were aimed at China, the countrys top trading partner. The Presidents son and federal lawmaker, Eduardo Bolsonaro (whom the President is thinking of appointing ambassador to the U.S.), and the Minister of Education, Abraham Weintraub, went on Twitter to blame China for spreading the virus, insinuating that the country is profiting financially from the pandemic. The last tweet, which the Minister has since deleted, prompted a reply from the Chinese embassy in Brazil. Ill will has been sown and people now fear a breakdown in trade relations between the two countries, to the inevitable detriment of Brazil.[8]

An irrational fear of socialism hamstrings government aid

Domestically, the conservative tone of Bonsonaros political agenda is in step with the various social sectors that make up his base. But now, the dystopian reign of the Bolsonaro family has found faith to be a useful tool. He recently called upon the population to fast in response to the pandemic, clearly a move meant to stir his faithful followers, including many Evangelicals. However, this pandemic affects all sectors of the country and will likely cost many lives. The most vulnerable people face uncertainty and have already lost income due to the crisis.[9] This is especially true in a country in which a sizable number of workers have informal jobs, without any social security protections.

The anti-government ideology so fiercely preached by the President and his team, despite the urgent hunger people are facing, has him refusing to believe the facts and figures in front of him. The Presidents other son, Rio de Janeiro Council Member Carlos Bolsonaro, says that any state intervention would be a sign that the country is moving toward socialism, because with the economy paralyzed, people would be dependent on the State even to eat.[10] And Rubem Novaes, president of the countrys main public bank, Banco do Brasil, says we must resist state intervention because later it will be hard to dismantle the welfare state.[11] It was only after pressure from the public and the National Congress that Bolsonaros proposal to allow employers freedom to lay off workers and suspend labor contracts was rolled back. The Legislative Branch has ensured that families losing their incomes and livelihoods will receive some government compensation.

The government will pay them the equivalent of US$ 120, not the mere US$ 40 per month initially proposed by Paulo Guedes, the ultra-neoliberal Minister of Finance. The Provisional Measure now includes an up to 70% wage reduction for up to 90 days and the suspension of labor contracts for up to two months. These wage losses will be offset by an extension of unemployment insurance which already exists in the country to help workers who lose their jobs in the formal economy.

What is happening now in Brazil is a crisis that includes public health issues, a financial emergency, and political uncertainty. The publics apprehension and dissatisfaction can now be heard in the pots-and-pans protests against Bolsonaro that make up the soundtrack of Brazilian nights. But just as part of society is beginning to make its dissatisfaction with the President heard, there is fear over what comes next as Bolsonaro becomes isolated. The blow to his legitimacy also threatens Brazilian democracy.

What we are currently witnessing, while not a complete reversal of civilian control over the armed forces as required for a democratic system, is at least a relativization of it. The Executive Branch, through the office of the Vice-President and eight of the 22 Cabinet Ministers, is full of people whose names are embellished with military titles. Their actions are imbued with nostalgia for the countrys dictatorial past. And a policy of military officers not engaging in politics is giving way to the politicization of the military, sometimes in direct confrontation with democratic institutions such as when General Augusto Heleno called the National Congress blackmailers.[12] In the case of the breach between the Minister of Health and the President, however, Bolsonaro has won the day, at least for now. During the pandemic crisis Bolsonaro will continue to be Bolsonaro. That is no surprise from a leader who got elected by taking conservative and authoritarian discourse to new heights, in an atmosphere of widespread fake news. But this is a precarious moment. It has been demonstrated that the scenario of a society in isolation, with people focused on protecting lives and fearing the impacts of a crisis, is primed for political manipulation. And the danger is even more real when it goes beyond the paranoia and irresponsible actions of a joking president, to include control by other institutional actors. In such a context one may imagine the possibility of the military co-governing. These are people who represent a recent authoritarian past, and who present themselves as the new salvation for a country that has lost its way. This situation demands that we remain vigilant, to ensure the survival of Brazils fragile democracy.

Mrcia Cury is a Senior Research Fellow at COHA and historian who holds a Doctorate in Political Science. She is also a postdoctoral fellow in the post-graduate program in history at the UEFS in Brazil. She is the author of El Protagonismo popular chileno: experiencias de clase y movimientos sociales en la construccin del socialismo (1964-1973). Santiago: LOM Ediciones, 2018.

End notes

[1] Em evento esvaziado nos EUA, Bolsonaro nega crise e diz que problemas na bolsa acontecem,https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/mercado/2020/03/em-evento-esvaziado-nos-eua-bolsonaro-nega-crise-e-diz-que-problemas-na-bolsa-acontecem.shtml

[2] Pronunciamento do Senhor Presidente da Repblica, Jair Bolsonaro, em cadeia de rdio e televiso, https://www.gov.br/planalto/pt-br/acompanhe-o-planalto/pronunciamentos/pronunciamento-em-cadeia-de-radio-e-televisao-do-senhor-presidente-da-republica-jair-bolsonaro

[3] Exclusivo!, Jair Bolsonaro fala que coronavrus histeria e conta que vai fazer festa de aniversrio, https://www.tupi.fm/brasil/exclusivo-jair-bolsonaro-fala-que-coronovirus-e-histeria-e-conta-que-vai-fazer-festa-de-aniversario/

[4] Prosul is a conservative forum that groups right-wing governments of the Americas

[5] AP News. April 16, 2020. https://apnews.com/26dc693cc9777da62e2b609e97ae57f8?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP

[6] Pronunciamento do Senhor Presidente da Repblica, Jair Bolsonaro, em cadeia de rdio e televiso, https://www.gov.br/planalto/pt-br/acompanhe-o-planalto/pronunciamentos/pronunciamento-do-senhor-presidente-da-republica-jair-bolsonaro-em-cadeia-de-radio-e-televisao-4

[7] Bolsonaro publica vdeo falso sobre desabastecimento e depois apaga, https://www.agazeta.com.br/brasil/bolsonaro-publica-video-falso-sobre-desabastecimento-e-depois-apaga-0420

[8] Eduardo Bolsonaro culpa China pelo coronavrus e Embaixada responde: contraiu vrus mental, https://www.cartacapital.com.br/carta-capital/eduardo-bolsonaro-culpa-china-pelo-coronavirus-e-embaixada-responde-contraiu-virus-mental/

https://twitter.com/BolsonaroSP/status/1240286560953815040 ; https://twitter.com/EmbaixadaChina/status/1247001670808154113

[9] Efeitos econmicos negativos da crise do Corona vrus tendem a afetar mais a renda dos mais pobres, https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdp/tecnot/tn003.html

[10] Partimos para o socialismo, diz Carlos Bolsonaro sobre crise do coronavrus, https://www.cartacapital.com.br/Politica/partimos-para-o-socialismo-diz-carlos-bolsonaro-sobre-crise-do-coronavirus/

O desenho é claro: partimos para o socialismo. Todos dependentes do estado até para comer, grandes empresas vão embora e o pequeno investidor não existe mais. Conseguem a passos largos fazer o que tentam desde antes de 1964. E tem gente preocupada com a fala do Presidente.

— Carlos Bolsonaro (@CarlosBolsonaro) April 1, 2020

[11] Caiam na real: governadores e prefeitos oferecem esmolas com dinheiro alheio, diz Presidente do BB, https://politica.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,caiam-na-real-governadores-e-prefeitos-oferecem-esmolas-com-dinheiro-alheio-diz-presidente-do-bb,70003257728

[12] General Heleno diz que Congresso faz chantagem para ficar com R$30 bi do oramento, https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/mercado/2020/02/general-heleno-diz-que-bolsonaro-e-alvo-de-parlamentarismo-branco-na-discussao-sobre-orcamento.shtml

Em mais um lamentável episódio de invasão de privacidade, hábito louvado no Brasil, vazou para a imprensa uma conversa que tive com o Dr. Paulo Guedes e o Gen. Ramos.

— General Heleno (@gen_heleno) February 19, 2020

Read more here:
Bolsonaro, COVID-19, and the Crisis of Brazilian Democracy - Council On Hemispheric Affairs

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts will hear a case Thursday with implications for the collection of signatures for placing issues on the election ballot that has profound importance for the quality of democracy in Massachusetts. It is imperative that the court and the secretary of state find a way to maintain the prospect of citizen initiative at this critical moment in the coronavirus pandemic.

Article 48 of the Massachusetts Constitution gives citizens the right to petition the state government and make law through ballot initiatives. That is, we can put potential laws directly on the ballot in general elections and have our fellow citizens vote these up or down (recreational marijuana was legalized in this way in 2016).

To prove that a measure has core support, Massachusetts requires that a petition to put a proposed law on the ballot must include two rounds of certified signatures: 80,234 by December of the year preceding the election, and another 13,374 by the following July.

For the 2020 election, several ballot initiatives easily passed the first signature hurdle (e.g., the initiative we personally are working on ranked-choice voting attracted over 111,000). However, these ballot initiative campaigns now face a daunting challenge with meeting the second hurdle. Historically, the vast majority of signatures are collected by volunteers in public places shopping centers and the like. But this cant work during the COVID-19 pandemic, as a person handing another person a pen and a clipboard for the ballot signature is a public health threat.

To preserve what is embodied in the Massachusetts constitution, the people should be allowed for this election only to sign petitions electronically.

There is no reasonable alternative. The traditional open-air method is dangerous and so not available, and collecting signatures solely by US mail is formidably cumbersome, time-consuming, and expensive.

The Supreme Judicial Court will hear the case brought against Secretary of State William Galvin, asking him to permit electronic signatures for primary-election candidates. In his written response to the lawsuit, filed on Tuesday, Galvin appeared to show some sympathy for this cause, and even outlined a method of electronic signature gathering and certification that would meet reasonable anti-fraud standards.

We urge the court to rule that, in this unprecedented emergency, electronic signatures are acceptable and for Galvin to implement the process that he proposed himself.

Eric S. Maskin and Lawrence H. Summers are professors of economics at Harvard University and are on the advisory board of Voter Choice Massachusetts.

See the original post:
In a pandemic, electronic signatures are needed to protect our democracy - The Boston Globe

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. Im Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. We turn now to India, where officials say six major cities are coronavirus infection hot spots, calling them red zones, including the capital, New Delhi, and the financial center, Mumbai. The country has more than 420 deaths, 12,000 infections, though the number is likely far higher due to lack of testing.

This comes as press freedom and civil liberties groups are sounding the alarm that the government of Narendra Modi is using the coronavirus outbreak to crack down on opponents and dissidents. This month, police arrested a prominent journalist, Siddharth Varadarajan, accusing him of spreading discord and rumors, after he reportedly criticized a Hindu nationalist politician for participating in a religious ceremony with dozens of people during the national lockdown. Elsewhere, activist Anand Teltumbde, who is 69 years old, and journalist Gautam Navlakha, who is 67, were arrested Tuesday over charges they both say were fabricated. Teltumbde wrote an open letter to the people of India on the eve of his arrest, saying, quote, I do not know when I shall be able to talk to you again. However, I earnestly hope that you will speak out before your turn comes, he said.

Prime Minister Modi has announced Indias nationwide coronavirus lockdown, affecting 1.3 billion people the largest at any time in the world announced it will be extended until May. In Mumbai, hundreds of migrant workers left homeless and unemployed by the lockdown held a protest Tuesday demanding the government deliver food and assistance.

SHAHBAZ: [translated] We are not getting anything here. The government promised to provide money and other amenities, and nothing has been delivered yet.

SHABANA: [translated] We have nothing to do now. We have small kids, and they are not getting anything to eat. What should we do?

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go to New Delhi, India, where were joined by the award-winning writer, author, activist Arundhati Roy. She has a new essay in the Financial Times headlined The pandemic is a portal. Its drawn from her forthcoming book, Azadi: Freedom. Fascism. Fiction. Her most recent book is My Seditious Heart: Collected Nonfiction. She won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her first novel, The God of Small Things.

Arundhati, welcome back to Democracy Now! As you speak to us from New Delhi, if you can talk about whats happening there and why you see the pandemic as a portal?

ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, in India, you know, we have a COVID crisis whose contours we dont know yet. I mean, you mentioned the figures and also the fact that we dont know if theyre reliable, because theres not that much testing happening. But on the other hand, just looking around, you know that there isnt a run on hospitals like there has been in New York, you know? The disease doesnt seem to have really got its claws into us yet. But we have the COVID crisis. We have a hunger crisis. We have a hatred crisis. And we have a health crisis apart from COVID.

So, as you said, you know, on the 24th of March, with four hours notice, which ran between 8:00 at night and 12 midnight, Modi locked down this nation of 1.38 billion people without warning. And the crisis that that has created, the lack of planning, the lack of thinking forward, although like some states like Kerala, which you talked about, have done wonderful work, but from the center, the crisis has been exacerbated into something that might might really become even more serious than the epidemic that its planning for. You have a situation where you have millions of workers and migrant workers under a lockdown, which is supposed to enforce social distancing, but it only enforces physical compression. People are crammed together. People are separated from their families. In many places, they have no food. They have no access to money even. Theyve sold their phones. You have the sense that youre sitting on some kind of explosive substance.

And yet, at the same time, like you said, arrests have been made, not just the people who you mentioned. Siddharth Varadarajan has not been arrested, the editor of Wire, but he has a case filed against him. Senior lawyers who speak out against Modi have had FIRs filed against them. Gautam Navlakha and Anand Teltumbde have been arrested. Young students and people, a lot of Muslims, who are now being accused of being part of the massacre that took place against Muslims in northeast Delhi, are being arrested. You know, the circles are closing in.

And the reason I said that the pandemic is a portal is that all over the world you have a situation now where, on the one hand, the powers that be are going to try and increase surveillance, increase inequality, increase privatization, increase control, and, on the other hand, you have populations of people who will want to increase solidarity and who will want to see and understand the fact that what has happened in the U.S., as well as what has happened in India, is that the pandemic has exposed structural problems of such egregious injustice and inequality. Even the calling of the shutdown with four hours notice was a sign of panic from this prime minister, because he knows that this infrastructure of this country, it cant even deal with normality, forget about a pandemic.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Arundhati, I want to ask you more about that, about Modis declaration of a lockdown with just four hours notice. He declared it at 8 p.m., and it went into effect at midnight on March 24th. But the first case, reported case, of COVID-19 was on January 30th, so he had its unclear why he took seven weeks to shut down the country. But you went, when the first when the country went into lockdown, you used a press pass, and you went and spoke to some of the migrants, the hundreds of thousands of people who were forced to flee Delhi once all transportation had already been shut down. You spoke to some of these migrants in Delhi. Can you tell us what they said about their situation?

ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, as soon as the lockdown was announced, mass transport was stopped. It was the last week of March. People had not been paid their salaries, people who live virtually from day to day. The landlords in these little cramped, medieval tenements, into which five and 10 people are squashed into a room, said that they wanted their rent on time. So people just had to leave. And it was a surreal sight, you know, while there was no traffic on the streets, but suddenly the structural inequality and the horror, the shame of how our societies live, made themselves manifest.

And I just realized that these people have started walking, walking for hundreds of kilometers to their villages. And I went out because I felt like the tectonic plates were shifting. You know, it was crazy. So I went to the border between Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, where I walked with many of them. And I spoke to many of them, including Muslims who had just survived this horrific kind of wannabe pogrom against them, which didnt turn out that way because people were so prepared that they fought back. But having survived that, now they were walking these hundreds of miles home you know, carpenters, tailors, construction workers.

And all of them were aware of the virus. All of them were wearing masks. They were doing their best to maintain social distance. It was impossible. There was a rumor that buses might be organized, and suddenly like 100,000 people were there together, pressed together, waiting for buses. And I asked some of them, So, what do you think of this virus? They said, Whatever we think of the virus, right now we have no food, we have no water, we have nowhere to sleep. We have to reach home. And that was so much more present for them than this.

A lot of them felt that this was a rich peoples illness brought in by planes. Why didnt they stop people at the airport instead of kicking us out of our jobs and our homes, you know? And a lot of people just one of the people who I wrote about in the Financial Times piece said he just said to me, Shaayad Modiji ko hamaare baare mein pata nahi [phon.], meaning Maybe Modi doesnt know about us, you know, which was just perhaps true in a way, that the government and everybody else who controls anything in this society has more or less airbrushed the poor out of their imagination out of films, out of literature, out of everything. You know? Except NGO brochures where the poor feature in order to raise money, you know?

AMY GOODMAN: Arundhati, I wanted to ask you about President Trumps critical trip to India right at the time the pandemic was exploding, the famous pictures of them shaking hands, the stadium of 100,000 people. When President

ARUNDHATI ROY: No, a million people. In India, it was a million people. In the U.S., it was 50,000, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: So, as President Trump took off and was flying back to the United States, it was then that he read the comments of a U.S. scientist talking about the effects of the pandemic and what it will mean in the United States. He was so enraged by what she had to say that he canceled a meeting of scientists when he was returning, in retaliation. And then you have this whole relationship with India around hydroxychloroquine, what Dr. Trump and Im saying that very facetiously President Trump has been pushing, hydroxychloroquine, because Narendra Modi said he was going to crack down on sales, exports of this drug, until President Trump pressured him. And now one study after another is coming out saying people are dying in the studies around hydroxychloroquine.

ARUNDHATI ROY: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Just overall, talk about what Trump has meant for Modi and what Modi means for Trump, this U.S.-India alliance, and what its doing in your country.

ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, it is giving such a great amount of legitimacy to a situation which I cant hardly explain, Amy, on TV, because Ive been writing about this for so long, you know? And what I said earlier, the crisis of hunger, and then the crisis of hatred. So, the time Modi came to the U.S. and did the Howdy Modi show, and then, when Trump came here and it was the Namaste Trump and so on, this sort of bizarre dance between these two, Im sorry to say, but not very intelligent human beings, but very, very powerful people, who are legitimizing the horror of what is happening in the U.S. with immigrants, with racism, with undocumented workers, and the horror of what the BJP regime, the RSS, which is the mothership of the BJP cultural guild to which Modi belongs, which believes that India should be a Hindu nation and that everyone else should be second-class citizens, toward which they have made new citizenship laws and are building detention centers. And all of this is being legitimized by this idea that the most powerful country in the world and the most powerful man in the world loves Modi, you know?

And between them, the I mean, its a tragedy for the world that this particular pandemic has arrived at a time where country after country is controlled by people like this, which is why I said its a portal, because, you know, are we going to are we going to sleepwalk into this fascist surveillance state that everyone has in store for us? I mean, the app, called the Aarogya Setu app, which Modi has asked people to download and became the fastest-downloaded app in the world we have 50 million downloads now I mean, every technical expert says its just a surveillance app, you know? And all various so many democratic societies are moving toward this, in this panic and fear that has been created.

And there are so many things about the coronavirus, you know, so many heartwarming things. I was reading in The New York Times today how its creating solidarity between people in the U.S. I just saw a wonderful video of people thanking a Pakistani doctor for having invented a mechanism that allows a single ventilator to be shared by many.

But here, you have Muslims being blamed for corona. Theres the whole concept of corona jihad. And Ive been reading of how, in the 1930s, the Nazi state basically blamed Jews for typhus and used it as a way of stigmatizing and ghettoizing Jews. The same thing is happening here with Muslims. You know, you have to hear the language that the mainstream media uses, and people on the street.

So, its an extremely dangerous situation, which is being completely legitimized by Trump and by all these powerful people who meet and shake hands and refuse to see how this virus is going to move in and exacerbate inequalities, exacerbate injustice and create a situation where they, too, are frightened, because they know these millions of people, hungry, starving. How are you going to deal with that anger? In India, Ill tell you how theyre going to deal with it. They are going to try and divert it into an anti-Muslim rage, which is the only thing they do always.

But at some point you know, already things are exploding. People are burning shelters and so on. And the hunger is so urgent, it has to be addressed now. The granaries are full of food which is not being distributed. You know, people need cash transfers, but they dont have bank accounts, or they dont have access to their bank accounts. Its a crisis which you feel youre sitting on some kind of explosive substance right now. And, you know, as it deepens, once you distribute that grain, where will the next batch of food come from? Because right now is the harvest season, and, you know, people are even those who have been able to harvest are not being able to sell. And, you know, the whole cropping pattern of this country has changed into cash crops.

AMY GOODMAN: Arundhati, we have 10 seconds.

ARUNDHATI ROY: Yeah. Tell me.

AMY GOODMAN: We just have I want to thank you very much for being with us, as we run out of time.

ARUNDHATI ROY: Oh, OK. Youre so welcome.

AMY GOODMAN: Were going to link to your piece, The pandemic is a portal, thats in Foreign Policy. Arundhati Roy is next Thursday, April 23rd, will be joining an online teach-in with Princeton professor Imani Perry and Haymarket Books on The Pandemic Is a Portal. And well link to your essays, as well, at democracynow.org.

Democracy Now! is working with as few people on site as possible. The majority of our amazing team is working from home. Im Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. Be safe.

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Pandemic Is a Portal: Arundhati Roy on COVID-19 in India, Imagining Another World & Fighting for It - Democracy Now!