Elections

Millions of Ethiopians are heading to the polls for general elections on June 1.

The governing party of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who has consolidated power since he took office in 2018, says it is confident of victory.

Abiy’s government has faced years of turmoil and conflict. Despite that, it is portraying the vote as the next step on the path towards what it calls genuine democracy.

Critics and the opposition, however, argue that is unlikely because of Ethiopia’s ethnic and regional divisions. Some opposition parties have been excluded and violence is preventing voting in dozens of constituencies.

So, will the vote hold any significance?

Presenter: Mohammed Jamjoom

Guests:

Samuel Getachew – Journalist and commentator specialising in Ethiopian politics and security

Martin Plaut – Senior research fellow at King’s College London

Bizuneh Yimenu – Lecturer in comparative politics at Queen’s University Belfast who specialises in federalism.

Colombians headed to the polls to choose a new president in a high-stakes election that will determine whether the country continues the left-wing agenda launched by Gustavo Petro or shifts back to the political right.

On Sunday, voters in the South American country of Colombia are facing a choice.

Four years ago, they elected the first left-wing president in the country’s modern history, Gustavo Petro. Now, they must decide whether to continue with Petro’s leftist push — or restore the political right to power.

Fourteen candidates will be on the ballot for the first round of voting in Colombia’s presidential election.  The packed field includes contenders from the left, right and centre, who are slated to face off over issues like security and the cost of living.

But Petro will not be among them: Presidents in Colombia are limited to a single four-year term.

The right wing is expected to have the advantage, particularly if the race proceeds to a second round. Petro is struggling with low poll numbers, and voters have expressed frustration with crime and violence, driven in part by the country’s six-decade-long internal conflict.

But leftist candidate Ivan Cepeda has surprised observers, consistently placing at the top of the polls ahead of the first round.

When is the election, who are the candidates, and which issues are top of mind for voters? We look at those questions and more in this brief explainer.

When is the election?

The first round of voting is set to take place on May 31, 2026.

Will there be a second round of voting?

A candidate would need to win more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round to avoid a run-off.

If no single candidate meets that threshold, a run-off will be held between the top two finishers on June 21.

Why is this election important?

In recent years, across Latin America, long-entrenched left-wing governments have met defeat at the ballot box.

Last year alone, right-wing candidates have been elected to replace left-wing presidents in Bolivia, Chile and Honduras.

But Colombia does not have a long history of left-wing presidents. Petro was the first. That makes this race one to watch, according to Gimena Sanchez, a Colombia expert at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a human rights nonprofit.

“This is the first election to be held after the first-ever leftist administration in Colombia’s 200-year history,” Sanchez explained.

Colombia now stands at a fork in the road. One of the dominant issues in the election is how to resolve the country’s internal conflict, which forced more than 235,619 individuals from their homes in 2025.

Another 87,069 people were caught up in mass displacement events due to the fighting, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Petro has embraced negotiation as a tool to end the conflict, which has seen government forces, criminal networks, left-wing rebels and right-wing paramilitaries all battling one another.

But the political right has advocated a return to the more militarised approach backed by the United States, according to Sanchez.

“The leading candidates fall into two camps: continuity with the leftist government of Petro and an approach to security that focuses on negotiations with armed groups, and right-wing candidates who very much want to go back to a hardline security model that Colombia had in the past,” Sanchez said.

“You have polar opposite visions for the country.”

Who is the main candidate on the left?

Senator Ivan Cepeda has emerged as the primary candidate of the political left, running as the head of the governing coalition, known as Historic Pact.

Cepeda has largely pledged continuity with Petro’s platform, including social and economic policies meant to reduce inequality.

He has also embraced Petro’s “Total Peace” approach, which aims to resolve the country’s internal fighting by negotiating with armed groups and criminal networks, as opposed to solely relying on military force.

Confronting state-backed violence has become a hallmark of Cepeda’s life and career.

His father, who was also a senator, is believed to have been assassinated by a government-backed paramilitary. For years, Cepeda was also embroiled in a legal battle for accusing former President Alvaro Uribe of connections to right-wing paramilitaries.

Who are the main candidates on the right?

While Cepeda has become the standard-bearer for the left, the political right has had to contend with a more fractured field of candidates.

Running on the far right is Abelardo de la Espriella, a lawyer for the Defenders of the Homeland Party who has generated comparisons with Salvadoran President Salvador Bukele and Argentina’s Javier Milei.

Like those leaders, de la Espriella has offered a hardline vision for his country’s security. If elected, he says he would end negotiations with armed groups, bomb rebel camps, and resume the aerial fumigation of coca ⁠crops, which produce the raw material for cocaine.

Senator Paloma Valencia, a candidate with the Democratic Centre Party, is running as a more moderate alternative to de la Espriella. She too has promised a stricter approach to crime. Her platform involves expanding the police and armed forces, while cutting taxes and promoting pro-business policies in the economic realm.

Their election-season competition has become a source of acrimony for Valencia and de la Espriella, who have accused each other of paving the way for a leftist election victory.

“There is a more familiar, establishment right, represented by Valencia, and a far right in the form of de la Espriella, who pitches himself as an outsider,” said Sanchez.

Valencia, for her part, has criticised de la Espriella as two-faced, defending criminals in his legal practice but advocating for tighter security on the campaign trail.

De la Espriella, meanwhile, has dismissed Valencia as a member of the country’s political establishment and chided her in a social media post, stating that the presidential election is “not for little games”.

What are the polls saying?

Polls generally show Cepeda ahead of his rivals, with de la Espriella in second place and Valencia in third.

A May 24 poll from the National Consulting Centre (CNC) and the publication Cambio suggested that Cepeda had drawn 33.4 percent of voter support, the most of any candidate.

But de la Espriella was on the upswing with 30.9 percent. Valencia, meanwhile, trailed with 12.6 percent.

The same surveys, however, suggest that Cepeda would struggle to win a run-off against either of the two right-wing candidates, with de la Espriella eking out about three points in a head-to-head contest, and Valencia coming within a percentage point of victory.

Undecided voters could play a key role in deciding the outcome, though. An analysis cited by the Spanish paper El Pais estimates that undecided voters could account for as much as 28 percent of the electorate.

Which issues are front and centre?

Concerns over crime, security and economic issues like unemployment and affordability have dominated the election.

In a poll from the firm Invamer, the highest proportion of voters — 37 percent — identified security as the top issue facing the country.

Basic needs and unemployment ranked second and third, with 17 percent and 16 percent, respectively. Eleven percent of voters, meanwhile, named corruption as a leading concern.

The threat of violence has lingered over the presidential campaign over the past year.

Two political staffers with de la Espriella’s campaign were killed by gunmen on motorbikes earlier this month. And in June 2025, presidential candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay was shot while leaving a campaign rally. The 39-year-old died two months later from his injuries.

Political violence is a serious concern in Colombia, and all of the frontrunners in the race travel with heavy security.

Venezuela is becoming increasingly important in Colombia’s presidential election, though not necessarily from a policy perspective. The three leading candidates are not offering radically new approaches toward Caracas. Instead, they broadly accept that Colombia will not shape Venezuela policy in a vacuum, but within a regional framework increasingly defined by Washington.

Even among the Colombian Right, the differences are narrower than the rhetoric sometimes suggests. Some candidates favor preserving parts of the thaw in relations initiated under Gustavo Petro, while others align themselves more openly with the Trump administration’s emerging three-phase approach toward Venezuela, combining pressure, negotiation, and eventual normalization while maintaining support for María Corina Machado and the democratic opposition.

The real competition is happening elsewhere.

As Bogotá increasingly adapts itself to strategic realities designed in Washington, Venezuela has become less a matter of concrete policy and more a source of symbolic legitimacy inside the Colombian Right. The question is no longer simply who has the best Venezuela strategy, but who is most closely aligned with the hemisphere’s most internationally legitimized anti-chavista figure.

Both Paloma Valencia and Abelardo de la Espriella have sought proximity to Machado, likely recognizing her growing political value among Colombian-Venezuelan voters and sectors of the Colombian Right that increasingly view her as a hemispheric democratic symbol after July 28, 2024. Early in the electoral cycle, both candidates publicized meetings with Machado and members of her team, presenting themselves as politically aligned with the Venezuelan opposition’s struggle. Valencia recently traveled to Panama to meet Machado personally, while De la Espriella has repeatedly emphasized his relationship with anti-chavista circles to position himself as part of a broader regional conservative realignment.

Yet the two candidacies embody very different political instincts.

Support from figures close to Machado, Trump-world Republicans, Miami exile networks, and conservative media ecosystems now carries political value extending far beyond Venezuela itself.

Valencia represents a more traditional conservative internationalism tied to institutional anti-chavismo, democratic legitimacy, and Atlanticist conservatism. De la Espriella, meanwhile, has increasingly embraced a far more populist style of politics, openly presenting himself as a Colombian version of Nayib Bukele that promises to build ten CECOT-style mega prisons in Colombia.

That contradiction becomes particularly striking when placed alongside one of the defining professional relationships of De la Espriella’s career: his representation of Alex Saab during the height of the CLAP era. Saab became one of the clearest symbols of late-stage chavismo’s corruption architecture, embodying the opaque financial networks, sanctions arbitrage, and humanitarian corruption that increasingly defined the Maduro era.

The irony of Saab’s former lawyer attempting to embody Colombia’s hardest anti-chavista and anti-corruption posture is difficult to ignore. But the contradiction also reveals something deeper about contemporary Latin American politics, where anti-establishment rhetoric and proximity to opaque power structures are no longer necessarily disqualifying contradictions.

The contradictions are perhaps most visible within parts of the Venezuelan opposition’s own media ecosystem. Some anti-chavista pundits spent years cultivating reputations as uncompromising anti-corruption crusaders, often accusing opposition figures of moral weakness, accommodationism, or hidden financial interests. Their enthusiastic support for Abelardo de la Espriella, despite his long professional relationship with Alex Saab during the height of the CLAP era, suggests that ideological affinity and political aesthetics are increasingly overriding the moral rigidity that once characterized parts of anti-chavista discourse.

Venezuela’s role in the Colombian election is not primarily about foreign policy. It is about political identity.

At the same time, other sectors of Machado’s broader international coalition appear more naturally aligned with Valencia’s institutional conservatism. The result is an increasingly visible fragmentation within the anti-chavista ecosystem itself, one that reflects broader tensions inside the Latin American Right between institutional conservatism, populist maximalism, and Bukele-style punitive politics.

Washington has only reinforced those dynamics. As the US once again becomes the principal external actor shaping Venezuela’s political future, different Colombian candidates increasingly compete to position themselves as the preferred interlocutors of the emerging regional order. Support from figures close to Machado, Trump-world Republicans, Miami exile networks, and conservative media ecosystems now carries political value extending far beyond Venezuela itself.

In that sense, Venezuela’s role in the Colombian election is not primarily about foreign policy. It is about political identity.

And perhaps more importantly, it may also offer a glimpse into the future political terrain of a post-transition Venezuela itself. If chavismo eventually collapses or evolves into some form of negotiated transition, the country will not emerge into a region defined by liberal democratic consensus. It will emerge into a hemisphere shaped by Bukele, Milei, Trumpism, social media maximalism, and deep public exhaustion with traditional political elites.

The rise of figures like De la Espriella suggests that the post-chavista Right may not necessarily resemble the liberal democratic opposition that spent decades fighting chavismo. It may instead reflect a harsher, more punitive, and more performative political culture, one forged not despite the region’s prolonged crises, but because of them.

Louisiana lawmakers have passed a new map of congressional districts designed to help Republicans pick up a seat in the United States House of Representatives.

But to do so, the map eliminates one of the state’s two majority-Black districts, both of which are represented by Democrats.

Approval in Louisiana’s legislature came on Friday. It follows an April decision from the US Supreme Court striking down Louisiana’s current map as an illegal racial gerrymander because it was drawn to include two majority-Black districts.

That ruling, in the case Louisiana v Callais, weakened the landmark 1965 federal Voting Rights Act, meant to prevent discrimination against minorities at the ballot box.

It also intensified a national redistricting battle fuelled by President Donald Trump’s efforts to protect the Republicans’ slim House majority in the midterm elections. Louisiana is one of several Southern states now redrawing their maps to help Republicans.

Louisiana Republicans had considered drawing a map giving the party a shot at winning all six of the state’s US House seats. But that would have required adding more registered Democrats to Republican-held districts, which could have potentially backfired with Republican losses.

Republicans currently hold four of Louisiana’s six congressional seats, and they are slated to pick up a fifth with the newly passed map.

It was approved on Friday by the Louisiana state Senate in a 28-to-10 vote.

‘Vicious race to the bottom’

Republican Governor Jeff Landry is expected to sign the new map into law, even as threats of more litigation emerged Friday.

A half-hour Senate floor debate revolved around Democrats contending that the proposed map is racially gerrymandered to squeeze more Black voters, who tend to be registered Democrats, into a single district.

Democratic state Senator Royce Duplessis pointed out that some fellow Southern states, such as South Carolina, had refused to redraw their maps in the middle of an election year.

He warned that Louisiana is participating in a “vicious, vicious race to the bottom” by participating in the redistricting push.

The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Senator Jay Morris, repeatedly insisted that party affiliation, not race, drove the new district boundaries.

“I purposely put more Democrats into District 2 to make the remaining districts better performing for Republicans,” Morris said at one point.

Morris said he instructed the map demographers to avoid including any data on race or including those statistics in information shared with lawmakers before the vote.

Democratic state Senator Sam Jenkins told Morris, “I think it’s a racially gerrymandered district that’s going to get us into a lot of trouble here.”

“Agree to disagree,” Morris told Jenkins.

More litigation expected in Louisiana

Louisiana is currently using a map ordered by a lower court in 2024 to comply with the Voting Rights Act. It includes a second district with a majority-Black population.

That map, however, was challenged in court, and the Supreme Court responded on April 30 by striking it down as an illegal racial gerrymander.

Landry has postponed the state’s closed US House primary slated for May 16 to allow for the new congressional map to be implemented.

He later signed a law making the US primary open and shifted the date to November 3 to allow time for Republican lawmakers to draw and pass a new map. All candidates, regardless of party affiliation, will be on the ballot for voters in their district.

The proposed map redraws a district currently represented by Democratic Representative Cleo Fields, clustering it around predominantly white communities in the Baton Rouge area and southern Louisiana.

It also adds part of Baton Rouge to a heavily Democratic, majority-Black district based in New Orleans, represented by Democratic Representative Troy Carter.

More lawsuits are expected over the new map.

Democrats say the proposed map could draw a legal challenge over racial gerrymandering, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Louisiana suggested Friday that it could sue, calling the map a “racial gerrymander hiding behind the thin veneer of partisanship”.

“This fight is just beginning,” the ACLU branch added.

Meanwhile, the victorious plaintiffs in the US Supreme Court’s decision criticised the legislature’s map for leaving a majority-Black district in place.

Nationwide battle over district lines

In the weeks following the Supreme Court’s decision, other Republican-controlled Southern states have seized upon the weakened federal Voting Rights Act to redraw their own congressional districts.

So far, Republicans are winning the nationwide redistricting contest, passing more partisan maps to gain House seats than Democrats.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean they will win in the narrowly divided US House in November.

Republicans think they could gain as many as 15 seats from their redistricting efforts so far, while Democrats think they could gain six seats from new districts in California and Utah.

Meanwhile, a court decision in Wisconsin on Friday could give Democrats a new avenue to pick up seats in 2028.

The liberal-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court said it would hear an appeal of a case filed by a bipartisan coalition of business executives that seeks to redraw the state’s Republican-friendly congressional districts. Republicans hold six of the state’s eight House seats, but only two are considered competitive.

A three-judge panel dismissed the case in April. Those who filed the lawsuit weren’t seeking a ruling in time for the 2026 election. Instead, they asked the state Supreme Court to send the case back to the lower court for a trial on their claims, which would likely not take place until 2027.

Many South Koreans headed to the polls Friday in early voting for next week’s local elections and parliamentary by-elections, widely seen as a referendum on President Lee Jae Myung’s first year in office.

Eligible voters can cast ballots at 3,571 polling stations nationwide from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. until Saturday, according to the National Election Commission (NEC).

As of 11 a.m., turnout for the local elections came to 3.81 percent, according to the NEC. The rate was higher than the 3.59 percent recorded at the same time on the first day of early voting for the 2022 local elections.

More than 44.6 million people are eligible to vote in this year’s local elections.

Up for grabs are 16 mayoral and gubernatorial posts, along with 227 heads of local governments and some 4,000 members of local councils.

Eyes are also on the parliamentary by-elections that will fill 14 vacant Assembly seats, with political heavyweights, such as Han Dong-hoon, former leader of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP), vying for seats.

In a poll released by the NEC last Thursday, 73.6 percent of respondents said they will definitely vote in the upcoming elections. Of them, 39.4 percent said they intended to cast ballots during the early voting period.

The upcoming elections are widely viewed as the first major nationwide vote for the Lee administration since it took office last June after former President Yoon Suk Yeol was ousted over his failed martial law bid.

Both the ruling Democratic Party (DP) and the PPP have been rallying voters to hit the polls this week, with the former urging the public to make a stern judgment on what it calls the “remnants” of Yoon’s insurrectionist forces.

Recent polls, however, indicate that races are tightening in more regions than earlier expected, despite the DP’s hopes for a landslide victory.

While the DP, which controls a majority in the National Assembly, seeks to extend the momentum for the Lee administration to push forward with its key policies, the PPP hopes to gain the footing needed to rebuild the conservative bloc amid deepening internal rifts in the aftermath of the martial law declaration.

Both parties view the capital area, where half of the country’s population resides, as a key battleground.

The Seoul mayoral election has shaped up to be a fierce two-horse race between incumbent Oh Se-hoon of the PPP and ruling party candidate Chong Won-o.

A Hankook Research poll released Monday showed Chong leading with 42 percent against Oh’s 36 percent.

Also closely watched is the parliamentary by-election in the Buk-A constituency in the southeastern city of Busan, where Ha Jung-woo, former presidential secretary for artificial intelligence policy and future planning, is competing against independent Han Dong-hoon and former PPP lawmaker Park Min-shik

Copyright (c) Yonhap News Agency prohibits its content from being redistributed or reprinted without consent, and forbids the content from being learned and used by artificial intelligence systems.

Voters in Colombia will head to the polls on May 31 for a presidential election. Some of the main concerns for Colombians are healthcare, corruption, and security. Al Jazeera’s Teresa Bo reports from Bogota. 

Son of former President Jair Bolsonaro is fighting to recover from a scandal that has rocked his presidential campaign.

Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro has shared a photo that appears to show him meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House, as he seeks to bolster his image amid a scandal that threatens to derail his presidential campaign in Brazil.

Bolsonaro shared a photo on Tuesday of him standing by Trump’s side in the Oval Office, with a caption showing the thumbs-up emoji.

Flavio is the son of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing Trump ally who is serving a 27-year prison sentence in connection with a coup attempt after his re-election loss in 2022 to current leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The younger Bolsonaro has replaced his father as the standard-bearer of Brazil’s political right and is seen as the top contender challenging Lula in the South American country’s election in October.

But his campaign has struggled to regain its balance following a report that he sought funds from a disgraced banker convicted of fraud to finance a film about his father. Bolsonaro has acknowledged requesting the money, but denied any impropriety or wrongdoing.

Recent polls suggest that the scandal has set back his campaign, with Lula retaking the lead from the younger Bolsonaro after previous polls had shown them in a close race.

Media reports in recent days stated that Bolsonaro had sought a meeting with Trump, who previously placed tariffs on Brazil in a bid to have the case against the elder Bolsonaro thrown out.

Flavio then travelled to Washington without a guaranteed appointment in the hope of meeting with the US president. Trump has yet to share information about the meeting on his social media website.

While tensions have remained between Trump and Lula, the two leaders have built a more cordial relationship in recent months, with the Brazilian leader visiting his US counterpart at the White House earlier this month.

This article is also published in Spanish on the Hacha y Machete Substack

Last weekend, the opposition achieved the familiar show of unity in Panama City, something that is not always easy to pull off. Party representatives agreed to fight for free elections and to back María Corina Machado as the candidate in any eventual vote. Machado, for her part, promised to return before the end of 2026. 

This is a milestone that should inspire at least some optimism. Five months ago, this group of people was scattered, waiting, in exile or in hiding. But given the sheer scale of Venezuela’s democratic challenge, the unity photo-op, the return of exiled leaders, and the reemergence of figures from hiding remain insufficient. 

Some politicians have returned to the country or emerged from hiding, but without a clear, politically binding agenda for achieving free elections recognized by all actors. The current dynamics still force us to react to the regime’s horrors. The case of Víctor Quero and Carmen Teresa Navas is among the clearest examples. 

Before Venezuela can achieve a true transition, the country’s pro-democracy movement must first undergo its own internal transition. Returns and displays of unity can alter incentives only if they become part of a public, coordinated, and understandable strategy. These are the main elements such a strategy should include.

A clear division of roles and responsibilities

Opening up the political playing field requires a clear division of roles and responsibilities. María Corina Machado and Juan Pablo Guanipa can embody a kind of “good cop/bad cop” dynamic within the democratic movement. The “good cop” would be Machado, whose messaging is already closely aligned with Trump’s policy toward Venezuela. The “bad cop” is Guanipa, whose rhetoric has become increasingly impatient regarding the goal of democratic transition.

If the democratic transition is truly a la venezolana, the debate about it must be taken out of the conference rooms in Washington and Caracas. 

But that differentiation cannot remain confined to national leadership figures alone. Student organizations, victims’ groups and human rights defenders, labor unions, and social organizations are equally crucial. These actors have earned legitimacy on the ground before January 3, when many were swept aside by a brutal wave of repression from which parties are still recovering. Since then, civil society has reaffirmed new leadership figures who, despite lacking party experience, could play important roles in the looming political cycle.

What matters is that this differentiation of roles be coordinated rather than improvised or competitive. Opening up the political field does not mean diluting political leadership. It means expanding the democratic movement’s range of action.

Combine negotiation with protest

There is no contradiction between the two. Negotiation without social pressure does little more than managing stagnation. Protest without a political roadmap burns out. What is needed is to give the streets political content: mobilizing not only against the regime’s abuses, but also in favor of a concrete transition agenda.

The role of movements is to protest, propose, and articulate the kind of transition they want. Just as students in 2007 embraced the campaign against the constitutional referendum and defeated Hugo Chávez, these grassroots movements should also assume a proactive role in shaping the type of transition they identify with.

That requires organizing a kind of “social roundtable” capable of coordinating different causes. These are autonomous rivers that can converge into the same lake: free elections and a broad national agreement on the direction of post-electoral public policy. Each movement has its own identity and internal dynamics, but there must be some degree of coordination and communication among them and with the broader national political agenda.

Protests also present a constant dilemma for the ruling Rodríguez siblings, a litmus test for their supposed liberalization. Demonstrations must remain peaceful and disciplined in order to deepen their dilemma.

Open up the conversation about democratic transition

The Machado-led opposition coalition and its allies have a responsibility to promote an open discussion about transition: what it means, how it is built, and what dilemmas it entails.

Dilemmas are never truly solved. They are weighed in terms of risks, benefits, opportunities, and threats. If the democratic transition is truly a la venezolana, the debate about it must be taken out of the conference rooms in Washington and Caracas. Not everything was decided in Panama City.

This time, the goal would be to bring together different groups and individuals to debate the diverse and legitimate visions of our own transition.

That conversation should include at least three dimensions:

The political-institutional dimension: What minimum guarantees would make a transition possible? What conditions would make an election politically binding? Should Venezuela pursue a constituent assembly? Should the process begin with a presidential election or a parliamentary one? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each option?

The social-humanitarian dimension: How do institutional reforms connect with people’s daily needs, such as wages, public services, security, justice and family reunification?

The electoral dimension: What should the sequencing of elections look like? (As far as we know, there was no agreement on this point in Panama). Should Venezuela return to a manual voting system? How can a trustworthy electoral authority (CNE) be guaranteed, and who should be part of it? What expectations and steps are required to secure the political inclusion of the diaspora and of millions of citizens inside Venezuela who cannot vote in the current circumstances?

Before the 2023 opposition primaries, there was one essential experience that helped build momentum: the Hablan los Candidatos debate, organized by students and activists in July 2023 at the Aula Magna of Universidad Católica Andrés Bello. Now imagine an event, or a series of events on a much larger scale. But this time, rather than candidates, the goal would be to bring together different groups and individuals to debate the diverse and legitimate visions of our own transition.

Use technology boldly

Technology can become a central tool to expand this deliberative process. Digital consultations, hybrid assemblies, spaces for dialogue with the diaspora, coordination mechanisms among professional associations, students, parties, unions, victims, and social organizations: all of this can help rebuild a democratic infrastructure for participation.

Producing a political milestone is not enough. A sequence must be built.

During both the primaries and July 28, the democratic movement used technology in exemplary and innovative ways. Through different applications, people found their polling centers, filed complaints, participated in defending the vote, and helped publish the real results. We need to use technology with that same boldness again, this time within a broader strategy of deliberating, coordinating, and disseminating the agenda of democratic transition.

Plan the sequence

The experience of January 2019 reminds us of something important: political milestones are never improvised. That strategy (whether or not one agrees with its tactics and consequences) was planned months in advance among political parties, civil society, and the leadership of the 2015 National Assembly. What is needed today is a similar level of preparation, but with one additional lesson that may prove decisive: producing a political milestone is not enough. A sequence must be built.

A unity photo may mark the beginning of a new phase. The return of political leaders may help shift public expectations or reshape the outlook of potential voters. A protest met with repression can show  the limits of the regime’s liberalization, something we have already seen this year with students, public-sector workers, and pensioners. A public debate can help organize competing visions of transition, giving oxygen and substance to a public sphere that must continue looking for spaces for deliberation. But none of these things, in isolation, constitutes a strategy.

The democratic movement has already found innovative, intelligent, and popular solutions to political dilemmas. It has pulled rabbits out of hats, brilliant plays in a perverse game, such as the feat of July 28, 2024. However, even rabbits do not appear by magic. The next move must emerge from the lessons and achievements that are already part of the movement’s democratic inheritance. 

We should do what we have already done and know we can do: open up the political field, bring people down from the stands, turn indignation into an agenda, and transform the return of many into movement-building.

Al Jazeera’s Heidi Pett reports on the Syrian legislative elections in Hasakah and the town of Kobane – areas recently reintegrated under government control after being held by pro-Kurdish fighters for more than a decade.

President Donald Trump was able to purge his most vocal critics within the Republican Party, as Americans voted for the congressional candidates who will run in November’s midterm elections.

One of the most prominent politicians to be unseated was Representative Thomas Massie, who pushed for the release of the Epstein files.

The Democratic Party partially released a report about performance that noted “a persistent inability or unwillingness to listen to all voters”.

Host Steve Clemons asks former Trump aide Hogan Gidley, and Matt Duss – former adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders – about the challenges facing both parties.

Clashes have broken out between protesters and riot police after an antigovernment rally in the Serbian capital, Belgrade.

Large crowds of demonstrators poured into central Belgrade on Saturday, many carrying banners and wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the “Students win” motto of the youth movement that organised the gathering.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has sought to rein in mass demonstrations that have challenged his hardline rule in the Balkan country. The size of Saturday’s turnout suggested that dissent remains strong more than a year after protests first began with demonstrators demanding accountability for a train station tragedy in northern Serbia in November 2024 that killed 16 people.

Anticorruption protests forced then-Prime Minister Milos Vucevic to resign in January 2025 before the authorities moved to clamp down on the movement. Many in Serbia blamed the concrete canopy collapse at the station on alleged corruption-fuelled negligence during renovation work carried out with Chinese companies.

On Saturday, Serbia’s state railway company cancelled all trains to and from Belgrade in what appeared to be an effort to prevent at least some people from travelling to the capital from other parts of the country.

In a video posted on Instagram on Saturday, the president said protesters “have shown their violent nature and that they cannot stand political opponents”. Vucic, who was en route to China for a state visit, added: “The state is functioning and will continue to work in line with the law.”

Students on Saturday demanded early elections and the rule of law, accusing the government of crime and corruption. They said they now plan to challenge Vucic in this year’s elections, which they hope will unseat his right-wing populist government. Vucic said on Thursday that the parliamentary elections could be held between September and November.

Clashes were first reported near a park camp of Vucic loyalists outside the Serbian presidency building. The camp was set up before another large antigovernment rally last March as a human shield against protesters. Folk music blared from a fenced-off area surrounded by rows of riot police in full gear.

The Serbian president has come under international scrutiny for his hardline tactics against demonstrators over the past year, including arbitrary arrests and the use of excessive force. The Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, Michael O’Flaherty, criticised Serbia’s government in a report after he visited the country last week and said he “will monitor the situation closely”.

O’Flaherty also cited “reports of police protecting unidentified and often masked attackers of journalists and protesters”. He said the overall human rights situation has deteriorated since his previous visit in April 2025.

Serbia is seeking to join the European Union while cultivating close ties with Russia and China. Democratic backsliding under Vucic could cost the country about 1.5 billion euros ($1.8bn) in EU funding, the bloc’s top enlargement official warned last month.

The student-led movement, which began after the Novi Sad rail station disaster in November 2024, is pushing for early elections.

Tens of thousands of people, led by university students, have rallied in the Serbian capital to protest against the government and call for early elections.

The Novi Sad rail station disaster in November 2024, which killed 16 people, sparked anticorruption protests, calling for a transparent investigation, forcing then-Prime Minister Milos Vucevic to resign.

Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic later pushed back hard against the protesters.

With students leading the anticorruption movement, the demonstrations have snowballed into a campaign to push Vucic to call early elections.

Vucic said this week that the ballot could be held between September and November this year.

‘Students win’

Protesters streamed into a central square in the capital, Belgrade, from several directions, many carrying banners and wearing T-shirts inscribed with the “Students win” motto of the youth movement.

Columns of cars drove into Belgrade from other Serbian towns earlier in the day.

Protester Maja Milas Markovic said students “managed to gather us here with their youth and wonderful energy; I really believe that we have [the] right to live normally.”

Serbia’s state railway company cancelled all trains to and from Belgrade on Saturday, in a bid to stop at least some of the people from coming from other parts of the Balkan country.

Vucic’s loyalists, meanwhile, gathered in a park camp outside the Serbian presidency building that he set up before another big antigovernment rally last March as a human shield against protesters. Folk music blared from a fenced area surrounded by riot police in full gear.

Students have said their rally will be peaceful. But there are concerns of violent conflict with Vucic’s loyalists, who are often hooded and masked and who have attacked student protesters in the past.

The protests have “huge support from the public, and that’s because they’re an all-encompassing movement … against the government,” Tetyana Kekic, a journalist in Belgrade, told Al Jazeera.

She said the challenge for the protesters is that they do not have a “clear political platform or policies … and they do not have a leader or a personality which could really challenge the president”.

Serbia’s push to join the EU

The Serbian president has faced international scrutiny for his hardline approach towards the demonstrators.

The Council of Europe commissioner for human rights, Michael O’Flaherty, criticised Serbia’s government in a report this week and said he “will monitor the situation closely” on Saturday.

Serbia is formally seeking entry into the European Union, but it has maintained close ties with Russia and China.

The democratic backsliding under Vucic could cost the country about 1.5 billion euros ($1.8bn) in European Union funding, the EU’s top enlargement official warned last month.

The venue on Saturday is Belgrade’s Slavija Square, the scene of a huge antigovernment protest in March 2025. That rally ended in sudden disruption that experts later said – and the government denied – involved the use of a sonic weapon against peaceful demonstrators.

Students now say they plan to challenge Vucic in approaching elections later this year or next, which they hope will oust the right-wing populist government.

Vucic, government officials, and the pro-government media have branded critics as “terrorists” and foreign agents who wish to destroy the country – rhetoric that has ramped up political polarisation.

Approval of populist former leader is a shift for the EU country that was recently run by a liberal government.

Slovenia’s parliament has voted to bring back right-wing politician Janez Jansa as prime minister, after his last stint in power ended in 2022.

Legislators in the 90-member assembly voted 51-36 for Jansa on Friday – marking a shift for the small European Union country recently run by a liberal government.

Jansa will need to return to parliament within the next 15 days for another vote to confirm his future Cabinet.

His appointment concludes a post-election stalemate after the vote two months ago ended in a tie when former liberal Prime Minister Robert Golob’s Freedom Movement was unable to create a parliamentary majority by only securing a thin margin.

On Thursday, Jansa and his populist Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) signed a coalition agreement with several centre-right groups to form a new government, which now holds 43 seats in the assembly.

It will be the fourth time 67-year-old Jansa has been in office.

He was the country’s leader from 2004 to 2008, 2012 to 2013 and 2020 to 2022.

In the March 22 elections, the SDS came second with 28 seats, behind Golob’s Freedom Movement, which secured 29 seats.

The new coalition government is made up of the SDS, New Slovenia, Democrats, the Slovenian People’s Party and Focus. It also secured additional backing from the right-wing Resnica party, which will not formally join the government.

In a speech laying out the government’s future goals, Jansa listed the economy, the fight against corruption and red tape, and decentralisation.

He also promised to lower taxes for the rich and support private education and healthcare.

Earlier this month, Jansa told reporters that the coalition would ensure a “cheaper state but with better quality”.

Jansa is an admirer of US President Donald Trump and was also a close ally of Hungary’s former populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who was defeated in a landslide election last month.

The former PM is a supporter of Israel and was a staunch critic of the Golob government’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state in 2024.

During his last term in office, Jansa faced accusations of clamping down on democratic institutions and press freedoms, leading to protests then and scrutiny from the European Union.

With an estimated 72 percent of the vote counted, Ed Gallrein led with 54.4 percent to Massie’s 45.6 percent.

US President Donald Trump has tightened his grip on the Republican Party as Kentucky voters ousted one of the few conservative lawmakers willing to openly challenge his authority.

Congressman Thomas Massie‘s defeat, which was predicted by US news networks, including NBC and CNN, about two hours after polls closed on Tuesday, marks another victory in Trump’s campaign to punish dissent within Republican ranks.

With an estimated 72 percent of the vote counted, former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein led with 54.4 percent of the vote to Massie’s 45.6 percent.

The Associated Press news agency called the race for Gallrein, whose campaign was backed by Trump’s endorsement as well as millions of dollars from pro-Trump and pro-Israel political lobby groups.

The contest, widely described as the most expensive House of Representatives primary in US history, saw more than $32m spent on advertising and offered the latest evidence of Trump’s hold over Republicans. It followed the primary defeat on Saturday of another Trump critic, Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, as well as losses for dissenting Republican state lawmakers in Indiana earlier this month.

“Massie got Trumped. Donald Trump is the sun and the moon and the stars in the Republican Party in Kentucky,” Kentucky-based Republican strategist TJ Litafik said.

A test of Trump’s influence

The Kentucky vote was closely watched as a test of whether Trump’s hold on Republican voters remained firm despite concerns over his war on Iran, growing inflation and declining personal approval ratings, and whether there was still space in the party for lawmakers willing to break with him.

Massie had angered Trump by opposing US military action in Iran and Venezuela, criticising aid to Israel, resisting parts of the president’s agenda, and backing efforts to release files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The president spent months attacking Massie, a libertarian-leaning seven-term congressman, calling him a “moron”, a “nut job” and a “major sleazebag”.

“Dealing with him is just horrible. I don’t think he’s a Republican… He’s not a libertarian,” Trump told reporters after polls opened on Tuesday.

“Sometimes they say he’s really a Dumb-ocrat. He votes against us all the time,” Trump said, using a nickname he frequently deploys against Democrats.

‘I’m not running against President Trump’

In the northern Kentucky city of Covington, Rob Barkley, a former Trump supporter who backed Massie, said the president’s attacks had pushed him further towards the congressman.

“He’s on the Republican side, so he has a conservative mindset,” Barkley told US media after casting his ballot.

“But he’s not as far-right leaning as Trump’s politics,” he said.

Massie, who voted with Trump roughly 90 percent of the time during the president’s second term, framed the contest as a broader test of independence within the Republican Party.

“I’m not running against President Trump. Most of the people voting for me support President Trump like I do,” Massie said.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also made a rare appearance in Massie’s district on Monday to campaign for Gallrein.

Federal law restricts government employees from engaging in partisan political activity while on duty, but Hegseth’s office said he attended in a personal capacity and that no taxpayer money was used.

Trump later revealed that Hegseth’s campaign appearance came just hours before the US had expected to launch a new military assault on Iran, although the operation was later postponed.

Several US states, including Georgia and Pennsylvania, held primaries on Tuesday in advance of November’s midterm elections, but the Kentucky race emerged as one of the night’s most closely-watched contests.

Massie, first elected in 2012, had long been one of Trump’s most persistent Republican critics.

On Tuesday, voters in Pennsylvania’s third congressional district — which encompasses much of Philadelphia’s urban core — will decide what kind of progressive champion they want representing them in the United States House of Representatives.

Four candidates are vying for the Democratic nomination in Tuesday’s primary. They include state Representative Chris Rabb, state Senator Sharif Street, pediatric surgeon Ala Stanford and lawyer Shaun Griffith.

On the whole, all four campaigns are markedly progressive, focusing on issues such as expanding healthcare, affordability and housing.

But supporters say the race exposes the fault lines within the Democratic Party as it seeks to rally opposition to Republican President Donald Trump in the 2026 midterm cycle.

Marc Stier, who served as the director of the Pennsylvania Policy Center, a progressive think tank, until earlier this year, noted that there are few differences in the candidates’ platforms.

“They’re all opposed to Donald Trump. They’re all talking about civil rights, healthcare and voting rights,” said Stier, who backs Rabb. “So the differences aren’t that great.”

But the race has drawn nationwide attention, including endorsements from top Democrats.

For Stier and other local experts and leaders, the divisions come down to a duel between ideals and pragmatism — and how the candidates wish to be perceived along that spectrum.

A Democratic stronghold

The primary is highly symbolic for the Democratic Party. Pennsylvania’s third congressional district is considered one of the most left-leaning areas in the US.

According to The Cook Political Report, the district was 40 percentage points more Democratic than the national average in the most recent presidential election.

That makes it a key party stronghold in a pivotal swing state: Pennsylvania has alternated between voting Democratic and Republican in the last four presidential races, most recently siding with Trump.

Since 2016, Democrat Dwight Evans has represented the area. But in June, he announced he would not seek reelection after holding congressional office for a decade.

That opened a gateway to a heated primary, with no incumbent to lead the pack.

Street, Rabb and Stanford are considered the frontrunners. No independent polling has been conducted in the race, but surveys gathered by the candidates or their supporters show a volatile three-way contest.

An April poll sponsored by 314 Action, a group supporting Stanford, found the surgeon leading with 28 percent of voter support, followed by Rabb at 23 percent and Street at 16 percent.

Meanwhile, a November survey sponsored by Street found the state senator ahead with 22 percent support, ahead of Rabb at 17 percent and Stanford at 11.

A three-way race

Each of the three candidates has positioned themselves as the Democrat who will shake up the status quo and deliver results.

“The same old politics and the same old politicians are not going to cut it,” Stanford declared at a forum hosted by WHYY public radio in February.

“We need people who step up in a storm, who lead when others wilt away, and that’s what I’ve done and will do for this city.”

There are differences, however, in how the candidates are presenting themselves.

Stanford is campaigning as the political outsider whose public health advocacy offered critical leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is her first political run.

Street, on the other hand, is seen as the political veteran backed by party leadership. He first entered the state Senate in 2017, becoming the first Muslim elected to the chamber, and his father was a former Philadelphia mayor.

Then there’s Rabb, a democratic socialist who has positioned himself as the firebrand progressive in the mould of New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

He, too, has served in government since 2017, representing northwest Philadelphia in the state House of Representatives.

All three have embraced progressive rallying cries, such as increasing affordable housing, widening access to healthcare, and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an agency accused of racial profiling and violent tactics.

But Street has set himself apart by wedding his reputation to the Democratic establishment. From 2022 to 2025, he served as chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party.

“Street has very strong relationships with the political machine here: the party establishment, the ward leaders and committee people, and other legislators,” Stier said.

Supporters weigh in

But amid the frustration with the Democratic Party, particularly after its defeat in the 2024 presidential race, Street’s opponents have sought to distance themselves from the left-wing establishment.

“Rabb clearly says his goal is to push the envelope on issues and build public support for bolder ideas than Street is likely to push forward,” said Stier.

But Stier acknowledges that some voters see progressives like Rabb as all talk and no action.

“As my ward leader says, Rabb is one of those people that makes a lot of speeches but doesn’t get much done,” Stier said.

He dismisses such remarks as hackneyed. “It’s the kind of standard attack that is made by the establishment against people who are very outspoken and don’t always get along with the party establishment in Harrisburg.”

But it is the kind of argument Lou Agre, a ward leader and retired lawyer, sympathises with.

Formerly the president of the Philadelphia Metal Trades Council, Agre is backing Street in the upcoming election. He is not convinced that Rabb’s progressive positions can lead to tangible results.

“Street has always stood behind organised labour,” Agre said.

To Agre, Street represents experience, while Rabb is heavy on rhetoric. “This is a race between a guy with a record and another guy who has a platform that he’s using to get a point across,” he explained.

Duelling endorsements

In many ways, local leaders say that the difference between Tuesday’s primary candidates comes back to familiar arguments that often divide centrist and progressive Democrats.

Those labels have, in part, translated into endorsements — and behind-the-scenes party battles.

The news outlet Axios reported this month that Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro privately warned local building trade unions that attacking Stanford could inadvertently help Rabb, who has been critical of the governor.

Rabb, meanwhile, has earned the endorsements of some of the country’s most prominent progressives, including Ocasio-Cortez, Representative Ilhan Omar and Senator Chris Van Hollen.

Street, by contrast, has become the candidate of choice for some of Philadelphia’s biggest power brokers, including local labour unions, city council members and Mayor Cherelle Parker.

For her part, Stanford has scored the endorsement of the outgoing congressman, Evans, whom all three hope to succeed.

Tuesday’s primary will be key. The winner will almost certainly prevail in the general election in November. No Republicans have come forward with a bid.

But with the race split narrowly between the three candidates, the outcome may ultimately boil down to turnout, and which candidate can rally the most supporters.

“If people come out to vote, if turnout is high in North and West Philadelphia, parts of the southwest and those neighbourhoods, then Sharif will win,” Agre said of his preferred candidate. “If not, who knows what will happen?”

He described Stanford, whom some have depicted as a middle ground between Street and Rabb, as a complicating factor in the race.

“Ala Stanford’s the wild card. Is she fading, or does she still have her slice of the electorate? I don’t know,” Agre said.

Stier, meanwhile, acknowledged that each of the three candidates has a path to victory.

“There are pockets of support for all these candidates,” Stier noted. But he thinks the more moderate approach of Street and Stanford may open a path for victory for Rabb.

“The winner of this race is not going to have a majority. Someone’s going to win this race with 35 to 40 percent of the vote,” he explained.

“And I think Rabb’s campaign is expecting that Stanford and Street will split the more centrist vote, and he will get all the progressive votes, and he’ll run to victory that way.”

In the northwest corner of the United States, Oregon has fostered a reputation as a left-wing stronghold. Since the 1980s, the Beaver State has consistently elected Democrats in most of its statewide races.

But even in a comfortably blue state like Oregon, the fight to hold onto political power can be competitive.

On Tuesday, the state will hold its latest primary races, with each of the major parties picking its nominees for November’s midterm elections.

But a packed field of roughly 25 contenders, both Democrats and Republicans, is jockeying to replace Tina Kotek as she seeks a second term as governor.

Tuesday’s vote could also serve as an economic bellwether. Voters will weigh in on a referendum that could repeal a state fuel tax, as the US-Israel war on Iran heaps strain on consumers at the gas pump.

Who is running? And which races have attracted the most attention? We tackle those questions and more in this brief explainer.

What time do polls open?

Polls will open on Tuesday at 7am Pacific US time (15:00 GMT) and close at 8pm (4:00 GMT).

Who is running for governor?

Incumbent Governor Kotek is making a bid for a second four-year term. But she is fielding competition from dozens of other candidates, including nine Democrats.

Going into the Democratic primary, Kotek is the frontrunner. Her challengers include a children’s book author, the leader of an Indigenous nonprofit and an inventor who hopes to address water shortages.

Even more contenders are angling for the Republican gubernatorial nomination.

Among them is State Senator Christine Drazan, who ran against Kotek in 2022. Drazan has been critical of President Donald Trump’s tariff policies but supportive of his tough stance on immigration.

Also on the Republican ballot is former NBA player Chris Dudley, who was the Republican gubernatorial candidate in 2010. He had the smallest losing margin of any Republican candidate in decades.

State Representative Ed Diehl, meanwhile, is hoping to capitalise on the momentum he gained after leading the charge to block Kotek’s gas tax and fee increase package.

What are the opinion polls saying about the governor’s race?

Polls show Drazan leading the race to receive the Republican nomination, with 35 percent support.

Kotek is likely to grab an easy victory in the Democratic primary, with none of her opponents polling close behind.

What about the Senate race?

Another Democratic incumbent attempting to hold onto his seat is US Senator Jeff Merkley.

The 69-year-old, who began his career working on affordable housing, is running for a fourth consecutive six-year term. He first took office in 2009.

But while the senator faces eight rivals on the campaign trail – one Democrat and seven Republicans – his seat is considered relatively safe.

He is expected to win the Democratic primary on Tuesday and become the frontrunner for November’s general election.

What other positions are up for grabs?

All six of Oregon’s members of the US House of Representatives are running for re-election and will face the primary process on Tuesday.

Five are Democrats. One, Cliff Bentz, is a Republican, and he represents Oregon’s second congressional district, a sprawling area encompassing the entire eastern half of the state.

Also on Tuesday, voters will choose their party representatives in races for the state Senate and House.

The election will also determine a nonpartisan commissioner to lead the state Bureau of Labor and Industries.

Why does this race matter?

Oregon is a closed primary state, meaning that voters choose nominees only for the party they are registered under.

Given the state’s left-wing bent, the winners of the statewide Democratic primaries will likely emerge as frontrunners in November’s midterm races.

Still, there is room for surprise. According to state voter rolls, less than 25 percent of Oregonians are registered Republicans. But only 32 percent are registered Democrats, with the largest proportion of voters identifying as “non-affiliated” with any party.

Primary races in right-leaning areas like Oregon’s second congressional district could signify how closely the state’s Republican politicians want to align with President Trump.

Voters will also have a chance to vote on the referendum that could repeal the gas tax increase on Tuesday’s ballot.

Democrats in the state legislature raised Oregon’s gas tax to pay for roads and supplement the state’s transportation budget.

But as the US-Israel war on Iran causes gas prices to skyrocket, Republicans have used the referendum to appeal to voters on the cost of living. Gas is now averaging about 80 cents more in Oregon.

In addition, there are nearly 100 local measures sprinkled on ballots across the state, tailored to different counties. Many will focus on funding local fire departments, schools and libraries.

When are results expected?

Preliminary results are expected on Tuesday evening, shortly after polls close at 8pm local time.

But ballots will continue to arrive after election day, as mail-in votes and provisional ballots are counted, and some races may not be officially called until days later.

The race pitting a candidate endorsed by President Donald Trump against Congressman Thomas Massie, a rare Republican critic of Israel, has become the most expensive House of Representatives primary contest in the history of the United States.

The avalanche of spending, totalling more than $34m by Monday, according to official records, highlights the significance of the elections that could oust one of the few Republican opponents to the war with Iran.

In the final stretch of the campaign ahead of Tuesday’s vote, Massie has sought to highlight the oversized role of pro-Israel groups – including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) – in the race.

He said the election will be a “referendum on foreign policy” and whether pro-Israel lobby groups will be able to “bully” members of Congress.

“You can tell that I’m ahead in the polls, and they’re desperate,” Massie told ABC News on Sunday.

“That’s why they’re sending the secretary of war to my district tomorrow. That’s why the president’s losing sleep and tweeting about this. That’s why AIPAC has dumped another $3m into my race this weekend.”

Trump has been incessantly bashing Massie on social media, and in an unusual move, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth has travelled to Kentucky to campaign for Ed Gallrein, the Navy SEAL veteran challenging the congressman.

Massie has been critical of the unconditional US military aid to Israel and of the country’s abuses in Gaza and Lebanon. He has also helped spearhead the push for the release of government files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The money

Despite the intensity of the race, the candidates have not raised record amounts of money themselves.

The bulk of the spending, more than $25.8m, has come from outside groups, known as super political action committees (super PACs).

Super PACs are usually used by special interest groups to spend heavily to oppose or support a candidate without the constraints of legal limits on direct campaign contributions.

Pro-Israel groups and donors have played a central role in the flood of funds and ads directed against Massie, with three groups linked to them spending more than $15.5m in the race, Federal Election Commission (FEC) data shows.

United Democracy Project (UDP), AIPAC’s election arm, has spent more than $4.1m.

The RJC Victory Fund, which is affiliated with the Republican Jewish Coalition, came in with around $3.9m.

MAGA KY has been the largest spender, at $7.5m.

The PAC’s finances have not been made fully public. But available records show that one of the group’s top funders is Paul Singer, a pro-Israel billionaire investor who has also made the largest individual donation to UDP over the past year – $2.5m.

MAGA KY also received funds from Preserve America PAC, a group linked to Israeli-American megadonor Miriam Adelson.

Details of the finances of Preserve America PAC remain unclear for this election cycle. But Adelson donated $106m to the PAC in 2024 to help elect Trump as president.

Trump has openly admitted that Adelson and her late husband Sheldon Adelson have influenced his Middle East policies.

Before the race in Kentucky’s Fourth Congressional District, the most expensive House primary was the 2024 election that ousted then-Democratic Congressman Jamaal Bowman, in which pro-Israel groups, including AIPAC, were also the largest spenders.

The third most expensive primary also involved AIPAC and its pro-Israel allies, who succeeded in helping defeat progressive Congresswoman Cori Bush in 2024.

The Trump factor

Beyond the millions of dollars in pro-Israel spending, Massie needs to survive another potent force in Republican politics – Trump’s wrath.

The US president has all but purged the party of lawmakers who have disagreed with him on major issues.

Most recently, Senator Bill Cassidy – who voted to convict Trump after the January 6, 2021, US Capitol riot – lost his primary to a challenger backed by the US president.

Trump is actively campaigning against Massie. In less than 24 hours between Sunday and Monday, the US president fired off three social media posts berating the congressman, calling him “weak”, “pathetic” and a “bum”.

“The worst Congressman in the long and storied history of the Republican Party is Thomas Massie,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Monday. “He is an obstructionist and a fool. Vote him out of office tomorrow, Tuesday. It will be a great day for America!”

However, Massie appears to have a few advantages that other Republican dissidents lacked.

Over the years, the congressman has built a reputation as a combative, principled libertarian and has gained popularity among right-wing commentators.

His campaign directly raised $5.5m, significantly more than Gallrein’s $3.1m, while also receiving outside support from pro-gun rights and libertarian PACs.

Massie has also been endorsed by some of his Republican colleagues, including Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, an outspoken right-wing lawmaker.

And due to the involvement of pro-Israel groups, Massie’s supporters are arguing that the race is not all about Trump, who remains popular amongst Republican voters.

“Why does Trump hate Massie? Is the congressman a secret liberal? Not at all,” right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson said in his newsletter on Monday.

“Unlike nearly everyone else in the Republican Party, Massie has refused to go along with the White House’s abandonment of the America First principles that got the president elected. He is one of the few honest people in politics. Everyone who cares about our country should root for him.”

The Palestinian group Fatah concluded its eighth General Conference late Saturday but the results of the elections of the group’s leadership bodies, the Central Committee and Revolutionary Council, were not announced until Monday afternoon. The delay compelled Wael Lafi, the head of the elections committee in the General Conference, who is also the legal advisor of the Palestinian President, to defend the process and delay.

Even before convening, questions about membership, funding, and the general political direction of the group – which dominates the Palestinian Authority – overshadowed preparations for the General Conference.

Sixty candidates competed for 18 seats in the Central Committee, Fatah’s highest leadership body.

Mahmoud Abbas, the 91-year-old Palestinian President, was unanimously voted as chair ahead of the vote, foreshadowing the results of the elections and Abbas’s tightening grip on power.

Dr Nasser al-Qudwa, who was the only member of the Central Committee to boycott the General Conference, told Al Jazeera, “Mahmoud Abbas engineered this meeting to produce the outcome he wants and he succeeded”. Many Fatah members agree with that assessment.

The election results of Fatah’s top body saw the replacement of half of the incumbent old guard. Those included all but one of Gaza’s representatives in the Central Committee, with Ahmed Hilles, a close ally of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the only one remaining.

Abbas’s close ally and intelligence chief, Majed Faraj, also won a seat on the Central Committee. Faraj is seen by many in Fatah as a competitor to Hussein al-Sheikh, who Abbas appointed as vice president a year ago.

Another signal of Abbas’s grip on the Congress was the nomination and victory of his son, Yasser, to the Central Committee. That was despite the fact that Yasser Abbas has never held a leadership position at any level in Fatah, and the development has overshadowed Fatah’s argument that the Congress was a sign of democratic vitality and inclusion.

Palestinian detainees secured three seats in Fatah’s top leadership body, with Marwan Barghouti – imprisoned by Israel for more than 20 years – earning the highest number of votes among all competitors.

Another winner is Zakariya al-Zubaidi, a prominent Fatah figure who has been imprisoned repeatedly by Israel over the years. Al-Zubaidi notoriously escaped with five other Palestinian prisoners from Gilboa prison in 2021 only to be recaptured and then freed again in one of the prisoner exchange deals struck between Israel and Hamas during the Gaza genocide.

Fatah and Hamas make up the two main Palestinian political factions, with Hamas dominant in Gaza, and Fatah in the occupied West Bank.

Victory for Abbas?

There were 450 members competing for the 80 seats of the Revolutionary Council, which serves as Fatah’s legislator and in theory has strong sway over Fatah policy choices.

However, the winners appear to be dominated by the party’s insiders.

Absent from the Central Committee for the first time is a representative of Fatah outside Palestine, which is seen by many as a worrying precedent for a movement that has followers across the widespread Palestinian diaspora.

But the new Central Committee has an abundance of technocrats and senior officials working in the Palestinian Authority (PA), like the popular Ramallah Governor Laila Ghannam or the head of the PA’s General Personnel Council Musa Abu Zaid.

“These are not leaders. They are employees. They will do as ordered,” one Fatah official, who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity, said.

Dr al-Qudwa views the results as a victory for the Palestinian president, not Fatah.

“President Abbas is the biggest winner,” al-Qudwa said. “He succeeded in completely subduing Fatah to his will.”

A significant proportion of the winners are also current or former PA employees, especially in the security sector.

Most of the old guard were replaced by younger members, but many of that new cohort themselves rose through the ranks of Fatah’s youth movement. Several sons and daughters of former Fatah leaders were also elected despite having no history of involvement or membership in the group, like the daughter of the late chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, Dalal.

Facing crises

Kifah Harb, a prominent Fatah figure who ran unsuccessfully for the Central Committee, confirmed to Al Jazeera that many members had concerns and misgivings about the organisational committee of the Congress.

But she struck a conciliatory tone about the process as a whole.

“As members of the Congress, we are leading members of Fatah and regardless the outcome of the elections, we must stand by it and help Fatah march forward in leading the Palestinian national movement,” Harb said. “There are no alternatives.”

Fatah’s Congress was closely followed by world governments and the Palestinian public, who saw the competition within the group play out in advertisements and posts on social media platforms.

Governments around the world see Fatah leaders as their Palestinian counterparts when it comes to bilateral relations, but Western governments are also demanding reforms in return for increased support to the Palestinian Authority.

Fatah leaders say the Congress is proof of their commitment to reform, pointing to the change of some names and a younger demographic emerging, even if the balance of power ultimately remained firmly in Abbas’s hands.

Whether that placates the international community is one matter, but Fatah will have a tough time getting the Palestinian public on side.

Fatah’s new leaders are faced with the task of resolving several chronic crises, including the PA’s inability to pay civil servants and Israel’s hostile policies – including the unlawful withholding of Palestinian tax revenues, unprecedented land grabs, settler attacks, and the Israeli-made humanitarian disaster becoming entrenched in Gaza.

On Monday, after the announcement of the election results, Fatah offered general policy lines in a statement, but provided no answers on the way forward.

And now it has to content with that future, and a public demand for presidential and legislative elections that will likely become more pressing – one of the many tests that awaits Fatah’s reformulated leadership.

Former UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting has announced he will run against Prime Minister Keir Starmer as Labour leader if an election is to take place. Streeting voiced strong support for rebuilding ties with Europe, saying the UK should pursue “a new special relationship” with the EU and potentially rejoin the bloc in the future.

Bill Cassidy is among seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump after the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

US Senator Bill Cassidy has lost his Louisiana Republican primary after years of criticism from supporters of Donald Trump over his vote to convict the United States president during his 2021 impeachment trial linked to the January 6 Capitol attack that year.

Cassidy failed to secure enough support in the southern state on Saturday to advance to a run-off, finishing behind Representative Julia Letlow and State Treasurer John Fleming. The two will face each other in a second round of voting on June 27.

The result underlines Trump’s continued influence over the Republican Party as he targets politicians seen as disloyal, even as he faces growing political pressure over inflation, falling approval ratings and criticism of the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Cassidy was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump after the attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters who sought to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss. While several Republicans who broke with Trump chose not to seek re-election, Cassidy campaigned aggressively for a third six-year term and heavily outspent his rivals.

On the morning of the vote, Trump attacked Cassidy on social media, calling him “a disloyal disaster” and “a terrible guy”. Speaking after his defeat, Cassidy appeared to respond indirectly to Trump’s remarks. “Insults only bother me if they come from somebody of character and integrity,” he told supporters.

He added: “Our country is not about one individual. It is about the welfare of all Americans, and it is about the constitution.”

Letlow, meanwhile, embraced Trump’s backing during her victory speech. “I want to say thank you to a very special man, … the best president this country has ever had, President Donald Trump,” she said.

She later described Cassidy’s impeachment vote as evidence that he had “turned his back on Louisiana voters”. Trump celebrated Cassidy’s loss online, writing: “That’s what you get by voting to impeach an innocent man.”

The Louisiana race is the latest in a series of contests in which Trump has backed efforts to remove Republicans who opposed him. Earlier this month, several Indiana state senators were also defeated after they had rejected Trump’s redistricting plan aimed at winning more seats in the US Congress for Republicans.

Saturday’s elections also took place amid confusion after a recent US Supreme Court ruling weakening part of the Voting Rights Act related to electoral district maps.

While the Senate primary went ahead as planned, Louisiana officials postponed primary elections for the US House of Representatives to redraw district boundaries. Civil rights groups challenged the delay, arguing it violates both the US Constitution and the Louisiana Constitution.

CONCORD, N.H. — A growing effort to raise suspicion about the security of voting systems has kindled a back-to-the-future moment among conservatives in some parts of the U.S.

Republican lawmakers in at least six states have introduced legislation that would require all election ballots to be counted by hand instead of electronic tabulators. Similar proposals have been floated within some local governments, including about a dozen New Hampshire towns and Washoe County in the presidential battleground state of Nevada.

The push for hand-counting ballots comes amid mistrust of elections stoked by many Republicans who advance the false narrative that widespread fraud cost former President Trump reelection in the 2020 contest.

Despite no evidence of widespread fraud or major irregularities, conspiracy theories have proliferated among his allies that voting systems were somehow manipulated to favor Democrat Joe Biden. That has prompted calls to ban electronic tabulators used to scan ballots, record votes and compile race tallies.

“It’s our responsibility, and it should be our desire, to count every vote and to imbue confidence in our citizenry that our elections are fair and free, and that their vote is being counted,” said New Hampshire state Rep. Mark Alliegro, sponsor of a hand-counting bill that is similar to ones proposed in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Washington and West Virginia.

Alliegro said he was motivated by his analysis of recounts in nearly 50 New Hampshire state legislative races, not by the 2020 presidential election.

But some of the bill’s supporters reference the 2020 election to explain why they argue his hand-count legislation is needed. They cite a belief — despite evidence disproving it — that Trump actually won a landslide victory and that cheating is the only way to explain how New Hampshire voters elected a Republican governor and GOP majorities in the Legislature, but then backed Democrats for federal office.

Critics of the proposals to ditch electronic ballot tabulators and return to hand-counting are blunt about what they see as the motivation.

“It’s coming from conspiracy theories and lies,” said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections for Common Cause, a nonpartisan group that advocates for expanded voter access. “It’s attempting to lower people’s confidence in elections.”

Albert and others said it’s unrealistic to think election officials can count millions of ballots by hand and report results quickly, given that ballots often include dozens of races. The partisan review last summer of the 2 million ballots cast in Maricopa County, Ariz., which included a hand count, took several months and hundreds of people to complete.

“If you have a jurisdiction with 500 voters, you might be OK. But if you have a jurisdiction with thousands of voters, tens of thousands of voters, hundreds of thousands of voters, it’s just not going to work,” said Jennifer Morrell, a former elections clerk in Colorado and Utah who now advises state and local election officials.

Even in New Hampshire’s small towns, hand-counting is a complicated, lengthy process when a typical ballot might include 50 questions, said Milford Town Clerk Joan Dargie, who spoke against the proposed legislation on behalf of the New Hampshire City and Town Clerks Assn. She estimates her town would have to boost election workers from 200 to 350, and said many of her fellow clerks have said they will quit if they have to tabulate every ballot by hand. “People who are asking to get rid of machines obviously haven’t worked in an election,” she said.

As one example, Cobb County, Ga., performed a hand tally ordered by the state after the 2020 election. It took hundreds of people five days to count just the votes for president on roughly 397,000 ballots, said Janine Eveler, elections director for the county in metro Atlanta. She estimates it would have taken 100 days to count every race on each ballot using the same procedures.

Counting by machine isn’t just faster. Multiple studies have shown it’s also more accurate, said Charles Stewart, professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The first research on the topic was done almost two decades ago, comparing recounts of New Hampshire races that were originally tabulated by hand with those tabulated by machines. In that study and subsequent research, the machines won, he said.

“Counting votes is very tedious. Human beings are bad doing tedious things, and computers are very good at doing tedious things,” Stewart said.

Most states also conduct postelection audits that are designed to identify any irregularities with ballot scanning and counting. But with many Republicans believing Biden was not legitimately elected, election machines have become a popular target.

In Nevada, a Republican county commissioner is pushing a proposal that would require hand-counting of all ballots, along with a return to primarily in-person voting and beefing up uniformed security at polling places.

“I’m 82 years old, and I’ve been through a lot of elections,” said Washoe County Commissioner Jeanne Herman. “I know that something is not right.”

The proposal has drawn opposition from other commissioners, the biggest labor union in the state and a rare front-page editorial in the largest newspaper in northern Nevada, which said the measure could cost taxpayers “millions of dollars to chase down Facebook rumors of illusory election fraud.”

In West Virginia, a bill to repeal the state law governing tabulation machines died in committee earlier this month. In Missouri, lawmakers have not yet acted on a proposal that would ban electronic voting machines and tabulation equipment and require hand-counting to be livestreamed and recorded.

The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Rep. Mitch Boggs Jr., said he has no proof elections have been manipulated but is responding to constituent concerns.

“You file what the constituents are asking for,” Boggs said. “But at the end of the day, what they’re really wanting is just the transparency. They want to know that our elections are secure.”

Republican state Rep. Petty McGaugh said the legislation would delay election results and likely undermine their accuracy. When she became clerk of rural Carroll County in 1995, election staff were still hand-counting ballots by marking tallies in blocks of five on paper. She noticed multiple errors and eventually switched the county to an electronic tabulation system.

“I don’t really think that in this day and age we need to go back to hand-counting where it’s so susceptible to human error,” she said. “We’ve got to start trusting electronics and computers.”

In New Hampshire, that message seems to have gotten through. Last week, a state House committee unanimously recommended killing the hand-counting legislation and voters in nine towns where the question was on the ballot in local elections rejected it.