Uganda’s president, who has been in power for nearly four decades, has appointed his son to head the country’s military, fueling long-held suspicions in the East African country that the leader is grooming his son to to succeed him one day.

The President Yoweri Museveni said this late on Thursday that he had appointed his son, General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, 49, as the country’s top military commander. General Kainerugaba had served as his father’s senior advisor, and so it had been participation in major rallies across the country to help position himself as heir apparent – ​​even as experts say Mr Museveni, who is 79, is unlikely to give up power in his lifetime.

General Kainerugaba had come into the global spotlight in recent years because of him erratic, late-night tweets. At least one of the general’s closest confidantes was also appointed to a top position in the Cabinet.

Mr Museveni, a chairman for six terms, is expected to contest Uganda’s next elections, in 2026, and continue to consolidate its grip on the lush, landlocked country. But his advancing age and tensions among his close associates in the military and the ruling party have reignited talk of an alleged plan from a decade ago that claimed he was grooming his son for power.

Mr Museveni has repeatedly denied such a plan, commonly referred to as the ‘Muhoozi project’.

Since coming to power in 1986, Mr Museveni an important Western allyhas ruled Uganda with an iron fist and cracked down on press freedom, the jailing of opposition leaders And to have his critics tortured. Mr Museveni, his son and other top Ugandan officials were accused of crimes against humanity in a complaint filed last year with the International Criminal Court.

Mr Museveni also signed a widely condemned man anti-gay law Last year, that included a life sentence for anyone engaging in gay sex, and was considered one of the punishments the heaviest in the world. In August, the United Nations human rights office in Uganda was closed after the government refused to renew an agreement that allowed it to operate in the country.

General Kainerugaba is the eldest child and only son of Mr Museveni, who also has three daughters. His first name, Muhoozi, means “the avenger,” the president has said. The son, who attended military schools in the United States and Britain, has also served as commander of the Ugandan army’s land forces and as head of an elite special forces unit responsible for protecting Mr Museveni and his interests.

In recent months, General Kainerugaba has sought to burnish his image and consolidate his support across the country. He has met with politicians and attended rallies, actions that critics say violate rules banning active-duty army officers in Uganda from participating in politics.

For months he has refrained from sharing provocative tweets, which has sometimes happened in the past made his father angry. He has also assumed the chairmanship of the Patriotic League of Uganda, a non-partisan group he says aims to promote national pride.

On Friday, some Ugandan observers said the appointment of General Kainerugaba allowed Mr Museveni not only to keep a close eye on the military but also to keep everyone in the dark as succession politics unfolded and elections approached.

“It appears that the son is being strategically positioned so that he can manage the family estate in case the father were to die,” Michael Mutyaba, a Ugandan researcher and political analyst, said in a telephone interview.

The president, Mr. Mutyaba added, “likes to remain unpredictable, and that is one of the ways he retains power.”

Senator Mitch McConnell’s decision to relinquish leadership at the end of the year has thrown Senate Republicans into a drawn-out, potentially disruptive nine-month battle to succeed him in the midst of a presidential race and campaign for control over the House.

A battle that had been simmering in the background was suddenly brought to the fore this week by Mr. McConnell’s earlier-than-expected announcement that he would not seek to remain his party’s leader. The contenders immediately began courting their colleagues for the chance to become their party’s first new face in the Senate in nearly two decades.

“It’s a tall order,” said Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican, of the months remaining until the party’s first seriously contested leadership race since Mr. McConnell took power in 2007. “But it is what it is. is. So you just have to adapt.”

Congressional leadership contests are the most inside games on Capitol Hill, with secret ballot outcomes determined by personal relationships, grudges and who lawmakers see as the best option for their own ambitions, as well as serious policy positions or the state of the institution. The true electorate is not even known yet, as those voting for next year’s leader will include anyone who wins a seat in November – and exclude anyone who loses.

That reality was underscored Friday morning when Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the former No. 2 Republican, enthusiastically endorsed Kari Lake, the Republican front-runner in Arizona’s Senate race. Mr. Cornyn, the only one so far to officially announce his candidacy, has tried to get off to a fast start in his bid to replace Mr. McConnell, with an all-out push on his 48 colleagues in the Senate and beyond.

“I called them all,” Mr. Cornyn said in an interview. “I called them all and spoke to some of them personally. Most of them say, ‘You know, we’d like to have a more detailed conversation.’”

While Mr. Cornyn hinted that he had already made commitments, most Senate Republicans will forego any commitments, hoping to make the most of their leadership vote and pressure the contenders by pitting them against each other. There is still a long way to go.

And the shadow of former President Donald J. Trump looms over the race. The decision by Mr. McConnell, who does not speak to Mr. Trump, to step aside was a tacit admission that he had fallen too far out of step with the party’s MAGA base that reveres the former president to remain as leader . Mr Thune has also sharply criticized Mr Trump, as has Mr Cornyn – although both have supported him in recent weeks.

It is entirely possible that the two Johns — Mr. Thune and Mr. Cornyn — will be joined by a third, Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, the third-ranking Republican in the Senate, who has indicated a strong interest in increasing the leadership and has recently taken a stand. himself to the right of his two most likely opponents. Although he has not made his intentions known, he has given his approval and appeared in Arizona with Ms. Lake this week. He has maintained strong ties with Mr. Trump.

Another name in circulation is that of Senator Steve Daines of Montana, the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, making him responsible for the party’s efforts to capture the Senate. A strong performance in November could make him a viable candidate, with a built-in base of support from those he helped secure seats and from other grateful colleagues. He is also close to Mr Trump.

The far-right Republicans in the Senate can also put forward a candidate — or at least try to use their voting bloc to win concessions from the others, as archconservatives in the House of Representatives did in the Rotunda leadership battle. Some want to see another effort from Senator Rick Scott of Florida, who easily dismissed Mr. McConnell in a 2022 leadership election.

“I ran 14 months ago because I think we need change,” Mr Scott said, although he did not run for office himself. “I think there will be a lot of people there.”

The leadership battle promises to be at least a distraction as contenders jockey for position, and could be even more so if things get tricky — though the candidates say they expect to remain civil, at least publicly.

“I don’t expect any animosity between members,” Mr. Cornyn said. “I respect my colleagues. I think John Thune will be in the running, and John is a good senator and a friend of mine.

Given the time remaining until the election, some senators have suggested it would be better if Mr. McConnell relinquished leadership more quickly and forced internal fighting sooner. But so far that seems unlikely, as he seems determined to wait until after the election.

The traditionally conservative Mr. Thune is considered a straight shooter and was seen as doing a capable job when Mr. McConnell was ousted last year after a fall. Mr. Cornyn, the former head of the Senate campaign organization, is known for his fundraising prowess. Allies say he has already raised $13 million for Republican candidates this election cycle.

All the contenders and their colleagues say they are interested in finding ways to respond to widespread disquiet about the way the Senate works — or doesn’t work — and to better empower individual senators, after years of much of the decision-making being concentrated in the Senate leadership suite. Mr. McConnell, where he reigned supreme.

“It’s a lot of listening,” Mr. Thune said of his meetings with colleagues. “It’s clearly a new era and a reset. People have a lot of ideas about how we can make the workplace better and how we can improve the work we do here.”

“A lot of the anger and frustration you hear from senators is because they are essentially being treated like potted plants,” Mr. Cornyn said. “They are not allowed to participate in committee increases or in an open amendment process on the floor. And I would like to change that.”

Whoever emerges from the leadership battle faces an uphill task in what will almost certainly remain a Senate closely divided between Democrats and Republicans, with a widening divide between those on the far right of the Republican party and those that remain to the right of center.

“I admire people who want to do it because it takes time away from your family and it’s hard,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who said he had no interest in leadership. “I’d rather fight a polar bear with a knife.”

It was the biggest event of Mazi Pilip's campaign in a must-win special House election in New York. The No. 3 Republican of the House of Representatives had flown in. A half-dozen congressmen led a crowd chanting “Mazi!” Mazi!”

There was only one thing missing from the Republican show of force in a Veterans of Foreign Wars hall recently: the candidate who observed Shabbat at home.

In any other race, her absence would have been a dealbreaker. But on Long Island, the event vividly illustrated an open secret that animated Tuesday's contest to replace former Rep. George Santos. Ms. Pilip's name may be on the ballot, but the campaign belongs to Nassau County's Republican machine.

After decades of election losses and corruption scandals, the organization has resurrected in the New York City suburbs, reviving a political tradition that has largely become an anachronism elsewhere in the country.

In the past three years alone, Republicans have captured every major office in the county, filling high-profile posts and hundreds of patronage jobs with party regulars often forced to give back during campaign season.

Joseph G. Cairo Jr., the group's silver-haired chairman and de facto boss, has handpicked Ms. Pilip, 44, a part-time district lawmaker, and now serves as her chief strategist, fundraiser and surrogate. He has sent loyal lieutenants to be its spokespeople and campaign managers. And in previously unreported conversations, he persuaded party leaders in Washington to spend more on advertising.

You only have to drive the streets of Levittown or Glen Cove on Long Island to understand the company's reach. On any given Saturday, some of the 2,000 local Republican committee members — many of whom are taking time off from government jobs — have split up to withdraw the vote door by door.

In contrast, Ms. Pilip's election records show that there is not a single person on her campaign payroll, an extremely unusual arrangement.

“Hakeem Jeffries wants to be the speaker. He has put $8 million into this race,” Mr. Cairo told volunteers at another recent campaign kickoff. “How are you going to compete with that? The answer is here, all of you.”

It is the kind of organized power that has made the group perhaps the most powerful remaining political machine in the country, one that could make it possible for Ms. Pilip to upset Tom Suozzi. The former three-term Democratic congressman enjoys a partisan enrollment advantage, a major fundraising advantage and decades of political experience.

At a time when Republicans have been fighting nationally in the suburbs, Mr. Cairo's party now controls all three of Nassau County's powerful cities, the office of the provincial executive and, until Mr. Santos' expulsion, the four seats in the House of Representatives in the region – equal to the narrow number of seats held by the Republicans. majority in Washington.

“I don't think there has ever been a local chairman in the country as good as him,” said Alfonse D'Amato, a former three-term senator who has known Cairo since the 1970s.

There has only been one huge blemish: Mr. Santos, the serial liar who now faces 23 criminal charges. He went through Cairo's candidate screening and won the group's enthusiastic support (it helped that Mr. Santos donated $180,000 to local Republican groups).

When The New York Times revealed that key elements of Mr. Santos's biography had been falsified, the party was humiliated. It turned out that Mr. Santos had submitted a written resume that was full of untruths and had lied about his criminal record. Mr. Cairo's team had taken his word for it.

Mr. Cairo immediately began laying the groundwork for an eventual campaign to replace him. He has described the current elections in terms of post-Santos redemption.

“If you make a mistake and see all the evidence, you have to admit it immediately,” he said in an interview.

Democrats are relying on their own, more widespread network of supporters to generate votes after years of staggering local losses. More than a thousand union carpenters, health care workers and hotel workers were sent across the district on the first day of early voting. Kim Devlin, a senior adviser to Mr. Suozzi, said the campaign had generated one million contacts with voters.

Democrats were pleased with the results. As a week of early voting ended on Sunday, Democratic turnout outpaced that of Republicans and independents and appeared stronger than in other recent elections.

But even Mr Suozzi has warned his supporters of the headwinds ahead.

“We have to accept the fact that the Republican machine in Nassau County is the strongest it has been since I was county executive,” he recently told volunteers in Port Washington, referring to his term from 2002 to 2009. “We have taken the wind out of their sails for a good 15 years and, guess what? They are back.”

The renaissance began around the time the 78-year-old Cairo took over in 2018 after serving as Joseph N. Mondello's No. 2 for 30 years.

For much of the 20th century, Nassau Republicans were seen as the suburban counterpart to the Daley machine in Chicago and, earlier, Tammany Hall in New York City. They dominated elections and controlled the spoils, handing out patronage jobs and lucrative government contracts.

By the turn of the millennium, the model was sputtering, burdened by corruption scandals, demographic shifts and a financial mess in the province. A backlash landed Mr. Suozzi in the county executive office.

But in recent years, Republicans in Nassau have deftly positioned themselves to capitalize on their own backlash. At a time when the national party was moving rightward, they largely eschewed divisive social issues and reoriented themselves around intense local policies that cut across party lines: property taxes, inflation and, above all, fears of a spike in crime during the pandemic.

“To be honest, middle class people are a bit fed up,” says Cairo, who describes his personal politics as “middle of the road.”

New York City, a laboratory for progressive policy, served as a convenient foil. An analysis of voting patterns shows that Republicans have succeeded partly by winning over independents, but also by simply getting more of their own votes at the ballot box than Democrats.

“We're winning in places like North Hempstead, where I don't think we've had a supervisor and a majority on the city council since I was 4 and the Mets were in the World Series,” said Rep. Anthony D'Esposito. .

As chairman, Mr. Cairo has a say in hundreds of political appointments to local government offices, known as patronage posts. According to his own estimate, about 70 percent of those appointed are active in party politics.

“They are taught that they got their jobs because they will be loyal when the organization needs them, which is election time,” said Jay Jacobs, the Nassau County Democratic chairman.

“I won't say we're not doing the same thing,” he added of Democratic administrations, “but it's not with the same hammer.”

Mr. Cairo has reaped personal benefits. In addition to his $150,000-a-year job as party chairman, he has earns another $200,000 or so as president of the Nassau County Off-Track Gambling Bureau and maintains a private legal practice.

He was stripped of his law license in the 1990s after admitting to misusing $400,000 in client funds. But even opponents say they have found no reason for any suspected inappropriate behavior since he became chairman.

Now Cairo faces perhaps the most scrutinized test of its political career.

He turned to Ms. Pilip in part because her life story seemed perfectly aligned with the political moment and despite the fact that she was a registered Democrat. Born in Ethiopia, she later served in the Israeli army and said she was motivated by Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7.

But her lack of political experience has been apparent. She just started her second term in the part-time Nassau County Legislature, where much of her work has involved nonpartisan, local issues.

The candidate has rarely appeared without an escort committee of party regulars, such as Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman or Mr. D'Esposito, who step in when potentially damaging questions about former President Donald J. Trump or thorny policy issues arise.

And until the last few days of the campaign, she had held just two news conferences and accepted just one debate with Mr. Suozzi, who was relatively ubiquitous across the district. “My opponent is unvetted and unprepared,” he said during the debate. “We've been down this road before with George Santos.”

Ms. Pilip and Republican leaders appear willing to pick up the pieces, hoping that in a remarkably close, low-turnout election, the party that does a better job of shaping its most reliable voters will be rewarded.

Mr. Cairo relies on his field operation. After the meeting at a local VFW hall, he retreated to a private room upstairs to discuss the race.

Halfway through the conversation, an assistant came over with an old-fashioned silver presence clicker. Mr. Cairo squinted and read the total.

“All locations today: 1,374,” he said, adding a forecast. Next week, he said, the number would be higher.

Nikki Haley, the last candidate standing between former President Donald J. Trump and the Republican nomination, raised $24 million in the last three months of 2023 and started this year with $14.6 million in her campaign account, a hefty sum that has all but ensured that she will have the money to continue her insurgent bid for the White House.

Last year's final fundraising figures do not reveal how much Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, has raised since finishing a distant third in the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 15 and then losing again in the New York caucuses. Eight days later primaries in Hampshire.

But documents filed Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission do indicate that her frugal presidential campaign has kept spending under control while pushing for new contributions.

“We're running a smart campaign and that means we have to spend our money wisely,” said Haley campaign spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas. “Seventy percent of Americans don't want a rematch between Biden and Trump, and we have the resources and energy to make sure that doesn't happen.”

While Ms. Haley’s campaign was careful with money, a super PAC backing her, SFA Fund Inc., spent heavily on advertising in 2023. spent almost the entire amount and ended the year with about $3.5 million in inventory.

This week, Ms. Haley, Mr. Trump's first ambassador to the United Nations, made her pitch to some of the country's wealthiest donors, seeking their support as she continues her long bid for the Republican nomination. And when the week is over, her aides say, she will sit down, as she has done throughout her run, and personally review her campaign's spending.

Until this month, her aides said, she flew almost exclusively commercially, unlike other candidates, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose campaign spent at least $2.5 million on private jets, data showed Wednesday.

This financial moderation was recorded in new federal files, coupled with steadily increasing support from donors. Her campaign itself raised $17.3 million, including transfers from other committees she controls, and spent $14.3 million in the final three months of 2023.

The numbers do not include last month, in which Trump won both Iowa and New Hampshire. But they help explain why she is the last remaining challenger.

In the first quarter of 2023, her campaign spent just 20 cents of every dollar it raised. In the second quarter, 68 cents for every dollar were spent. In the third quarter that was still 43 cents. All year long, her campaign has spent less than 60 cents for every dollar it raised — at the bottom among presidential candidates, and well below the burn rates of Mr. DeSantis and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.

Ms. Haley caught the attention of some major donors early in the cycle. Timothy C. Draper, a venture capital investor in California, gave her super PAC $2.25 million, while Jan Koum, a Ukrainian-American businessman, gave the PAC a total of $10 million as of February.

She also scored some big names toward the end of the year as she continued to gain momentum in the polls. Billionaire hedge fund managers Paul Singer and Kenneth C. Griffin gave her super PAC $5 million each in December.

In one of the nation's biggest Senate races, the leading candidate could be someone who didn't actually participate in the contest.

The battle to challenge Sen. Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana — already a heated battle with profound national implications and the acute intensity of a family tragedy — has increasingly focused on Rep. Matt Rosendale, a Republican agitator who opposes abortion and elections denies.

Both parties are using him as a pawn in their electoral chess game: establishment Republicans, who have aligned themselves with Tim Sheehy, a wealthy businessman, are trying to keep Mr. Rosendale out of the race, while Democrats appear to be helping to clear a path to make before his arrival.

Mr. Rosendale's arrival seems imminent. On Thursday, he said on a podcast that he had told Senator Steve Daines, a fellow Montanan who oversees the Republican Senate campaign arm, that he would run for Mr. Tester's seat.

Such a move would complicate the plans of Mr. Daines, who has sought to avoid divisive primaries and the elevation of polarizing far-right candidates. Such candidates, often endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump, have won Republican primaries in recent cycles but fell short in a general election decided by moderate voters.

This year, Republicans have an advantageous ticket if they want to regain control of the Senate, where the races considered most competitive are in two states — Montana and Ohio — that Trump won easily in 2016 and 2020. those seats, Mr. Tester and Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, are both popular and have experience navigating rough political terrain.

Mr. Tester has already defeated Mr. Rosendale once, in 2018. Since then, Mr. Rosendale has voted to overturn the 2020 election and last year helped cause chaos in the House of Representatives when he and a small group of Republicans worked together to overturn the election. their party's speaker, Kevin McCarthy. He has also expressed support for banning abortion without exception.

The historic difficulty of defeating an incumbent like Mr. Tester, even in a deep-red state, only adds to the urgency for Mr. Daines to avoid a contentious primary that would force Republicans to mount political attacks to target each other instead of the rival party. .

It didn't go well.

A super PAC that has backed Mr. Daines in Montana, known as More Jobs, Less Government, has been preparing for Mr. Rosendale's entry into the race by testing a series of attack ads, previously unreported, designed to to cast doubt on his conservative credentials.

According to AdImpact, a media tracking company, the group has already spent nearly $1 million on pro-Sheehy spots in Montana. In a previously unreported poll for the super PAC conducted by longtime Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio, Mr. Sheehy led Mr. Rosendale in a hypothetical primary, 48 percent to 24 percent.

In an interview on Thursday with Stephen K. Bannon's “War Room” podcast, Mr. Rosendale said that Mr. Daines had repeatedly pressured him to stay out of the race. He said that in one case, an ally of Mr. Daines — who described Mr. Rosendale as a “political soldier” — asked a Rosendale confidante, “What is it going to take to keep you out of this race?”

Mr Rosendale said he received a direct warning from Mr Daines in November 2022 to “tone it down” and stop “making trouble” in the House of Representatives.

Mr. Rosendale said that Mr. Daines told him that billionaires are “going to spend a lot of money on you,” adding: “What do you want me to tell them?”

In Mr. Rosendale's retelling of the conversation, he responded that he would win the primary, and that such donors “had better save their money for the general election.”

Asked to respond to Mr. Rosendale's accusations, Mike Berg, the communications director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said: “It is unfortunate that Congressman Rosendale is blaming others for his fundraising challenges and his difficulties in retaining staff.”

This week, the NRSC ordered six-figure television advertisements intended to promote Mr. Sheehy.

Last summer, more than three dozen Republicans in the Montana Legislature — including Jason Ellsworth, the Senate president, and Matt Regier, the speaker of the House of Representatives — signed a letter and urged Mr. Rosendale to flee.

And in November, a Republican former state representative, Roger Koopman, accused Mr. Sheehy and his allies of trying impose party unity with “a variety of harassing messages and veiled threats of retaliation.”

Montana Democrats, meanwhile, have quietly released a series of online ads that appear to promote Mr. Rosendale in the expected Republican primary by drawing attention to his conservative credentials — though the state Democratic Party disputes that the Facebook ads are intended to benefit him .

The social media spots are subtle but resemble a controversial strategy Democrats used in the 2022 cycle to help right-wing candidates they thought would be easier to defeat in a general election. Those bets worked in places like Michigan, where Democrats flipped a House seat by defeating John Gibbs, a Trump-backed candidate, and in Pennsylvania, where Doug Mastriano's marginal campaign for governor lost by double digits.

Montana Democrats have spent $2.7 million to $3.3 million promoting the spots on Facebook since last month. revelations maintained by Facebook. The ads were produced by a group, Treasure State Truths, with ties to a Democratic consulting firm.

Some Democratic Facebook ads target Mr. Rosendale, while others target Mr. Sheehy.

The Sheehy-specific ads cast direct judgment on the candidate or urge viewers to take action against him. “We just can't trust what Tim Sheehy says,” several spots say. “Tell Tim Sheehy and out-of-state millionaires to stop hurting Montana,” says another.

But the ads aimed at Mr. Rosendale are more hands-off.

For example, one spot reinforces its support for banning abortion without exception by referencing an opinion column praising the Montana Republican for his support.

The only line of text in the ad quotes from the column, which states that Mr. Rosendale “has always been an outspoken and unapologetic supporter” of abortion restrictions.

All spots are marked with a disclosure identifying the Montana Democratic Party as the sponsor. Democrats said the Facebook ads were consistent with the message the party has used against both Republicans.

On television, a super PAC that appears to be tied to Democrats has spent more than $5 million running ads attacking Mr. Sheehy. The group, known as Last Best Place, has not disclosed its donors. Politics September reported that the group's airtime had been purchased by a company called Mountain Media Agency, which shares an address with Old Town Media, a Democratic campaign firm.

“The Democrats are clearly repeating their cynical strategy to interfere in Republican primaries,” Berg said.

Hannah Rehm, a spokeswoman for the Montana Democratic Party, said the Facebook spots were not intended to promote Mr. Rosendale. Republicans, she said, overreacted to the ads because of the battle between Sheehy allies and Rosendale supporters.

“It could be that the call is coming from within,” she said.

He hoped to succeed Indonesia’s old dictator. He ordered the kidnappings of pro-democracy activists. He was accused of atrocities during the brutal military occupation of East Timor. He has said elections are against his country’s culture.

Still, Prabowo Subianto has tried his hand at democratic politics over the past two decades, adopting different personas in multiple attempts to become Indonesia’s leader.

Now, a month before the next elections, almost every opinion poll shows that 72-year-old Prabowo is in the lead in the first round of voting. His rise, with the help of a running mate who is the son of popular outgoing President Joko Widodo, has alarmed millions of Indonesians who still remember the brutal and kleptocratic rule of Suharto, Mr Prabowo’s former boss and father-in-law. .

A victory for Mr. Prabowo, his critics warn, would revive a dark past.

“What will happen is the death of democracy,” said Hendardi, director of the Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace. Like many Indonesians, he goes by one name. “We have been against Prabowo for a long time,” he added, “and with our limited power we were still able to prevent him from moving forward. But now he has received this support.”

During the campaign, Mr Prabowo, the current defense minister, dismissed concerns about his record.

But he has continued to demonstrate his strongman bona fides. During a presidential debate this month, Mr Prabowo spoke of the need to develop a strong military. Without that army, he said a nation “will be crushed,” just as it was in Gaza today.

He is in a three-way race with Anies Baswedan, the former governor of Jakarta, and Ganjar Pranowo, who governed Central Java.

To win outright on February 14, Mr Prabowo would need to win at least 51 percent of the vote. Surveys show him well ahead of his rivals, but his support stands at around 46 percent, implying he will likely be forced into a runoff in June and likely face tougher competition.

For years, a Prabowo presidency was considered an unlikely possibility in Indonesia, one of Southeast Asia’s most vibrant democracies.

For many Indonesians, Mr. Prabowo is a symbol of Suharto’s 32-year rule. After Suharto’s ouster in 1998, he was dismissed from the Indonesian army after the armed forces discovered his involvement in the kidnapping and torture of pro-democracy activists. More than a dozen are still missing and feared dead.

Ucok Munandar Siahaan was a 21-year-old student when he disappeared on May 15, 1998. His father, Paian Siahaan, 76, later discovered he had helped detained anti-government activists. He has been pressing authorities for answers for decades.

Every night, Mr. Paian said he prayed the same prayer: “God, please save him.” In recent months he has added another: that Mr Prabowo would not become president.

“I don’t think he will be elected because of our prayers, the prayers of the oppressed people,” he said.

Mr Prabowo’s human rights record – which includes allegations that his feared Kopassus special forces massacred hundreds of people during the crackdown in East Timor – led the United States to ban him from to deny land.

He has never been charged in a criminal court.

In 2014, he presented himself as a military strongman, delivering nationalist speeches but losing to Mr Joko. Five years later, Mr. Prabowo portrayed himself as a devout Muslim and leaned on communal dog whistles, accusing Mr. Joko of secretly being a “Chinese Christian.” He failed again, but claimed he was a victim of election fraud and called on hardline Islamists to protest the results of violent street demonstrations. (Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world.)

In this campaign, Mr. Prabowo tried to shake his reputation for a short temper by portraying himself as a gemoy, or cute, grandfather who dances at gatherings. And he has implicitly won Mr Joko’s support by naming his 36-year-old son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, as his running mate. Billboards across Indonesia feature cartoons of the chubby, doe-eyed Mr. Prabowo and Mr. Gibran.

Mr. Prabowo was not available for comment, said Budiman Sudjatmiko, the vice chairman of the advisory board of the Prabowo-Gibran campaign team, who was once a fierce critic of Mr. Prabowo. The presidential candidate, he said, had “learned a lot” from the encirclement by Mr Joko and his supporters.

“He is no longer in military service, so he should play a role as a civilian politician – reachable, approachable and friendlier,” said Mr Budiman, who was a political prisoner under Suharto’s regime.

This makeover has taken hold among Indonesian youth, the country’s largest voting bloc. People under the age of thirty did not grow up under Suharto, and many know little about the horrors of his regime because they are not included in the country’s textbooks.

For Defi Afra, a 21-year-old first-time voter who has seen videos of Mr. Prabowo on TikTok: “He is a funny, humorous figure. He also seems nice and friendly.”

Ms. Defi, a student in the city of Yogyakarta, said she only recently learned of Mr. Prabowo’s past on social media. But she shrugged her shoulders and said, “He couldn’t refuse the orders of his superiors.”

The rebuilding of Mr. Prabowo’s image began years ago, when Mr. Joko appointed him defense minister. He emerged as a moderate politician loyal to Mr Joko, who was known for his down-to-earth style and ability to work with politicians from different parties. The appointment also allowed Mr. Prabowo to re-enter the United States.

But Mr. Prabowo’s tenure in that position was marred by setbacks, including a failed attempt to buy second-hand fighter jets and a failed food security program.

Mr Joko initially appeared to support his party’s candidate, Mr Ganjar, the former Central Java official. In October, Mr. Gibran joined Mr. Prabowo’s ticket. The alliance, critics say, is an attempt by Mr. Joko to increase his influence over Indonesian politics by grooming his son for the presidency. For now it has the popularity of Mr. Prabowo enlarged even further.

“It’s very depressing,” said Goenawan Mohamad, the founder of Tempo, a leading investigative magazine.

Mr Prabowo, according to Mr Budiman, wants an Indonesia that is “more just and fairer socio-economically”, pointing to his proposal for free milk in schools and his plan to transform Indonesia, whose economy is driven by raw materials, into a “digital country”. nation.”

Mr. Prabowo was born into one of Indonesia’s most prominent political families. His father, Sumitro Djojohadikusumo, fled Indonesia in the 1950s after being accused of supporting an uprising against the government. Mr. Prabowo spent his early years in England and Switzerland and later attended the Indonesian Military Academy. In the 1980s he married a daughter of Suharto, although they separated about fifteen years later.

According to local news media reports, he is said to have amassed a fortune of approximately $130 million. His brother Hashim Djojohadikusumo, himself a tycoon, helped found the Gerindra party in the late 2000s, which has become the vehicle for Mr. Prabowo’s political ambitions.

In June, he explained why he was once again vying for the presidency.

“I feel like God has given me many blessings, advantages and benefits,” he told a television host. “I have been given the opportunity to understand the problem of this nation.”

But many villagers across Indonesia have a different opinion. In 2020, Mr Joko put Mr Prabowo in charge of a program aimed at curbing the country’s dependence on food imports.

In Desa Talekung Punei village, the government said it wanted to free up about 20,000 hectares of forest land to grow rice. No feasibility studies were done to see if the land was suitable for growing rice, said Ihwan, a resident and activist for a nonprofit organization.

Residents opposed the plan, saying they depended on the forest for their livelihood. Still, the Ministry of Defense sent teams to clear areas of land. When the seeds arrived, they were expired and full of bugs, Ihwan said. The country is now deserted.

Rin Hindryati And Hasya Nindita reporting contributed.

Sunland Park, along the Rio Grande, has joined the ranks of American cities transformed by state cannabis laws. But the good times may not last forever.

WHY WE ARE HERE

We explore how America defines itself one place at a time. A bedroom community in New Mexico has become a marijuana boomtown thanks to cannabis buyers from Texas.

January 7, 2024

In a desert valley along New Mexico’s Rio Grande, the town of Sunland Park has generally offered few amenities for its roughly 17,000 residents. Not a big supermarket. Few shops. Little on offer for those not interested in the circuit casino or a hike to the giant Cristo Del Rey cross that looms from a nearby mountaintop.

But for Texans living in El Paso, just across the state line, Sunland Park has become a regular destination of late. The reason: marijuana.

Cars with Texas license plates regularly flock to the many cannabis dispensaries — one with a drive-through, the other with discounts on “Texas Tuesday” — that have sprung up since New Mexico began legal recreational sales in 2022.

Recreational marijuana is still illegal in Texas.

Legalization in New Mexico vaulted Sunland Park, a bedroom community with an aging industrial zone in a landscape of rocks and sand, almost overnight into the top ranks of the nation’s marijuana boom towns, of which there are many originated on the borders of states with vastly different laws. Some locals call it the Dubai of marijuana, the mayor said, because of all the new investment; others describe it as Little Amsterdam.

“It was an explosion,” said Teresa Rios, 58, who has lived in Sunland Park for 20 years and lamented the rapid transformation, including the closure of a place where she used to get her nails done, even as cannabis sellers proliferate. “I would like to see a nice store, a pharmacy and a gas station close to my house. Instead, all we see is cannabis.”

Pharmacies have filled empty stores, abandoned shopping centers and the husks of former warehouses and car dealerships. Signs advertise even more pharmacies “coming soon” to join the 16 already operating there, according to state data. Green balloon figures offering ‘Marijuana’ in large letters dive and dance along the side of the road.

In all of New Mexico, only Albuquerque, a city several times larger, sells more recreational marijuana than Sunland Park, which had nearly $4 million in sales in November alone. But Sunland Park has Texas — and specifically El Paso, a city of nearly 700,000 just across the state line.

“El Paso is bigger than Albuquerque,” ​​said Miguel Martinez, explaining why he and his partners decided to locate their pharmacy, Besos, in Sunland Park and advertise it on a billboard near an El Paso shopping center.

“Of course there’s the problem for Texans: People come in all the time and ask, ‘Is this legal in Texas?’ Absolutely not,” said Mr. Martinez, standing near a display of green cannabis arranged in clear plastic cubes, near screens offering discounts to Texans. Of course, he added, “I can’t control what anyone does outside the store.”

As a city on the border with Mexico, Sunland Park is the kind of place where the policies of far-flung lawmakers are clearly visible — and not just on marijuana.

Recently, Governor Greg Abbott of Texas had his state’s National Guard troops deploy concertina wire along the international border with Mexico in an effort to stop migrants trying to cross illegally; then he extended it to the state line between Texas and New Mexicowhose governor, a Democrat, has expressed concern about both the high number of crossings and sought to protect the rights of migrant children.

The state line also represents a major divide on abortion. Most abortions are illegal in Texas, but billboards in El Paso advertise abortion services available at clinics in Sunland Park and nearby Las Cruces. Adrienne Mansanares, CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, said the disparity became clear to her during a recent visit to the organization’s clinic in Las Cruces. “The waiting room was full of people from Texas,” she said.

Law enforcement in Texas cannot stop women from having abortions in New Mexico. They also haven’t made much of an effort to stem the flow of marijuana coming the other way from Sunland Park, even as an increasing number of young people bringing vape cartridges to El Paso schools has become a concern.

“If we get you, we get you,” said Ryan Urrutia, the patrol commander for the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office.

Nicolás Hernández, 43, an El Paso resident who recently helped a friend renovate a property in Sunland Park, said concerns about how Texas police would respond to any Texans bringing marijuana home from New Mexico , had disappeared. “All my friends who have done it were super paranoid the first time,” he said. “And the second or third time they don’t even think about it anymore.”

Similarly-located cities have seen their marijuana economies flourish, including places like Ontario, Oregon., along the state line with Idaho. On the other hand, New Mexico’s legalization puts a damper on the cannabis business in places like Trinidad, Colorado, which previously attracted cross-border customers from New Mexico and Oklahoma.

Boomtown opportunities are narrowing: With Ohio voting last November to implement a program for legal recreational marijuana sales, the majority of Americans will soon live in states where cannabis can be legally purchased.

“These are temporary circumstances,” said Aaron Smith, CEO of the National Cannabis Industry Association.

But with Texas showing no signs of legalization, new dispensaries continue to open in Sunland Park.

At one point, workers were putting the finishing touches on what would become the city’s first legal consumption site — similar to what’s commonly found in real-life Amsterdam, the Netherlands — so Texans could stay and smoke. As it stands, consuming marijuana in public or in cars is illegal in New Mexico.

For now, Texans mostly just turn around and go home. “The recreational-tourism part of it hasn’t really been successful at all,” says Robert Ardovino, the owner of a local restaurant, which also vintage Spartan trailers from the 1950s for overnight stays near the mountains, under the desert stars. He, too, was considering opening a pharmacy and perhaps one day a consumption center.

At the very least, the new boom has generated additional tax revenue – about $1.3 million this fiscal year; The city’s entire budget is approximately $12 million and flows to the city government.

On a recent drive through Sunland Park, Mario Juarez-Infante, the city manager, passed a spot where rocks and dirt had piled up along the road. “We’re redesigning that park; it’s been vacant for 20 years,” he said. He pointed to another spot nearby and said, “City Hall is going there.”

But officials said other factors also played a role in the city’s growth, including a new rail yard north of the city and El Paso’s westward sprawl.

“Cannabis is just a small part of a much bigger vision for us,” said Mayor Javier Perea, a Sunland Park native who still lives in his childhood home.

The city has long been home to an aspect of the drug trade that preceded the legalization of marijuana, officials said: the smuggling of illegal drugs, as well as migrants. Much of that took place in the Anapra neighborhood, a cramped, low-lying area along the Rio Grande with a history of flooding and crime.

“It was bad,” said Blasa Zapata, 36, who grew up in Anapra and is a manager at the Sunland Park branch of Ultra Health, a major chain of marijuana dispensaries. Many of the people she knew growing up had tough lives, she said. “Half of them are dead and half are in jail,” she said.

“We went from smoking and buying Mexican weed to working in a dispensary,” said Jesus Muñoz, a colleague at the dispensary. “I never thought I would be here.”

Now there are signs of development even around the Anapra neighborhood, as investors from El Paso move in. The construction project that Mr. Hernández worked on involved helping his friend Michael Birkelbach transform a dilapidated one-story house into a small distillery for sotol, an alcohol similar to tequila and extracted from a desert plant. “Everyone says, ‘Is it a pharmacy?’” Mr. Birkelbach said. “And I’m like, ‘No, a distillery.'”

But he said he found himself just across the border in Sunland Park for much the same reason marijuana businesses had set up shop there. He said the rules surrounding distributing locally made spirits were more favorable in New Mexico.

And he could still see Texas, just down the street.