World

LISBON — Portugal voted on Sunday in a close-fought election, with no party expected to win a majority in parliament in a fragmented political landscape that could see the far-right make huge gains.

Socialist Prime Minister Antonio Costa is fighting for his political life after a late surge by the centre-right opposition PSD Party clawed away his side’s once comfortable poll lead.

The two parties are in a statistical tie according to final surveys.

The prospect of another weak minority government comes as Portugal is trying to boost its tourism-dependent economy which has been badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic.

A stable government is needed for Portugal to make the most of a 16.6 billion-euro ($18.7 billion) package of EU recovery funds it is due to receive by 2026.

“Portugal needs stability after these two difficult years of fighting against the pandemic,” Costa, in office since 2015, told a final rally in second-city Porto on Friday.

Sunday’s snap polls were called after two far-left parties that had propped up Costa’s minority government sided with right-wing parties to reject his 2022 draft budget in October.

PSD gains 

While the survival of the Socialists’ government is at stake, the party is faring better than its peers in many other European nations such as Greece and France where they have been virtually wiped off the map in recent years.

If the Socialists again garner the most votes but fall short of a majority, Costa has said he plans to govern alone by negotiating support from other parties for laws on a case-by-case basis.

Such a government would have “little chance” of lasting until the end of its term in 2026, said Lisbon University politics professor Antonio Costa Pinto.

Under Costa’s watch Portugal, a nation of around 10 million people, has rolled back austerity measures, maintained fiscal discipline and slashed unemployment to pre-pandemic levels.

But PSD leader Rui Rio, 64, says the economy should expand faster. His party proposes corporate tax cuts to spur growth.

Rio has managed to unify the often fractious party since he defeated a leadership challenge last year and his strategy of moving the PSD to the centre appears to be bearing fruit.

Under Rio the PSD defied the odds and booted the Socialists out of office in a regional election in the Azores islands in 2020 and the Lisbon mayor’s office last September.

He is open to forming a coalition with the conservative CDS and the upstart libertarian Liberal Initiative Party.

But such a coalition would need the support of far-right party Chega, which polls suggest could emerge as the third-biggest party in parliament, mirroring recent gains for such formations across Europe.

Far-right ‘hostage’ 

Chega, which translates as “Enough”, entered parliament for the first time with a single seat during the last election in 2019.

Costa has warned that a PSD-led government would be a “hostage” to Chega, whose proposals include castrating sex offenders.

Rio accuses Costa of fear-mongering.

He has vowed not to include Chega in a government but has indicated he is willing to head a minority government propped up by support in parliament from the far right.

Turnout in the election stood at 23.3 per cent at noon (12:00 GMT), according to the interior ministry, compared to 18.8 per cent during the last election in 2019.

The election is taking place amid a surge in new COVID-19 cases and many voters said they came as soon as ballot stations opened to avoid crowds.

“It is a question of security. There are less people,” said Duarte Raposo, a 33-year-old office worker who was one of the first to vote at a school in Almada, a city just south of Lisbon.

“It is a duty we should all fulfil,” he added.

The authorities are allowing people who are quarantining because of the virus to leave home to cast their ballot, with a recommendation they vote in the slower final hour.

WASHINGTON — Former US President Donald Trump has suggested he would pardon some of those charged for their part in the assault on the US Capitol last year if he were reelected in the 2024 presidential vote.

“If I run and if I win we will treat those people from January 6th fairly. We will treat them fairly. And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons because they are being treated so unfairly,” Trump said at a rally on Saturday night in Conroe, Texas.

Hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the US legislature in Washington on January 6 last year in an effort to block certification of President Joe Biden’s November 2020 election victory.

More than 700 people have been arrested as part of the investigation into the riot that left five people dead and the country reeling. That list grows by the day as the sprawling investigation churns on.

Most of the accused are not charged with violence or vandalism but merely with having illegally entered the building and generally face misdemeanour charges.

However, some longer sentences have been handed down and more of the approximately 225 individuals accused of acts of violence could face serious repercussions in court.

Trump has repeatedly spoken out against the prosecution of those who took part in the riot, but had yet to put pardons on the table before his Saturday rally.

The former president has been accused of stoking the Capitol violence with a fiery speech claiming election fraud, assertions that have never been substantiated by the states in question, the Justice Department or US courts.

A House of Representatives select committee is also in the midst of investigating how the attack took place and whether Trump and members of his circle had a part in encouraging it.

Trump hit out at the committee on Saturday, calling its work a “disgrace”.

WASHINGTON — US President Joe Biden is maintaining pressure on Russian leader Vladimir Putin over Ukraine after announcing a small troop deployment to eastern Europe even as top Pentagon officials backed a renewed push for diplomacy.

As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged Western leaders to avoid stirring "panic" over the massive Russian troop buildup on his country's borders, Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron agreed on the need for de-escalation.

Neither Putin nor his European and American counterparts had until now appeared ready to give ground in the weeks-long crisis, the worst in decades between Russia and the West.

But according to a Macron aide, Putin told the French leader in a call lasting more than an hour that he had "no offensive plans."

In Washington, Biden nevertheless said Friday he would soon send a small number of US troops to bolster the NATO presence in eastern Europe as tensions remain heightened.

The United States already has tens of thousands of troops stationed across mostly Western Europe.

At the Pentagon, top officials urged a focus on diplomacy while saying that Russia now had enough troops and equipment in place to threaten the whole of Ukraine.

Any such conflict, warned the top US general, Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, would be “horrific” for both sides.

“If that was unleashed on Ukraine, it would be significant, very significant, and it would result in a significant amount of casualties,” Milley said.

But speaking alongside Milley, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said there “is still time and space for diplomacy”.

“Mr Putin can do the right thing as well,” said Austin. “There is no reason that this situation has to devolve into conflict.”

During his talks with Macron, Putin “expressed no offensive plans and said he wanted to continue the talks with France and our allies”, the aide to the French president said. 

Their conversation “enabled us to agree on the need for a de-escalation”, the aide told journalists. Putin “said very clearly that he did not want confrontation”. 

Complex threat 

Since October, Russia has amassed more than 100,000 combat troops and equipment, as well as support forces, along its frontier with Ukraine and more recently in Belarus, which borders Ukraine on the north.

Western officials say Russia has also mustered more air and sea assets in the region, creating a complex threat like none seen since the Cold War.

Moscow has demanded wide-ranging security guarantees, including that Ukraine never be allowed to join NATO.

Those demands have been the subject of intensive negotiations, with the West warning of far-reaching consequences if diplomacy fails and Russia attacks.

“We don’t need this panic,” Zelensky told a news conference with foreign media, expressing concern over “signals even from respected leaders”. 

He said he sought to avoid hurting his country’s already battered economy. 

Later this week, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to speak with Putin and add to the chorus of Western leaders urging him to back down. 

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki is due in Kyiv on Tuesday to meet the president and prime minister. 

“Poland supports Ukraine in preventing Russia’s aggression,” Polish government spokesman Piotr Muller tweeted. “We will do everything possible to maintain peace in Europe.”

Russia’s concerns not addressed 

To Macron, Putin made clear that the written responses from the West to his demands this week had fallen short of Russia’s expectations, the Kremlin said.

“The US and NATO responses did not take into account Russia’s fundamental concerns including preventing NATO’s expansion,” Putin said, according to the Kremlin’s readout of the call.

He added that the West had ignored the “key question”, that no country should strengthen its security at the expense of others, adding Russia would “carefully study” the responses, “after which it will decide on further actions”.

Russia has also demanded a pullback of NATO forces deployed to eastern European and ex-Soviet countries that joined the alliance after the Cold War.

In a sign of continued tensions, Russia announced Friday evening it had added several EU officials to a list of people banned from entering the country, saying they were responsible for “anti-Russian policies”.

The Putin-Macron phone call followed talks in Paris this week between Russia and Ukraine, with France and Germany alongside, which produced a joint statement committing to preserving a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine between government forces and pro-Moscow separatists.

They also agreed to hold new talks in Berlin in February. 

“Taking into account the results of the meeting” in Paris, the Kremlin said, “the mood for further work of Russia and France in this format was confirmed.”

In tandem with the diplomacy, the West has upped its threats of a tough response to an invasion.

Washington and Berlin have warned that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, designed to double supplies of Russian natural gas to Germany, was at stake.

JOHANNESBURG — The man suspected of starting a fire that gutted South Africa’s parliament this month confessed to the crime after he was arrested inside the historic building, prosecutors said in court on  Saturday.

Zandile Christmas Mafe, 49, was arrested after the fire broke out at the parliament complex in Cape Town, while firefighters were still battling the blaze on January 2.

“That was Christmas,” the prosecutors reported him as saying proudly, beating his chest as he was shown pictures of the burning parliament following his arrest.

The suspect has since pleaded not guilty to charges of terrorism, robbery and arson.

Defence lawyer Dali Mpofu has said that Mafe underwent mental health observation on January 3 and was diagnosed with “paranoid schizophrenia”.

The suspect, who is believed to be homeless, appeared in a Cape Town court on Saturday for a bail application.

The hearing was broadcast live on television.

According to an affidavit given to investigators immediately after his arrest and read out by the prosecution in court, Mafe said that it was “the right thing to put the parliament on fire as at the moment it is not helping the people of South Africa”.

He then went on the explain that he had acted to prevent President Cyril Ramaphosa from delivering a speech to the nation scheduled for February, as well as to demand his resignation, the release of the murderer of an anti-apartheid fighter, and 1,500 rand (96 US cents) in aid for all South Africans with no income.

It took scores of firefighters more than two days to extinguish the blaze, which tore through the wood-panelled legislature chamber where parliamentary debates are held.

‘Manhandled and intimidated’ 

Ramaphosa has described the arson as a “vain attempt” to threaten democracy.

Dressed in a black suit and with a defiant air, Mafe presented his face to photographers and journalists at the beginning of the hearing, as he has done at every court session he has attended.

When asked about his statement, apparently confessing to the crime, Mafe, who speaks in Tswana, one of South Africa’s official languages, said: “I am not guilty.”

He then refused to answer most questions.

“You have made it clear in an affidavit that you will plead not guilty,” said his lawyer Mpofu, a leading barrister who is defending him without payment and is best known for defending former president Jacob Zuma.

In his statement submitted to the court, Mafe claimed he had been “severely and violently manhandled and intimidated” by police.

Taken to the police station, “a white man whom I did not know told me that I would be sentenced to death for burning down parliament if I did not cooperate,” he said in the document.

Since his arrest, voices have been raised describing Mafe as a scapegoat, pointing to security lapses and failures in firefighting systems.

Some have described him as a scapegoat, pointing to security lapses and failures in firefighting systems.

However, the prosecutor’s office said it had CCTV footage showing a man, dressed like Mafe when he was arrested, setting fire to the parliament building “using paper and boxes dabbed in petrol and dropping it into the national assembly”, and of ripping up curtains to help start the blaze.

The defendant faces life imprisonment if found guilty.

TEGUCIGALPA — The crisis in Honduras’ congress — where rival factions of new President Xiomara Castro’s left-wing Libre Party have elected separate leaders — headed to the country’s supreme court on Friday, with both sides asking justices to settle the dispute.

Castro ally Luis Redondo, who belongs to Libre’s coalition partner Saviour Party of Honduras (PSH), and Jorge Calix, who represents Libre’s rebel faction and has opposition backing, each claim to be the rightful leader of congress.

The crisis, which initially saw lawmakers come to blows, erupted last week when a group of Libre dissidents ignored an agreement with the PSH, whose support was key to Castro winning the November elections and which had been promised the congress leadership post.

The Libre dissidents argued that congress should be led by the party with the most members — Libre has 50 deputies compared to just 10 for the PSH.

The ruckus was an embarrassing distraction for Castro, who was sworn in Thursday as the Central American nation’s first woman president.

Control of the legislature is key to Castro’s anti-corruption and political reform platform in a country battered by poverty, migration and drug trafficking.

Redondo was operating out of the official seat of congress, while Calix was operating virtually.

Calix has been joined by more than 70 of the body’s 128 deputies while only around 40 were in the congress building, but the Redondo faction achieved a quorum as substitute lawmakers stood in for those that were absent.

Castro offered Calix a position in her government team, but he has not so far responded.

“I believe in dialogue to find a political solution to this conflict. However, I respect the right of those who oppose us to go” to the supreme court, Calix said on Twitter Friday. “Let’s talk.”

On Thursday, both sides went separately before the supreme court’s constitutional chamber to ask for a ruling on the situation.

The lawyer representing Calix, Jose Rodriguez, has filed a writ of amparo, which can be invoked when someone believes their constitutional rights are being violated.

The attorney told AFP that if successful, his motion would strip Redondo of his functions and install Calix as the rightful leader of congress while the situation plays out.

Earlier, lawmaker Jose Lagos, leader of a minority party, went to the court to file a motion against Calix for “violating the constitutional rights of millions of Hondurans”.

Rodriguez said the court must respond within a week.

Four of the five judges in the court’s constitutional chamber were named to their posts by the previous congress, which was dominated by the right-wing National Party of former president Juan Orlando Hernandez, which is now aligned with Calix.

On Friday, the congress building was closed, with workers prevented from entering.