The New York Times - USA (2020-06-29)

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONALMONDAY, JUNE 29, 2020 N A

WARSAW — Poland’s presi-
dent, Andrzej Duda, fell short of
securing a majority of the vote
Sunday in Europe’s first socially
distanced election, exit polls
showed, forcing a runoff vote in
two weeks against the second-
place finisher, Mayor Rafal Trza-
skowski of Warsaw.
Poles turned out in droves, de-
spite several obstacles. These in-
cluded sweltering heat, lingering
concerns about the spread of the
coronavirus and long lines as
polling stations gave each voter a
zone of personal space three feet
in all directions.
Both leading candidates ac-
knowledged that they will be in a
runoff, after exit polls showed Mr.
Duda receiving about 41 percent
of the vote and Mr. Trzaskowski
about 30 percent; no official re-
sults will be released until Mon-
day.
Nine other candidates repre-
senting a wide range of views,
from the far right to the ultralib-
eral, were also on the ballot. Politi-
cal analysts and public opinion
polls predict that most of their
support will go to Mr. Trza-
skowski, making the July 12 runoff
extremely close.
Mr. Trzaskowski promises to
draw the country closer the Euro-
pean Union, protect the rights of
the L.G.B.T. community, whose
members are often targets of the
government, and veto laws that
he says pose a threat to Poland’s
democratic institutions.
“It will be the choice between an
open Poland and Poland looking
for an enemy,” he told supporters
on Sunday night. Mr. Trzaskowski
reached out not only to those who
do not like the country’s direction,
but also to those who might have
supported Law and Justice in the
past, saying his goal was to unite
the country.
Mr. Duda has attacked homo-
sexuality as an ideology compara-
ble to communism. His campaign
has been was defined by singling
out the L.G.B.T. community for
the kind of vitriol that was di-
rected at migrants five years ago,
when immigration helped fuel the
rise of populist leaders across the
continent.
“I’d like to thank all my compa-
triots for the turnout, for the high
participation in the elections,” Mr.
Duda said after the polls closed.
He said he looked forward to
meeting Mr. Trzaskowski in the
runoff and was confident in his vi-
sion for Poland.
“Family is the future, security is

the future, work is the future, in-

vestment is the future, dignity is

the future,” he said. “We don’t

have a doubt that this is what Po-

land needs in the coming years.”

In many ways, the election was

a referendum on the governing

Law and Justice Party, which

swept to power in 2015 and set out

an ambitious agenda to reshape

the state. For opponents of the na-

tionalist government, the party

represents a fundamental threat

to democracy and has set the

country on a course already

charted in Hungary, where single-

party control has allowed a steady

drift toward autocratic rule.

But even as old divisions de-

fined much of the debate before

the election, it played out against a

very different backdrop, the coro-

navirus pandemic.

Voting, originally scheduled for

May, was postponed and a raft of

measures were put in place to en-

sure voters felt safe going to the

polls.

Voters were told to bring their

own pens. Masks were required

for anyone entering a polling sta-

tion in Warsaw and other Polish

cities. And doors remained open

so people did not have to touch the

handles.

Poland was one of the first na-

tions to close its borders, and

when it locked down in March, it

did so completely. Military police

were even dispatched to the

streets to make sure people did

not break the rules.

It was also one of the first na-

tions in Europe to ease coro-

navirus restrictions; on May 20,

the mandatory order to wear

masks in public was lifted. Just

about everything that was open

before the pandemic has re-

opened, including gyms, restau-

rants and movie theaters.

With just 285 new Covid-

cases reported on Friday, the re-

opening has not led to major

spikes in new infections. So far,

there have been about 34,000 con-

firmed cases and more than 1,

total deaths — smaller figures, rel-

ative to Poland’s population, than

most European countries.

On Friday night in Warsaw’s

Old Town Square, outside the

Royal Castle that once housed Po-

land’s monarchs and was rebuilt

brick by brick after its destruction

in World War II, several hundred

people gathered to hear Mr. Trza-

skowski’s final campaign speech.

“If we lose it’s going to be dread-

ful,” said one supporter, Agata

Rzeszewska. “Democracy is go-

ing to end.”

Magda Szczawinska worried

that if the governing party lost, it

might use the pandemic to chal-

lenge the results.

“I’m very much worried,” she

said. She feared the government

would declare a state of emer-

gency and delay a runoff election

to buy time if it looked as if it

would lose.

The election is widely viewed as

one of the most important in the

history of this young democracy,

which held its first, partially free,

elections in 1989.

Mr. Duda is not technically a

member of the governing Law

and Justice party, but has the sup-

port of the party and its founder

and chairman, Jaroslaw Kaczyn-

ski.

In fact, the Polish president has

had a hard time escaping from the

shadow of Mr. Kaczynski, the

most powerful politician in Poland

and the architect of the govern-

ment’s agenda.

Mr. Kaczynski was often frus-

trated by court rulings when his

party led the country from 2005 to

2007. Since returning to power in
      2015, he has eroded the independ-
      ence of the judiciary, moving to
      undo what he sees as the mistakes
      of the early years of Polish democ-
      racy.
      Legal experts from the Euro-
      pean Commission have found that
      many changes Mr. Kaczynski has
      advocated pose a threat to judicial
      fairness and undermine demo-
      cratic values.
      The fight over the courts is just
      one of several pitched battles with
      the European Union. Mr. Kaczyn-
      ski has often cast those battles as
      fights for Polish sovereignty.
      “Poland is and should remain
      an island of freedom,” Mr. Kaczyn-
      ski said at a meeting of the party’s
      youth convention on Wednesday,
      the same day Mr. Duda was vis-
      iting President Trump in Wash-
      ington.
      Polish voters overwhelmingly
      like being in the E.U., however,
      and Mr. Trzaskowski has made re-
      pairing that relationship a key
      part of his platform.
      “It’s important that nobody sep-
      arates us from Europe,” he said
      during a recent campaign appear-
      ance. “We will be a tough partner,
      but a partner who doesn’t insult
      anyone; we will be a state fighting
      for our interest; a state which will
      be a constructive partner.”

Anatol Magdziarz contributed re-
porting.

Poland Likely Faces a Runoff Vote for President

By MARC SANTORA

An 11-candidate field

will narrow to 2, with

an election on July 12.

ANGLERS REST, Australia —
Coming over the rise, Philip Ma-
guire gripped the mane of his
white gelding and rose on his
heels to survey the bush land. He
had hoped to be photographed
mustering wild horses, but the an-
imals weren’t playing along.
“They were sitting up there on
that ridge,” Mr. Maguire said of
the horses, now spooked by the
human intrusion. “They’ll come
back,” he huffed. “I’ll run them
again.”
Mr. Maguire, a 60-year-old cat-
tleman, is leading a campaign to
prevent the Australian authorities
from culling the wild horses,
known as brumbies. The clash
traces some of the country’s big-
gest fault lines, including its ur-
ban-rural divide and the legacy of
colonialism.
To scientists and the politicians
who support the policy, culling is a
matter of environmental protec-
tion. The horses, an invasive
species whose populations are
booming, must be removed be-
cause they are trampling ancient
ecosystems in the Australian Alps
already hurt by climate change,
they say.
To Mr. Maguire and his follow-
ers, the fight is about a way of life
they perceive to be under threat.
They see brumbies, the descend-
ants of horses introduced by Euro-
pean settlers, as symbols of a rug-
ged individualism that they be-
lieve is being lost in modern Aus-
tralia.
“It’s a culture war,” Mr. Maguire
said last month as he searched in
vain for the horses.
A burly man, he wore a brown
waterproof coat faded by years of
wear. “This is my heritage,” he
said. “All our culture is gone, by
people saying anything that’s not
native is not good.”
He was referring to the animals,
though he may well have had peo-
ple in mind, too.
Mr. Maguire’s lobbying for the
brumbies is part of a backlash to a
growing movement in Australia to
correct historical narratives that
cast white settlers as conquering
an “empty” and untilled conti-
nent. Instead, there is now broad
acceptance of Indigenous people’s
careful guardianship of the land
for tens of thousands of years, be-
fore their territories and culture
were stolen.
These efforts have been buoyed
recently by the protests against
racism in the United States, which
have inspired activists around the

world to tear down symbols of co-

lonialism.

Still, some Australians find it

difficult “to recognize the dispos-

session and genocide of Indige-

nous Australians,” said James Pit-

tock, a professor of environmental

science at the Australian National

University in Canberra. The

brumby, he said, is a kind of “talis-

man” for those holding on to na-

tionalist visions of Australia’s his-

tory.

In Australia, rural residents,

who make up less than 30 percent

of the population, have often been

at odds with city dwellers and ur-

ban politicians, seeing them as out

of touch and incompetent in their

management of the bush. Brumby

activists have taken action by lob-

bying for political favor in some

states, where they have won pro-

tections for the horses.

In New South Wales, which is

led by the center-right Liberal

Party, former politicians with fi-

nancial interests in tourism oper-

ations that depend on the

brumbies helped drive a 2018 bill

protecting the feral horses.

The move by the state, Austral-

ia’s most populous, dismayed Aus-

tralian and international scien-

tists, who said it would set a “dis-

turbing precedent.”

In the state of Victoria, which

has a center-left Labor govern-

ment, officials say they intend to

proceed with culling hundreds of

horses after Mr. Maguire lost a le-

gal battle there. He says he will

take his fight to Australia’s high-

est court.

Still, to many Australians,

brumbies are majestic, untamed

creatures that live in children’s

books, poetry and films. But leav-

ing them to thrive in the bush, sci-

entists say, would come at the ex-

pense of creatures and plants far

more precious and rare.

“Our native animals are our

brothers and sisters,” said Rich-

ard Swain, an Indigenous alpine

guide who advises the Invasive

Species Council, a conservation

group. “It’s really, really, heart-

breaking,” he added of the dam-

age done by the horses.

In Australia’s alpine region,

thousands of the feral horses

trample fragile moss beds, dam-

age the sources of major river sys-

tems and harm the habitats of ani-

mals found nowhere else in the

world — systems that are strug-

gling to recover from last sum-

mer’s unprecedented bush fires.

Last year, a survey of the region

showed that the horse population

had more than doubled in density

in a five-year period. Claims by

brumby activists that the animals

are simply a scapegoat for dam-

age done by wild deer and pigs do

not hold up against extensive

studies of the region, the scien-

tists add.

“The evidence for this is not in

dispute,” said David M. Watson, a

professor of ecology at Charles

Sturt University, south of Sydney,

who quit his job advising the New

South Wales government on man-

aging the horses because he be-

lieved the science was being ig-

nored.

A general distrust of science,

fed by disinformation from the

conservative media, has deep-

ened rural Australia’s divide with

the country’s urban areas. Of Mr.

Maguire, Dr. Watson said: “Who

do you put up against that person

on a podium? Some crusty scien-

tist with a clipboard?”

He and other scientists ac-

knowledge that the culling is an

ugly task to save other species,

like the corroboree frog and the

broad-toothed rat — which are

found nowhere else in the world —

from extinction.

“This is not about vilifying

horses,” Dr. Watson said. But the

stakes are immensely high, he

added, when plants that have sur-

vived hundreds of millions of

years in the harshest conditions

are at risk of being wiped out in fa-

vor of the descendants of a com-

mon farm animal.

“In the blink of an eye, a couple

of cowboys come in, wave their

whips around, everyone gets all

misty-eyed, and those lineages

are relegated to the dustbin,” he

said.

Many brumby activists argue

that the animals should be cap-

tured and moved to sanctuaries

instead of being killed. In the

United States, park authorities

spend more than $50 million an-

nually to manage booming mus-

tang populations, which are pro-

tected from culling by federal law.

“We can catch them, that’s no

problem,” said Lewis Benedetti, a

horse tamer from Mount Taylor,

about 175 miles from Melbourne,

who has previously mustered the

feral horses on contract with the

state authorities and who advo-

cates finding new homes for them.

Mr. Benedetti leapt onto the

bare back of a brumby he had

tamed to show how placid the ani-

mal was. “They want to shoot

them,” he said. “Doesn’t that make

you upset?”

While it may be possible to

move the horses to sanctuaries in

small numbers, these programs

are difficult to scale up, experts

say, especially without adequate

funding, as the out-of-control

mustang numbers in the United

States show.

In late May, Mr. Benedetti and a

handful of other activists gath-

ered at Mr. Maguire’s property,

from which they made their way

on horseback toward the foothills

of the Australian Alps. They said

they planned to round up the

brumbies and take them to safety

on his land.

All around, the bush was deci-

mated: Buds sprang from tree

trunks blackened by the recent

fires, while other trees were top-

pled entirely. Nearly all that re-

mained of moss beds were muddy

puddles — the impact, scientists

say, of the recent fires, as well as

hard-hooved horses trampling a

landscape accustomed to native

soft-footed creatures like kanga-

roos.

Leading the group toward a cat-

tleman’s hut built by his great-un-

cle, Mr. Maguire began to recite

the poetry of Banjo Paterson, an

Australian author and journalist

who documented the decline of

pastoralism and, along with it, a

wild Australia.

“Australia has lost its affinity

for the bush,” Mr. Maguire said,

echoing Paterson in his own

words. “We’ve become a different

kind of people.”

Majestic Icon or Invasive Pest? A War Over Australia’s Wild Horses

By LIVIA ALBECK-RIPKA

and MATTHEW ABBOTT

Riders set out last month to find wild horses called brumbies in Alpine National Park in Australia.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY MATTHEW ABBOTT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Brumbies in the Snowy Mountains region of New South Wales

last year. Cara Maguire’s father is fighting the culling of the horses.

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