Biden’s $5 trillion tax gambit catches Congress by surprise 

BY ALEXANDER BOLTON - 03/12/23 

Greg Nash

President Biden speaks to reporters as he returns to the White House in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, March 9, 2023. Biden held an event in Philadelphia, Pa., to discuss his newly released FY 2024 budget.

President Biden went big in his $6.8 trillion annual budget proposal to Congress by calling for $5 trillion in tax increases over the next decade, more than what lawmakers expected after the president downplayed his tax agenda in earlier meetings. 

It’s a risky move for the president as he heads into a tough re-election campaign in 2024.  

Senate Democrats will have to defend 23 seats next year, including in Republican-leaning states such as Ohio, Montana and West Virginia, and Americans are concerned about inflation and the direction of the economy.

Republicans say Biden’s budget plan marks the return of tax-and-spend liberal politics; they warn higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy will hurt the economy.  

Biden, however, thinks he can win the debate by pledging that he won’t raise taxes on anyone who earns less than $400,000 a year.

Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, called Biden’s ambitious tax plan “jaw-dropping.” 

“This is exactly the wrong approach to solving our fiscal problems,” he said of the $5 trillion aggregate total of proposed tax hikes. “I think this sets a new record, by far.” 

Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, a group that advocates for lower taxes, said “in dollar terms, it’s the largest tax increase in American history.”  

A surprise and a ‘negotiating position’

Many lawmakers were expecting Biden to propose between $2 trillion and $2.5 trillion in tax increases, based on what he said in his State of the Union address on Feb. 7 and on what media outlets reported in the days before the White House unveiled its budget plan.  

The $5 trillion in new tax revenues is more than what the president called for last year, when Democrats controlled the House and Senate.   

In October of 2021, when Biden was trying to nail down a deal with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on the Build Back Better agenda, he proposed a more modest $2 trillion in tax increases. 

The headline number even surprised some Democratic policy experts, though they agree the federal government needs to collect more revenue.

“I didn’t expect to see a number that big, but I’m not alarmed by it. I think it’s a negotiating position,” said Jim Kessler, the executive vice president for policy at Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank.

Biden told lawmakers at his State of the Union address that his budget plan would lower the deficit by $2 trillion and that he would “pay for the ideas I’ve talked about tonight by making the wealthy and big corporations begin to pay their fair share.”  

The president then surprised lawmakers with a budget proposal to cut $3 trillion from deficit over the next decade and to do it almost entirely by raising tax revenues.

Biden has called for a 25 percent tax on the nation’s wealthiest 0.01 percent of families. He has proposed raising the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent and the top marginal income tax rate from 37 percent to 39.6 percent. He wants to quadruple the 1 percent tax on stock buybacks. He has proposed taxing capital gains at 39.6 percent for people with income of more than $1 million.

Kessler noted that Biden’s budget doesn’t include significant spending cuts nor does it reform Social Security, despite Biden’s pledge during the 2020 election to reduce the program’s imbalance. 

Kessler defended the president’s strategy of focusing instead on taxing wealthy individuals and corporation.

“The amount of unrealized wealth that people have at the top dwarfs anything that we’ve ever seen in the past,” he said.

He said “these are opening bids” ahead of the negotiations between Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to raise the debt limit.  

Senate Republicans are trying to chip away at Biden’s argument that his tax policy will only hit wealthy individuals and companies.

“It’s probably not good for the economy. Last time I checked, most tax increases on the business side are passed on to consumers, and I think we need to control spending more than adding $5 trillion in new taxes,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

Norquist, the conservative anti-tax activist, warned that if enacted, raising the corporate tax rate would reverberate throughout the economy.  

“The corporate income tax, 70 percent of that is paid by workers and lower wages,” he said.  

He said raising the top marginal tax rate and capital gains tax rate would hit small businesses that file under subchapter S of the tax code.

“When you raise the top individual rate, you’re raising taxes on millions of smaller businesses in the United States,” he said. “Their employees end up paying that because that’s money they don’t have in the business anymore.” 

How does Biden compare to predecessors?

Norquist noted that Obama and Clinton both cut taxes during their administrations, citing Clinton’s role in cutting the capital gains rate and Obama’s role in making many of the Bush-era tax cuts permanent. 

“Both of them ran a more moderate campaign. This guy is going Bernie Sanders,” he said of Biden, comparing him to the liberal independent senator from Vermont. 

Biden’s budget is a significant departure from the approach then-President Obama took 12 years ago, when he also faced a standoff with a GOP-controlled House over the debt.  

In his first year working with a House GOP majority, Obama in his fiscal year 2012 budget proposed cutting the deficit by $1.1 trillion, of which he said two-thirds should come from spending cuts and one-third from tax increases. 

Obama later ramped up his proposal in the fall of 2011 by floating a plan to cut the deficit by $3.6 trillion over a decade and raise taxes by $1.6 trillion during that span.  

Concerning for some Dems

Republican strategists say they’ll use Biden’s proposed tax increases as ammunition against Democratic incumbents up for re-election next year.  

National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Steve Daines (R-Mont.) said Biden’s budget provides “a contrast” ahead of the election.  

Sen. John Tester (D-Mont.), who faces a tough re-election in a state that former President Trump with 57 percent of the vote, said he’s leery about trillions of dollars in new taxes.  

Asked Wednesday if he’s worried about how Montanans might react to Biden’s proposed tax increases, Tester replied: “For sure. I got to make sure that will work. I just got to see what he’s doing.”  

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who is up for re-election in another red state, has called on his fellow Democrats to focus more on how the federal budget has swelled from $3.8 trillion in 2013 to $6.7 trillion today.  

“Can we just see if we can go back to normal? Where were we before COVID? What was our trajectory before that?” he asked in a CNN interview Thursday.  

“How did it grow so quickly? How do we have so many things that are so necessary that weren’t before?” he said of the federal budget and debt.

White House brands Freedom Caucus deficit plan as ‘tax breaks for the super wealthy’

BY JULIA SHAPERO - 03/11/23


The podium in the White House briefing room. 

(Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)

The White House branded the House Freedom Caucus’ deficit plan as “tax breaks for the super wealthy and wasteful spending for special interests,” as the two sides continued to trade jabs amid an escalating debt ceiling battle.

“MAGA House Republicans are proposing, if spread evenly across affected discretionary programs, at least a 20 [percent] across the board cut,” White House Communications Director Ben LaBolt said in an initial analysis of the proposal.

LaBolt pointed to several typically Republican issue areas that would be impacted by such cuts, including law enforcement, border security, education and manufacturing.

“The one thing MAGA Republicans do want to protect are tax cuts for the super-wealthy,” he added. “This means that their plan, with all of the sacrifices they are asking of working-class Americans, will reduce the deficit by…$0.”

The Freedom Caucus on Friday unveiled its initial spending demands for a possible debt ceiling increase, as the potential for default looms this summer. The proposal would cap discretionary spending at fiscal 2022 levels for 10 years, resulting in a $131 billion cut from current levels. Defense spending would be maintained at current levels.

LaBolt claimed that the proposal would also defund police and make the border less secure, turning around two accusations that Republicans have frequently lobbed at the Biden administration.

Such spending cuts would, according to LaBolt’s analysis, eliminate funding for 400 state, local and tribal police officers and several thousand FBI agents and personnel and “deny the men and women of Customs and Border Protection the resources they need to secure our borders.”

He also criticized the Freedom Caucus’s calls to end President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan and to rescind unspent COVID-19 and Inflation Reduction Act funds, claiming they would increase prescription drug and energy costs and ship manufacturing jobs overseas.

The analysis also accused the group of hard-line conservatives of making plans that would actually increase the federal deficit by $114 billion, and allow “the wealthy and big corporations to continue to cheat on their taxes.” Biden’s $6.8 trillion budget released on Thursday included tax hikes on the wealthy.

LaBolt’s 20 percent number represents a slight adjustment from Biden’s claim on Friday that the plan would require a 25 percent cut in discretionary spending across the board.

“If what they say they mean, they’re going to keep the tax cuts from the last president … no additional taxes on the wealthy — matter of fact reducing taxes — and in addition to that, on top of that, they’re going to say we have to cut 25 percent of every program across the broad,” Biden said during remarks on the economy. “I don’t know what there’s much to negotiate on.”

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry (R-Pa.) hit back at the president on Friday, accusing him of misrepresenting their proposal.

“For him to mention things like firefighters, police officers and health care — obviously, either he didn’t watch the press conference, he can’t read, or someone is, you know, got their hand up his back and they’re speaking for him, because those are just abject lies,” Perry told The Hill. “It’s the same old, you know, smear-and-fear campaign by the Biden administration.”

In the Extinction Capital of the World, A Native School Is Restoring Indigenous Forests


Every week for the semester, The Waipā Foundation, a living learning center and NativeNative Hawaiʻian, runs an after-school program for local kids on Kauaʻi. The program provides space for the kids to: finish their homework, grow food for their families, and other cultural activities.

 (Photo: Stacy Sproat).

BY JENNA KUNZE MARCH 11, 2023

Hawaiʻi is home to nearly half the country’s threatened or endangered species. A Native Hawaiʻian school system that provides land for more than 300 of the state’s threatened, endangered, or rare species is building back Indigenous forests, while also training the next generation of land protectors.

This story was produced as part of the Solution Journalism Network’s 2022 Climate Cohort.

ISLAND OF HAWAIʻI—Botanists Reid Loo and Nāmaka Whitehead speak about the Indigenous plants of Hawaiʻi Island as though they are speaking about relatives. As Native Hawaiʻians, they are. They remember what certain plants looked like as babies, where they’ve traveled to and from, and the folklore of those relatives they never got a chance to meet.

“We recognize a shared ancestry with our islands and all of the species, the landforms, the weather forms, and everything else that exists upon our islands,” said Whitehead, a senior natural resource manager for the Kamehameha Schools, the largest land steward in the state of Hawaiʻi. “They shaped who we are as Hawaiʻians— every single one of them— and therefore, they're all critical to our identity.”

Since British explorer James Cook landed on Kauaʻi Island in 1778, invasive species have afflicted the Hawaiʻian ecosystem—from early European settlers and American missionaries who introduced new diseases and colonial attitudes, to pigs and goats the colonizers brought with them that fed on Indigenous vegetation. In more recent times, a fast-killing fungus wiped out thousands of Hawaiʻi’s sacred ʻōhiʻa trees, and the tourism industry that took root in the 1960s has exponentially driven up the cost of property and rent, resulting in disproportionate levels of homelessness among Native Hawaiʻians.

Hawaiʻi is a hotspot for biodiversity preservation, in part because of the dangers it’s up against: More than 100 plant species have already gone extinct, and nearly a third of its roughly 1,400 plant species—the vast majority of which are found nowhere else in the world—are listed as threatened or endangered, according to the state Division of Forestry and Wildlife. While Hawaiʻi makes up barely 0.3% of the nation’s total land mass, it’s home to 44% of the country’s endangered and threatened plant species. It has been dubbed the “extinction capital of the world.”

Over the last 20 years, Kamehameha Schools—an Indigenous-led school system—has been utilizing its two largest assets to restore Hawaiʻian identity: the thousands of acres of land it owns, and its predominantly Native Hawaiʻian student body to care for and learn from the land. Through various programs and partnerships, the school has revived thought-to-be-extinct species, restored Indigenous forests across the state, and brought Native Hawaiʻians back to the lands they’ve been dispossessed of.

“We want our people to engage more with endangered species so that they can know and love them,” Whitehead told Native News Online at the school’s West Hawaiʻi office in late January. “That relationship is really critical both to our own health and identity, but also to the continued survival of the species. If we don't know them, then people won't care about them.”

Reid Loo explains the importance of aʻaliʻi, or Dodonaea viscosa growing in one of the Indigenous forests Kamehameha Schools keeps as conservation lands in January. The plant is traditionally used to make medicines, lei, and more. 

(Photo: Jenna Kunze)

The wish of a princess

Kamehameha Schools was founded in 1887 through the land endowment of former Native Hawaiʻian Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the great-granddaughter of King Kamehameha I, who united the islands into the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi in the early 1800.

In 1883, ten years before the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, the Princess, “witness[ing] the rapid decline of the Hawaiʻian population, along with the loss of Hawaiʻian language, culture, and traditions,” conveyed her estate to create a school system that prioritized Native Hawaiʻian enrollment. But those efforts were thwarted after the U.S. illegally annexed Hawaiʻi in 1900, and Kamehameha Schools was counted among seven Indian boarding schools statewide that operated with “deliberate polic[ies] to suppress ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i’’ or Native Hawaiʻian language.

Kamehameha Schools is the only institution that remains open today, with the mission to help students “deepen their connection to culture and ‘āina,” or love of the land.

In 2021, Kamehameha Schools enrolled 1,403 students—the majority of whom identify as Native Hawaiʻian—on three campuses, according to the school’s annual report.

The princess’s 375,000 acres, about 9% of the total landmass in Hawaiʻi, remain the largest private land holding in the state. Kamehameha Schools leased most of the land for ranching up through the late ’90s, botanist Whitehead told Native News Online, but over the last 20 years, the school has reoriented itself towards conservation and preservation.

That shift came from a change in Indigenous leadership after four respected elders in 1997 publicly charged those managing Kamehameha School’s estate with “gross incompetence and massive trust abuse.” Around the same time, there was a rise of community activism around “āina-based learning” (land-based learning) and changes in the Hawaiʻi ranching sector.

After a reorganization in the early 2000s, Kamehameha Schools created its cultural resource department and an ‘Āina Ulu program — an arm of the school that integrates culture and place-based education into its curriculum.

Through ‘Āina Ulu, Kamehameha Schools leases its land to about 20 Native Hawaiian organizations that each steward and conduct eco-cultural education for school children and community members. Of the school’s 190,000 conserved acres, about a quarter of it is stewarded by Native Hawaiian organizations and used for place-based learning.

“Somebody smart looked at the economics and said ‘Hey, we lease our lands to any generic Tom, Dick or Harry, as long as they pay us,’” Mahealani Matsuzaki, the Āina Ulu program’s land education administrator for the last 16 years told Native News Online. “But if we rented it to our own Native peoples, both as regular tenants, (and) as Hawaiʻian nonprofits, we would magnify our mission. The Native Hawaiʻian organizations actually bring back Hawaiʻians to a community that has been dispossessed because of the cost it takes to live or work there.”

Whitehead described the divergence in Kamehameha School’s land management as a re-alignment with Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop’s original mission to serve her people.

“It was a larger shift in thinking—or perhaps a return in thinking— about our relationship with and stewardship of ʻāina, as well as the role of ʻāina in achieving our mission,” Whitehead said.

From pasture to ‘recovering Native forest’

At the foothills of Volcanoes National Park on the eastern side of the “Big Island” of Hawaiʻi, Reid Loo stops his pickup truck short outside a chain-link fence that asks visitors “Please Close the Fence—Ungulate-Free Zone.”

We are entering Keauhou, Kaʻū Forest (Keauhou is located within the larger district of Ka‘ū, so the forest name follows the format similar to: city, state) indicates a sprawling preserve of 32,000 acres.

The entrance to Keauhou, Kaʻū Forest. 

(Photo: Jenna Kunze)

The fencing that has surrounded the property since the early 2000s has kept out ungulates—hooved mammals such as pigs, goats, and deer—who pose some of the biggest threats to biodiversity in the state. With no natural predators, ungulates run wild and have devastated the island’s natural biodiversity by overgrazing on native plants, eroding the soil, and disturbing the earth to create rooting opportunities for invasive plant species and mosquitoes, botanists say.

“The history of fencing is really important, because ungulates modify our natural environment… by opening up space, which is then colonized by invasive species,” Loo said. He starts “nerding out” on the dimensions of the fence the school has specifically contracted to taper out at the bottom, to let small animals through but not wild ungulates. “And that competes with our native flora, which then declines, because invasive species typically are faster growing. That's what slowly causes habitat to decline.”

The fences’ value is clearly illustrated: Just outside of the gate, the land is cleared and looks like a grazed pasture. Inside the fence, there is a lush canopy of 100-foot-tall trees and other plants that stretches for miles.

PICTURED: The gate separating Keauhou, Kaʻū Forest's protected forest (left) from grazed pasture. (Photo: Jenna Kunze)

But that doesn't mean that the forest is safe from all threats.

In late 2015, land stewards across Hawaiʻi Island started noticing a disturbing trend: the yellowing and rapid dieoff of ʻŌhiʻa trees, one of Hawaiʻi’s most sacred and ecologically important trees. More than 100,000 ʻŌhiʻa trees, which compose 80% of the states’ native forests— or one million acres— have died in the last several years, according to the Department of Land and Natural Resources. Rapid ʻŌhiʻa Death (ROD), a little-known fungal disease, can kill the trees within a few weeks, sometimes within a few days.

When even just one ʻŌhiʻa dies, Whitehead said, it can have cascading effects on the local ecosystem. “We have tons of birds that rely on ʻŌhiʻa for all of their needs,” she said. “There's birds that only feed on the nectar of Ōhiʻa and birds that only eat insects that live between the leaves of the Ōhiʻa, and birds that only nest in cavities of the Ōhiʻa. If the Ōhiʻa forest dies, they die, too.”

The trees also provide a canopy for the forest, she added, so their death brings light in that enables weeds to grow and overwhelm native species.
‘A bright spot of hope in the conservation community’

Whitehead has worked for Kamehameha Schools’ natural-resources team for two decades. Conservation work can be painful, she said, and sometimes feels like a losing battle.

“It hurts the core of your being when you see [invasive species like ROD], because the Ōhiʻa was already ancient when all of these things that I read about in my history happened. This tree was ancient when Kamehameha was alive, and it’s going to die.”

PICTURED: In late 2015, ʻŌhiʻa trees, one of Hawaiʻi’s most sacred and ecologically important trees, began to rapidly die off from a fungal disease. More than 100,000 of the trees have died in the last several years, according to the Department of Land and Natural Resources. (Photo J. B. Friday, University of Hawaii)

That is why a staff member’s recent discovery of a thought-to-be extinct plant species on Kamehameha School land has become a symbol of hope for Whitehead and the Native Hawaiʻian communities.

In March 2021, a land steward from the Three Mountain Alliance, a partner organization, found a pod of three Delissea argutidentata plants poking out of a crater while she was collecting seeds from a nearby restoration area.

“She knew it was special, but didn’t know what it was,” Whitehead recounted. “It's a storied plant from this particular landscape. If you are a botanist who does any work in Kona, you have heard of this plant, because it has such a unique growth form. It has a relatively small-diameter trunk, and it used to grow straight up with no leaves or branches into the very top of the plant and then there would be this big poof of leaves. They were very tall, much taller than any other plant in its family.”

The plant, which can grow up to 35 feet tall, had been thought to be extinct in the wild for years. In 1992, a single Delissea argutidentata plant was found in a forest preserve in Kona on the Hawaiʻi Island, but it died in 2002. Some seeds were collected from that individual specimen and grown in a greenhouse, and several of its outplanted seeds that were reintroduced into the wild survive today.

In partnership with the state Department of Land and Natural Resources and the Three Mountain Alliance— a nonprofit organization funded by Kamehameha Schools and operated under the Research Corporation of the University of Hawaiʻi—Whitehead and her small team planted 31 Delissea plants, using seeds from the plant found in March 2021.

Of the 16 recognized species of Delissea, 14 are extinct, and the remaining two are endangered, according to Kamehameha Schools. The botanists can find no record of a Hawaiʻian name for Delissea argutidentata, but they guess it is related to a similar genus, Hāhā, which co-evolved with native birds.

“Hāhā are used in different ways,” Whitehead said. “People would [steam and] eat the leaves, but they primarily were a food source for native birds. All of the plants in the lobelia family that we have in Hawaiʻi have flowers that have this curved shape, the same curve as the bill of native birds. And without the plant, you can't have a healthy bird population, and without those birds, you can't really have healthy populations of these native lobelia, because they are what pollinate the flowers.”

Reviving extinct or endangered species is the name of the conservation game, but it's not always successful, Whitehead said. Kamehameha School’s lands provide habitat for over 302 rare species, 55 of which are being actively stewarded through recovery actions, including producing new plants from a parent plant, and outplanting.

“This kind of success story isn't something that we see very often to this level where the outplants are doing well,” she said. “This bright spot of hope in the conservation community (shows) there are positive things happening, and we can persist and overcome.”

The message extends to all Native Hawaiʻian relatives, she said.

“It's the same thing with our people. There's so many Hawaiʻians in jail and using drugs, and there's parts of our community where there's no jobs, nobody can afford houses, everybody has to move away. There’s so many problems in our communities, but stories of hope can uplift people, and we like to think that the connections that people are able to make to the forest strengthens their identity and their pride and who they are as Native Hawaiʻians.”

A Living Classroom

On a dewy morning in January, a group of five high school students stood in a line at the entrance of the gate to Kamehameha Schools’ Keauhou, Kaʻū Forest, wind pushing their hair back. In Hawaiʻian language, they asked educators on the inside of the fence for entry through a call-and-response song.

“Protocol,” Lahela Camara calls it. She’s the environmental educator for Three Mountain Alliance. She uses the song to welcome students to the forest by allowing them to ask permission for entry.

When permission is granted, the group’s teacher steps forward and offers hugs and an Aloha to each educator inside.

“So much of our connection [to our environment] has been severed by not having it in schools, or [incorporated in] just the way we live,” Camara told Native News Online. She said that Āina-based learning, or the outdoor education programs she runs—where community members come to Keauhou, Kaʻū Forest to plant trees, learn about endangered birds and plants, and connect with their Indigenous forests— are helping to restore that link.

It’s also helping get Native people back to the places they once had access to—as Hawaiʻi's tourism boom continues to drive up the cost of living.

Kamehameha’s oldest community partner, The Waipā Foundation and its predecessor organization, has been leasing 1,600 acres of land from the school on Kauaʻi’s North shore since the late 1980s, when local Hawaiʻian families learned of a resort and golf course development plan for the land. They organized to oppose the development, and proposed a different use for the space: a living learning center.

For decades since, The Waipā Foundation has served as a classroom for the continued practice and perpetuation of Hawaiʻian values and culture. A few of its regular events to fulfill its mission of restoring a vibrant ecosystem while inspiring healthy communities include: farmer’s markets, community work days, and a weekly poi days, where community members come to make poi— a staple food in the Hawaiʻian diet made from taro plants— and distribute it at cost to families throughout the island.

Community members, including Sproat (second from the right) gather to make poi through The Waipā Foundation's weekly program. 

(Photo courtesy of Waipā).

Through school field trips and extra-curricular activities, the organization in 2022 also welcomed more than 1,350 learners of all ages to participate in hands-on, land-based learning, Waipā executive director and Kamehameha graduate Stacy Sproat told Native News Online. A little less than half self-identified as Native Hawaiʻian, though racial data wasn’t collected from every participant.

While Waipā welcomes all visitors, Sproat said they run additional programs with local kids that focus on maintaining their connection with place and culture.

Kamehameha students working in the fields on March 1, 2023.

 (Photo: Stacy Sproat)

“In Hawaiʻi, and as with most Native people, we have been losing land and access to resources for hundreds of years,” Sproat said. “The colonization continues because of the severe gentrification of the communities surrounding Waipā. The social landscape and fabric of our community has been changing, to the point where now there are very few longtime families in our community.”

Ka’ui Fu, 36, comes from one of those local multi-generational families on Kauaʻi. As a middle schooler in the late 90s, she was a participant in one of Waipā’s first afterschool programs to connect youth to their community. Now she’s been groomed by Sproat to eventually take over the organization.

“At the heart of it, āina-based education has inspired me by giving me different ways that learning in a classroom could not,” Fu said. “I grew up in a traditional Hawaiʻian family, and that’s why my parents always had an interest in me being closer to my culture.The strength of āina-based education is that you’re learning specifically from place, with people. It opened my eyes to … new avenues of learning, new career paths, and being outside of the classroom with a cohort of people that were my family and my peers.”

 

Reid Loo at Keauhou, Kaʻū Forest in January 2023. 

(Photo:Jenna Kunze).

For Loo, a graduate of Kamehameha Schools, placing Native Hawaiʻians at the helm of conservation work only makes sense.

“Up until the ’90s and even into the 2000s, the [conservation] workforce was not representative of a lot of local demographics,” he said. “Programs like this have led to an increase in Hawaiʻians in positions of management or conservation.”

Today, half of Kamehameha Schools 17-person Natural and Cultural Ecosystems team has graduated from the school. All three natural resources management staff members, plus the team’s two interns, have also been educated within the school system.

Loo, a lifelong Hawaiʻian, has a personal stake in conservation work.

“In today's context, Hawaiʻians as a people are fighting a lot of the same things as our natural Kūpuna [ancestors]: our flora and fauna,” he said. “We’re getting priced out of our own home. We are disproportionately represented in the judicial system, and have a lot of challenges with health and access to education. If we want to remain in Hawaiʻi, we need to hold space as people and as our natural environment.”

Illuminative Launches Podcast about the Crimes of Indian Boarding Schools

BY NATIVE NEWS ONLINE STAFF 

 

MARCH 09, 2023

Native-led social justice organization Illuminative is launching a new podcast examining the horrific abuse and neglect of Native American children at Red Cloud Indian School, a former boarding school on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation, home to the Oglala Sioux Tribe.

In the six-episode series titled “American Genocide,” Illuminative founder Crystal Echo Hawk (Pawnee) and Lashay Wesley (Choctaw) hit the ground on Pine Ridge in search of justice for the Native children who were abused and died at Red Cloud.

Red Cloud stopped boarding students in 1980 and today operates as a private Catholic school with more than 600 students from Pine Ridge attending. There has been no acknowledgment of the horrors committed by the institution during the Boarding School Era, a period between the late 1860s and the 1960s during which hundreds of thousands of Native American children were ripped from their homes and placed in government and church-run boarding schools the U.S. in an attempt to strip them of their Native culture and identity. 

 “We had no idea where this would end up when we first started — all we knew was that this story had to be told – and what we uncovered is far bigger than any of us could have imagined,” Echo Hawk toldVariety. “The United States government and Catholic Church blatantly committed genocide, and no one really knows about it outside of the Native community.”

“American Genocide” dives into the history of Red Cloud’s past and its perception today as a positive presence in the community. 

Episodes will give listeners an embedded perspective through interviews with school administrators, local elders and survivors, young activists, and U.S. Department of the Interior Deb Haaland while examining Red Cloud’s search for mass graves on its campus, growing tension between the school and community youth activists, and if the Catholic Church will close the school and return the land to the Oglala Sioux people. 

Listen to the trailer for ‘American Genocide’ at illuminative.org/americangenocidepodcast

Leaders of Native American Church Pressure Biden Administration for Protections of Peyote Habitat

Flowering peyote plant (Photo: Hans B | CC BY-SA 3.0)

BY DARREN THOMPSON MARCH 03, 2023

WASHINGTON—Leaders of the country’s largest intertribal religious organization met this week with federal officials and urged them to uphold Native rights to use peyote in religious ceremonies.

On Tuesday, leaders of the Native American Church of North America (NACNA) convened at the Department of the Interior to ask the federal government to uphold its legal responsibilities in enforcing the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA) of 1978. Signed into law by President Jimmy Carter, AIRFA protects the rights of Native Americans to exercise their traditional religions and ensures access to sacred sites and the use and possession of sacred objects. 

NACNA, which has more than 300,000 members, centers many of its prayer ceremonies around the legal use of peyote as a sacrament. Peyote is a Schedule I substance regulated by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and is illegal for non-Native people to possess.

The federal government is not enforcing AIRFA and its 1994 amendment, according to NACNA leaders. 

“We witness AIRFA being violated every day by clinical and pharmaceutical interests,” Jon “Poncho” Brady told Native News Online. “We are working to keep our holy medicine sacred and want it protected in its natural habitat.”

NACNA leaders are urging the Interior, Agriculture and Justice departments to take leadership in protecting the continued use of peyote for enrolled citizens of federally recognized tribes. The group wants the U.S. government to enforce laws that prohibit non-Natives from using the drug, but is also asking for federal funding for conservation of peyote and the creation of protected habitats where it can be grown.

Peyote is used recreationally by some non-Natives, and there have been efforts to decriminalize its use, which NACNA leaders say violate Native cultural and ceremonial traditions. Recreational use and promotion of peyote as a medicine could lead to over-harvesting of the plants, Native leaders said.

“This medicine is sacred to us, and people who are not permitted to share its abilities with others outside of our ceremonies are harming our sacred ceremonies,” Brady said. “Our way of life is not for sale."

AIRFA is the only federal legislative statute that protects a specific religion in the United State — that of American Indians, Alaskan Natives, and Native Hawaiians. AIRFA was amended in 1994 after the Supreme Court ruled in Oregon Employment Division v. Smith that the use of peyote was prohibited by anyone — Native or non-Native — by the state of Oregon in 1990. AIRFA’s 1994 amendment allowed the possession, transportation, and ingestion of peyote in a bona-fide ceremony for enrolled citizens of federally recognized tribes.

Rising interest in psychedelic drugs, including peyote, is growing among recreational drug users and wellness providers, who promote the plant’s medicinal properties. That is causing over-harvesting of the plants and because its environment is not protected, the slow-growing cacti may need further protections, such as congressional legislation, in the future, Native leaders say.

Because peyote only grows on private lands in southern Texas—Hogg, Starr, Webb, and Zapata Counties—leaders are worried that the plant’s environment will continue to diminish and it will be too late. An existing USDA soil conservation program in the region has also contributed to the diminishing habitat of peyote, according to NACNA leaders. Because the peyote cacti grows close to the ground, its habitat is being diminished to make way for other crops in the region.

According to carbon dating, peyote is more than 10,000 years old. The plant is a slow-growing cacti that takes 8-10 years to mature, and its habitat is known by many as the Peyote Gardens.

NACNA is requesting $5 million in federal funding for a new program to be established either by the USDA’s existing Conservation Reserve Program or as a stand-alone grant program to be administered by DOI’s Office of the Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs.

The project would compensate private land owners for agreeing to convert their lands into a protected peyote habitat and would fund activities that focus on the conservation and managed harvest of peyote.

Ideally, the program would be guided by a federal steering committee that would have representation by federally recognized tribes, tribal religious leaders and organizations such as NACNA, and representatives from state and federal agencies with jurisdiction over peyote. The committee’s scope would be to work collaboratively to create and implement a conservation plan for peyote that manages healthy cultivation and harvesting of peyote.

The federal government has passed legislation that supports numerous successful conservation grant programs to protect and restore wetlands, forests, marine habitats, and endangered species habitat. 

“The entire Biden Administration needs to review and assess its full implementation of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act,” NACNA’s Legislative Director Ryan Wilson (Oglala Lakota) told Native News Online. “They need to shift the focus into meaningful partnerships with private landowners and access to sacred lands and medicines within the nexus of private lands.”

Next week, representatives from Indian Country, including NACNA leaders, will testify to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies on a variety of topics, including protections of peyote and its habitat. 

Indian Country leans into traditional knowledge to advance modern data needs

BY CASEY LOZAR, 

CENTER FOR INDIAN COUNTRY DEVELOPMENT

 MARCH 09, 2023

Guest Opinion. 

For my people, the Salish, when the Mission Valley on the Flathead Reservation is first blanketed with snow, a new cultural season is underway. Traditionally, winter ushers in a time when we tell our stories and reflect on our histories, weaving in life lessons to remind us of where we’ve been and who we want to be as a people, as a Native nation.   

As snow surrounds me in Montana, I find myself reflecting on conversations about data that have unfolded in Indian Country since the first snow fell last year. In no time during our modern history has data been more woven into the daily dialogue of tribal leaders and policymakers.

The Center for Indian Country Development (CICD) has engaged in many of these conversations about how to collect accurate, comprehensive data with Indian Country in ways that honor tribal data sovereignty. As I consider our collective work to address harmful data gaps that perpetuate the invisibility of Native people, I take comfort in history.  

Data and our knowledge systems 

Over the holidays, my brothers, my dad, and I shared stories of a recent q̓ʷeyq̓ʷay (buffalo) hunt we did in our tribe’s aboriginal hunting grounds in southwestern Montana. Even though it was a one-day hunt, it took months to plan. Reflecting on the volume of  information we needed to carry out the hunt got me thinking about the traditional q̓ʷeyq̓ʷay hunts the Salish did in our part of the world. 

The success of these tribal hunts depended on a deep knowledge and understanding of the natural world that, in modern terms, we could consider a form of data. To drive their decision-making, our leaders relied on information regarding the skills and training needs of the hunting party, their horse and supply inventories, the demand for and the supply of meat in the community, q̓ʷeyq̓ʷay migration patterns, the location of supplemental foods, climate indicators, transportation logistics, and any competition from other hunters in the area. 

While these data didn’t live on rows of spreadsheets or in complex datasets as they do today, Salish leaders were experts in interpreting information found in the physical and spiritual world, and relying on this knowledge to make the best decisions for their communities.  

Understanding Indian Country today 

Information-gathering systems for the Salish and much of Indian Country have had to evolve. Many would argue that our data evolution has been relatively slow to develop in the modern context. There are good reasons for this. Historically,  there have been far too many instances of tribal data being misused or misrepresented to undermine the sovereignty and economic prosperity of tribal communities. In addition to the history of data misuse, tribal governments have also been in the position of directing precious resources toward defending their sovereignty and managing essential government services—limiting their capacity to invest in data systems.

Today there is great diversity in data capacities within tribal governments and communities. This patchwork of data experience across the hundreds of tribes, Alaska Native villages, and Native Hawaiian Homelands makes for a complex environment for understanding the collective economic conditions of our Native communities. There isn’t a complete picture of Indian Country that’s anchored in data—yet. 

Data takes central stage  

Though considerable gaps remain, a new era of data collection, use, and governance has gathered steam in conversations among tribal leaders and their partners. At the heart of these conversations is tribal data sovereignty—tribes’ right to collect, secure, analyze, and share data on their own terms. Over the past several decades, tribes have strengthened and exercised their inherent sovereignty as Native nations. These efforts have increasingly extended to the governance of our own data.

Policymakers and practitioners now recognize tribally certified data as vital in economic self-determination—necessary for understanding tribal needs and opportunities and informing decision-making.  

Data are also becoming increasingly essential for tribal governments to deliver public goods in responsive ways. As a result, individual tribes have increased data collection and utilization.  

For example, the Bay Mills Indian Community in Michigan just executed its first-ever tribal census to gather community data that could be used to enhance service delivery. The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in Montana recently partnered with the University of Montana to evaluate tribal workforce needs, resulting in new educational programming at the tribes’ college. For several years, the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo tribe in Texas has conducted a tribal census, which helps the tribe direct workforce opportunities for its members. These are just a few of many examples across Indian Country.  

In addition to efforts at the tribal level, federal agencies are beginning to address data sovereignty and the low sample sizes of American Indians and Alaska Natives in their data-collection efforts. Recently, the federal government partnered with all 574 federally recognized tribes to support their collection of tribal enrollment and employment data. For the first time in history, federal agencies leveraged self-certified tribal data to distribute billions of dollars in emergency relief funds. While these efforts don’t solve all of the concerns about data in Indian Country, they reflect greater inclusion of our people.

Research organizations and financial institutions are also partnering with Indian Country to help fill these gaps. Guided by our research principles, CICD has multiplied our suite of data tools available to the public and hosted discussions on the intersection of data, research, and good economic policy. Projects are rooted in input from tribal stakeholders, policymakers, and our CICD Leadership Council.

Braiding tradition and modern systems 

This data revolution is nothing short of remarkable and necessary. Our people are braiding traditional knowledge practices with modern data systems at frequencies and depths never seen before, and in ways that allow us to articulate an Indigenous future. As we do this, we can lean into our tradition of being knowledge keepers and our modern understanding of what it means to honor tribal data sovereignty. 

Trusted partners are at the doorstep of Indian Country eager to learn and collaborate. CICD is honored to be one such partner—one foot in the past, and another in the future. 

Casey Lozar is an enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and director of the Center for Indian Country Development, a research and policy center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Prior to joining the Minneapolis Fed in 2018, Casey served in economic development and higher education roles for the state of Montana, as well as executive leadership roles in national Native American nonprofits, including the American Indian College Fund and the Notah Begay III Foundation. He is based in Helena, Montana.

Retired Police Officer Launches Non-profit to Search for Missing Indigenous People




BY DARREN THOMPSON MARCH 09, 2023

MESA, Ariz. — After Mark Pooley retired from law enforcement due to a rare blood cancer in 2020, he continued investigative work by launching a nonprofit to help find missing and murdered Indigenous people (MMIP).

Pooley is Navajo and Hopi with a passion for helping Native people. A former tribal prosecutor and longtime sergeant for the City of Tempe Police Department, he founded Mesa, Ariz.-based nonprofit Native Search Solutions in order to leverage new investigative tools and technology in helping resolve active and cold cases related to MMIP.  Services to assist in finding missing people are provided free of cost.

As part of his efforts, he also collaborated with the Native American Fathers and Families Association, a 501(c)3 nonprofit that he founded, and privately held Biometrica Systems Inc., a Las Vegas-based software and data company focused on public safety. Together, they launched MMIP Fusion Center, a brick-and-mortar space where anti-sex-trafficking groups, families, law enforcement agencies, and media can gather and collaborate.

“My main vision is to find as many resources with other non-profits, technologies, and law enforcement agencies to provide resources for our Native people,” Pooley told Native News Online. 

While there is no comprehensive data on the number of MMIP in the United States, the FBI’s National Crime Information Center reported 5,203 missing Indigenous girls and women in 2021. According to the CDC, murder is the third-leading cause of death for Indigenous women in the United States. With Native people going missing or murdered at a rate 2.5 times their share of the U.S. population, the outsized number of MMIP has been declared an epidemic by tribal leaders, government officials and law-enforcement agencies.  

Federal departments and state governments have taken action in recent years to bridge the gaps in jurisdiction and resources that leave many of these cases unsolved. Most notably, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland created the Missing and Murdered Unit to allocate federal resources to analyzing and solving MMIP cases. 

Government resources are critically important to solving the MMIP crisis, but at an investigative level, human resources and technology are among the most critical assets to missing people investigations, Pooley said.  

“An investigation needs human resources, or personnel, to conduct an investigation, and technology such as a database,” said Pooley. “If you don’t have one of these, or both of them, you’re behind in an investigation.” 

Tribal law-enforcement agencies — which are funded by the federal government  — often lack these resources.

The Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Rosebud Sioux Tribe have filed lawsuits against the U.S. Department of Interior for a severe shortage in funding for law enforcement on their reservations in South Dakota. 

How It Works

Pooley says there are five main reasons people go missing: drug and alcohol addiction, violence, endangered runaways, human trafficking, and mental health crises. 

His process at Native Search Solutions is straightforward: When a person suspects someone is missing, Pooley can be contacted through the Native Search Solutions website. From there, he meets or speaks with the person who made initial contact to get more information and establish mutual understanding. 

Before an investigation begins, each person must sign a consent form giving Pooley permission to search for their loved one. Families then share photographs with Pooley, and he taps into Biometrica’s database, which has more than 16 million records sourced from law-enforcement organizations. 

“Sometimes, people are arrested for crimes of survival such as shoplifting, and Biometrica pulls a public record booking photos from an arrest and makes matching suggestions to photos families share with me,” Pooley said. “Facial recognition compares photographs families share with me to 16 million others.”

Since 2020, Native Search Solutions has assisted 57 families and has found two people with Biometrica’s database and 14 people with the help of families, according to Pooley.  

“We as Native Americans are a minority of a minority, and we basically don’t exist to the dominant society,” Pooley said. “We, as Native people, need to look for our own people. If we’re going to think that someone is looking for us, they are very likely not.” 

Native Search Solutions services are provided to families free of cost, and while the organization’s primary focus is on Native Americans, they will assist any family looking for a missing relative. People in Canada and Italy have reached out to the nonprofit in the last year. 

“One day, the non-Native world will come to us and ask how we found our people,” Pooley said. “If they’re missing, we’ll try to find them.”

First Native American Woman in Space, Nicole Mann Back on Earth

Photo off recovery vessel of splash down of Dragon Dragon spacecraft named Endurance. (Photo/NASA TV - screenshot)

BY NATIVE NEWS ONLINE STAFF 

 

MARCH 11, 2023

Breaking News. The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft carrying the first Native American woman in space Nicole Aunapu Mann and fellow NASA Josh Cassada, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Koichi Wakata, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina splashed down at approximately 9:02 p.m. EST tonight in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Tampa, Florida.

Nicole Aunapu Mann (Wailacki of the Round Valley Indian Tribes) became the first Native American woman ever to be launched into space when she was launched into space last October 5, 2022. 

 

                                                                                                  Nicole Aunapu Mann

Mann served as the mission commander on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-5 space mission on the Dragon spacecraft named Endurance. The SpaceX Crew-5 mission was launched with four other astronauts on board on their way to the International Space Station. 

Mann and crew returned after 157 days in space. 

Related: History Was Made as Nicole Aunapu Mann Became the First Native American Woman Launched into Space

Related: INTERVIEW: Astronaut Nicole Mann is Ready to Become the First Native Woman in Space

Thousands of South Koreans rally against ‘humiliating’ govt plan to resolve forced labour row with Japan

Demonstrators in front of the Seoul City Hall on March 11, 2023, calling for withdrawal of the forced labour resolution announced by the South Korean government.

Chang May Choon
South Korea Correspondent
UPDATED 6 HOURS AGO

SEOUL - Thousands of people have taken to the streets in the past week to protest against South Korea’s plan to end a wartime forced labour dispute with Japan, many voicing anger at what they deem a “foolish” and “humiliating” move.

The administration of President Yoon Suk-yeol announced on Monday it would compensate victims of forced labour with donations from a Seoul-based foundation.

But this goes against a 2018 Supreme Court ruling for Japanese companies to directly pay damages to 15 people forced to work in their factories during the 1910-1945 Japanese colonial period until the end of World War II.

The government’s move is aimed at improving ties with Japan, which sank to historic lows after the ruling triggered diplomatic and trade rows.

Japan has since invited Mr Yoon to visit Tokyo on March 16 and 17 for a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, in what would be the first state visit by a South Korean president in 12 years.

Protesters, however, say the Yoon administration is being too pro-Japanese.

Thousands of them turned up in front of the Seoul City Hall on Saturday, holding signs to demand the withdrawal of the forced labour deal and a “trial of the Yoon government’s humiliating diplomacy”.

The turnout exceeded organisers’ expected 6,000, and the gathering morphed into a full-scale anti-government rally, with opposition politicians lambasting the Yoon administration on stage and attendees holding signs that called for Mr Yoon’s resignation.

Protesters holding blue balloons, indicating their support for the country’s main opposition Democratic Party, joined others wearing red headbands signalling that they are trade union members.

Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung, who lost the 2022 presidential race to Mr Yoon by a tiny 0.74 per cent margin, said the President “seems to be deaf” to the voices of the people.

“The President said the compensation plan respects the victims, but I heard with my own ears the grandma victims saying they don’t need that kind of money,” said Mr Lee, whose stage appearance at the Saturday rally drew thunderous applause.

“The President cut open the wounds of the victims and mercilessly trampled on the people’s pride.”

Mr Lee Jae-myung, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, speaking on stage during a protest in front of the Seoul City Hall on March 11, 2023. 

Added Ms Lee Jeong-mi, leader of the minor opposition Justice Party: “The Yoon government betrayed history and gave the victims of forced labour indelible humiliation.”

Government data shows there are currently 1,815 survivors of forced labour in South Korea.

MORE ON THIS TOPIC

South Korea announces plan to compensate victims of forced labour during wartime occupation by Japan

World War II forced labour victims lash out at South Korea's 'dirty money' plan

Two of them, Madam Yang Geum-deok and Madam Kim Sung-joo, both in their 90s and seated in wheelchairs, voiced their objections to the compensation plan at a protest in front of the National Assembly on Tuesday organised by activist groups.

As teenagers, both had been forced to work for 17 months, unpaid, in a factory owned by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Nagoya, Japan.

Madam Yang Geum-deok (left) and Madam Kim Sung-joo, South Korean victims of forced labour during the Japanese colonial period, holding a news conference in Seoul on March 7, 2023. PHOTO: EPA-EFE

They are among a group of victims who successfully sued the Japanese firm in 2018. Another group won a case against Nippon Steel.

But the Japanese government stopped both companies from paying damages, insisting that all compensation for issues related to history were settled under the 1965 agreement to normalise relations between Japan and South Korea.

South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin announced on Monday that the victims would instead receive compensation from a foundation funded by private Korean companies that had benefited from a US$800 million reparation package from Japan in 1965.

“I will not accept the money even if I starve to death,” said Madam Yang, who deems the plan unacceptable as it did not involve the company responsible for her suffering.

Added Madam Kim, who was accompanied by her son: “We can forgive, if Japan tells us ‘we are sorry and we did wrong’. But there’s no such word. The more I think about that, the more I cry.”

MORE ON THIS TOPIC

South Korea vows to strengthen security cooperation with Japan after wartime forced labour proposal

Japan, US cheer South Korea plan to end wartime labour dispute, but victims cry foul

A poll released on Friday showed that 59 per cent of 1,002 respondents opposed the plan as it did not require Japan’s official apology and compensation.

About 35 per cent supported the plan for the sake of national interest and better relations with Japan, while the rest were unsure.

The ruling People Power Party has proposed an alternative – to compensate the victims with funds collected from the two countries’ governments and companies, as well as public donations – ostensibly to assuage public anger.

Some of the 100 or so people who joined a weekly Wednesday protest calling for a resolution for wartime sex slaves for the Japanese army – another trigger of animosity against Japan – also voiced outrage against the compensation plan for forced labourers.

Retired teacher Im Gye-jae, 70, called it a “very, very stupid and foolish” plan, speaking in English for emphasis.

Retired teacher Im Gye-jae at the demonstration calling for a resolution to the Japanese military sexual slavery issue, held on March 8, 2023. She is wearing a yellow hoodie showing the face of Kim Bok-dong, a victim turned activist. 

Student Park Sae-hee, 25, said everyone around her was “really angry”, even those who are not interested in historical issues.

“The statement (by Foreign Minister Park) was so long, but it was full of pro-Japanese remarks, with no promise of apology,” she told The Straits Times.

“Anyone who remembers our history of being colonised by Japan cannot help but feel angry, because we know how our ancestors fought and died. Issues from the colonial era have not been settled yet. In fact, I feel we are regressing when it comes to past problems that were not resolved properly.”

Student Lee Seung-ju, 33, travelled to Seoul from his home in Gumi city 200km south of the capital to join both the Tuesday and Wednesday protests.

Protesters attending the 1,586th instalment of a weekly demonstration calling for a resolution to the Japanese military sexual slavery issue, on March 8, 2023. 

He said the Yoon administration’s overtly pro-Japanese stance made it seem like “we’re going back to colonial times”.

“One of my friends, a woman, even said, ‘Are we going to be kidnapped again?’” he added.

“You don’t even have to be Korean to feel upset. When you see people dying, people being treated brutally, you’re not angry?”

ST PHOTOS: CHANG MAY CHOON

TURKIYE
Who is Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and can he beat Turkey's President Erdoğan?

By Euronews • Updated: 10/03/2023 - 

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the Republican People's Party, arrives for a meeting in Ankara, Turkey, 6 March 2023 - Copyright Burhan Ozbilici/AP

After months of negotiations, an alliance of six Turkish opposition parties has finally chosen its candidate for the presidential election.

The leader of the social-democratic CHP party, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu will face President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on 14 May.

Kılıçdaroğlu’s campaign will likely focus on promoting democracy, human rights and the rule of law after years of increasingly centralised power under Erdoğan.

And due to a perceived slow government response to devastating earthquakes last month, a currency crisis and rampant inflation, political scientists believe the opposition candidate may have a real chance.

"All the important actors of the opposition are involved in this election alliance by supporting Kiliçdaroglu's candidacy", says Ali Çarkoglu, a political scientist at Koç University.

"The performance of the AKP and the Erdoğan government in recent years, both in economic and security policy, has been mediocre."

"Combining these two factors, we could expect Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu to win the presidential election easily."

A chance to win

Samim Akgönul, a historian and political scientist at the University of Strasbourg, agrees that Kiliçdaroglu has a strong position.

"If we enter a normal, regular election period where the political parties will campaign and the leaders will campaign and then put themselves to the judgment of the electorate, I really think that Kemal Kilçdaroglu has a chance to win."

"Because there is a feeling of wear and tear on power, there is a feeling of being fed up, in the opposition, in the whole of society, but also for the first time, there is a very broad coalition against Recep Tayyip Erdoğan."
A veteran candidate

But, as Akgönul notes, not all opposition supporters are behind Kılıçdaroğlu as a candidate.

"As he is a veteran candidate, a veteran leader, he does not represent the new. He does not represent the new breath and does not represent the new emotion."

"He is a rather old man, 74 years old I think, and the electorate knows him well."

The opposition alliance hopes that if he wins Kılıçdaroğlu will govern in a more conciliatory format, respecting constraints on his power.

His image as a reserved intellectual compared to the fiery and charismatic nature of Erdoğan has long done him a disservice. Now it may be exactly what the opposition needs to clinch victory.