“By breaking the speed of the virus’ spread in two to three weeks, we will get through this period with as little damage as possible,” Erdogan, whose government has been accused of obscuring the scope of infections and where they have taken place, said in a televised address March 25.Īnother leader who considers himself a kindred spirit of Trump’s is encountering political headwinds over an initially dismissive approach to the pandemic. As late as last week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was putting an optimistic face on the outbreak’s course. In Bolivia, where President Evo Morales was forced to resign and go into exile amid massive anti-government demonstrations last year, presidential elections deemed crucial to restoring stability have been postponed because of COVID-19.Īs the pandemic leapt from China to other parts of the world, Trump initially played down the threat, as did some autocratic leaders with whom he has demonstrated an affinity. In Chile, President Sebastián Piñera declared a 90-day “state of catastrophe,” which was likely to suppress the last vestiges of massive street protests over economic inequality that ignited there in late 2019. There are growing fears that some leaders in Latin America could use coronavirus containment as a pretext to keep a tight lid on dissent. Even so, rights groups were alarmed by the expanded scope of presidential authority. In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte, notorious for extrajudicial executions at the hands of death squads, has been given broad emergency powers to confront the health crisis, although lawmakers balked at a provision that would have let him take over private businesses. Other Trump allies have had mixed results in bids to tighten their rule amid the outbreak. But the White House, where Orban was warmly received by President Trump less than a year ago, said nothing publicly. “Such a serious affront to democracy anywhere is outrageous, and particularly within a NATO ally and EU member,” he wrote in a statement. Engel, the New York Democrat who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called it “the latest overreach” by Orban. In Washington, the Hungarian leader’s actions drew some sharp criticism on Capitol Hill. Daniel Kelemen, a professor of political science and law at Rutgers University, pointing to the muted European Union response to Orban’s moves. “It’s a dangerous signal to aspiring autocrats as to what they can get away with during this crisis,” said R. Like the virus itself, power grabs can take on the quality of a contagion, especially when established democracies offer little in the way of pushback. The pandemic’s arrival in Israel, Verter wrote, was a matter of “inconceivably perfect timing” for Netanyahu, despite critics’ labeling his machinations a “coronavirus coup.” “The word ‘magician’ is too weak to describe this stunning achievement, which isn’t solely a result of his political abilities,” columnist Yossi Verter wrote in Monday’s Haaretz newspaper. The prime minister, the country’s longest-serving leader, said the severity of the crisis demanded unity Gantz, a former army chief, employed a classic military metaphor to explain his about-face, saying he did not want to be the one who refused to help carry a stretcher off the battlefield. Then, through canny maneuvering, Netanyahu took advantage of a fractured opposition and managed to get his chief rival, Benny Gantz, to agree to serve under him.
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