Andrew Harnik/AP

Former President Donald Trump, shown on Election Day in Palm Beach, Florida, has promoted a “big” announcement Nov. 15, despite the GOP’s unexpectedly weak showing in the midterm elections. Democrats held on to the Senate, while Republicans are expected to flip the House.

Is the GOP still the party of Donald Trump?

In the wake of their disappointing midterm results – and as the former president prepares for a “big” announcement, with expectations that he will make his 2024 bid official tonight – Republicans are once again wrestling with the same existential question that has consumed the party off and on for the past six years.

Right now, Mr. Trump’s grip on his party appears as tenuous as it’s ever been. Most of his marquee candidates in battleground states lost last week, and those who won often lagged mainstream Republicans on the ticket. Across the political spectrum, commentators have interpreted the election as a sharp rebuke to the MAGA brand, calling the former president a drag on the GOP ticket and a gift to Democratic turnout. 

Mr. Trump also remains under investigation, facing perhaps the greatest legal jeopardy of his career, over everything from the classified documents taken from the White House to his business dealings in New York. And polls suggest many Republican voters may be wearying of him. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose resounding reelection victory last week led the conservative, Murdoch-owned New York Post to dub him “DeFuture,” has pulled ahead in several recent surveys ranking potential 2024 contenders.

True to form, the former president has responded to this apparent moment of weakness by going on the offensive. He is calling the Nov. 8 election a “very big victory” for him and his allies, trumpeting the likely GOP takeover of the House, and attributing the failure to capture the Senate to “very obvious CHEATING” (a charge that virtually none of his endorsees have echoed). 

Notably, he has also turned up the heat on potential challengers for the GOP presidential nomination, unloading in particular on Governor DeSantis, whom he has labeled “DeSanctimonius.”

The attacks make clear what awaits anyone who stands in Mr. Trump’s way, highlighting his instinctive ability to isolate and defenestrate detractors while keeping a tight grip on the base.

Marco Bello/Reuters

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis celebrates his reelection onstage with his wife, Casey, and their children in Tampa, Florida, Nov. 8, 2022. Mr. DeSantis has been polling ahead of former President Donald Trump in recent polls on who should be the 2024 Republican nominee for president.

Previous predictions of Mr. Trump’s political demise have all proved premature. Even many of his critics say it would be unwise to count him out. He has survived scandals, two impeachments, and twice losing the popular vote. Party leaders could easily have turned against him after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, or particularly after the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 – but wound up falling into line instead. Indeed, it was Mr. Trump’s Republican critics, such as Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, who ultimately paid a political price.

“After Jan. 6, Republicans could have taken this man down – and they didn’t,” says GOP strategist Scott Jennings, a former adviser to President George W. Bush. “If someone is weak, that’s the time to move,” he adds. 

The post-election math

One factor that could make this particular moment of weakness different is that it’s mostly about the math. In politics, power ultimately hinges on winning – and Mr. Trump’s credibility as a winner appears seriously tarnished.

Heading into the midterms, the former president was expected to use the results as a springboard for a presidential run that would clear the field. He even teased an announcement on the eve of Election Day, as predictions of a “red wave” grew. But the poor showing for his candidates in battleground races, from Pennsylvania to New Hampshire to Arizona, ultimately costing Republicans a chance to flip the Senate, tore up that playbook.

In Florida, by contrast, Governor DeSantis cruised to reelection, including in Latino districts around Miami that were previously Democratic strongholds. His success is stoking some Republican dreams of a DeSantis ticket in 2024 that could unite the party – and cast Mr. Trump into the past.

“I think the tables have been turned,” says Jerry Sickels, a Republican strategist in New Hampshire who worked on Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Indeed, a number of prominent Republicans from battleground states are now saying the quiet part out loud. 

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan told a Wisconsin TV station that Mr. Trump was “a drag on the ticket” and predicted he wouldn’t capture the nomination in 2024. “We want to win the White House and we know with Trump we’re so much more likely to lose,” he said. 

In Pennsylvania, where Trump-backed Dr. Mehmet Oz lost a competitive Senate race to Democrat John Fetterman, retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey predicted it was just a matter of time before Mr. Trump steps aside. “I think Donald Trump’s influence gradually but steadily declines, and I think it accelerates after the [electoral] debacle that he’s responsible for to some degree,” Senator Toomey told The Philadelphia Inquirer. 

Republicans in Michigan are also blaming Mr. Trump for a Democratic sweep of statewide offices and the state Legislature. In a memo, GOP officials complained that party donors balked at funding far-right Trump allies, including gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon, who lost by double digits to Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. 

Yet the vast majority of Republican lawmakers have been holding fire. Those with presidential ambitions, or even an upcoming reelection race, seem wary of angering Mr. Trump and his many adoring fans, who can swing a primary. This is a familiar pattern, one that Mr. Trump knows how to exploit, says David Drucker, author of “Trump’s Shadow: The Battle for 2024 and the Future of the GOP.”

“You need to take the fight to him,” he says. “Just waiting for him to go away will never work.” 

This same goes for the former president’s supporters who prize his pugnacious style, says Mr. Drucker, a reporter at the Washington Examiner. “The only thing that will show Republican voters that you’re a fighter and leader is to take on Trump as he takes on everyone else,” he says. 

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, Oct. 19, 2022. Mr. Pence, who has a new book, is among the former members of the Trump administration seen as likely to run in 2024.

Several GOP contenders have been seeding the ground for 2024 by visiting early primary states and endorsing and raising money for candidates. Among them are former Trump administration officials like Nikki Haley; Mike Pompeo; and Mike Pence, Mr. Trump’s former vice president, who has a new book out. All have been treading carefully when it comes to the former president.

So far, the biggest buzz among GOP donors and activists surrounds Governor DeSantis, whose culture-war exploits have become a fixture on Fox News. On Tuesday, the Florida governor responded to Mr. Trump’s attacks with a not-so-subtle jab, telling reporters to “check out the scoreboard.” 

The fact that a credible replacement is waiting in the wings could also make this moment different from all of Mr. Trump’s previous stumbles, says Mr. Jennings. “Republicans can see the next lily pad,” he says.   

“There’s enough blame to go around”

By announcing his run so early, Mr. Trump appears to be looking to head off his likely competitors, pressuring GOP officials and donors to fall into line. His timing also may be geared to the legal peril he faces on several fronts, since many experts believe it becomes more politically treacherous to indict him once he’s a presidential candidate-in-waiting.

Already, the former president is attracting public statements of support: Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican in House leadership, has endorsed him as presidential candidate even before he declares. 

One frustration for Republicans was not just that Trump-endorsed candidates flopped last Tuesday, but that Mr. Trump actively dissuaded better politicians from running, says Robert Blizzard, a GOP pollster. Popular Republican governors in New Hampshire and Arizona opted not to run for the Senate, and that hurt the party, he says. “Voters are rewarding serious, experienced people,” he says. 

Mr. Blizzard notes that Electoral College victory in 2024 will hinge on the same battleground states that were in the midterm spotlight. “A Republican path to the White House in 2024 goes through Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada,” he says. “If we don’t win those states, we’re going to be shut out.” 

Still, Mr. Trump’s defenders argue that what the midterms really demonstrated was that Republicans need him on the ballot, with his unique ability to turn out disaffected voters. They also blame GOP leaders in Congress for failing to prioritize the right seats and note that moderate GOP candidates also lost toss-up midterm races.

Fran Wendelboe, a Republican former state legislator in New Hampshire, believes her party has been too quick to blame Mr. Trump for its midterm defeats. “There’s enough blame to go around for everyone,” she says.

But Ms. Wendelboe is concerned about Mr. Trump’s electability in 2024. She says she’s ready to move on from the man she calls “a great president” and who she believes was unfairly persecuted in office.

Mr. Trump needs to “think not so much about what’s best for Donald Trump but what’s best for the country,” she says. 

In Guatemala, farmers are setting up “living fences” around fields, creating a buffer of roots to protect their soil during increasingly strong rainy seasons.

In Jordan, local Bedouin communities and authorities are pioneering resilient desert agriculture in a region that has been hit by longer and more intense heat waves.

And in Burkina Faso, William Kwende has been working to revolutionize shea butter production – by substituting renewable energy for traditional wood-burning methods that result in deforestation.

He has introduced an approach with 100% renewable energy, self-sustaining biomass burners, and a closed water system, which is curbing emissions while also reducing crop losses. 

At a time of global strain on food production, including an emerging famine in parts of East Africa, his story symbolizes the potential for using innovation to adapt to a changing climate. The business Mr. Kwende co-founded, called Serious Shea, is designed to promote reforestation and to secure fairer wages and independence for the local women at the heart of the process. 

A key part of the innovation: Serious Shea’s eco-processing centers transform shea tree biomass into natural biofertilizer and biochar, enriching soils that are at risk of desertification and reducing reliance on expensive imported chemical fertilizers. 

“People talk about water and food imports, but when you talk about food crises and adaptation, fertilizer is at the heart of it,” Mr. Kwende tells the Monitor on the sidelines of COP27, this year’s global climate summit, at Sharm el-Sheikh. “When it comes to reducing waste, cost, and carbon, fertilizer is key to this transition.”

Across the globe, innovative ideas like that are greatly needed. Extreme weather events are affecting the vital sector of food production – with the shifts especially hard for Indigenous communities and small-scale farmers. In Peru, rising temperatures have upended the livelihoods of alpaca farmers. In Pakistan, massive floods have sidelined several million acres from crop production. In Somalia and Kenya alone, drought threatens to push millions into food-poverty and starvation. 

The challenges have been exacerbated by Russia’s war in Ukraine, affecting global energy costs and supplies of grain, flour, and fertilizer.

All this has made saving and transforming the way the world feeds itself a pressing issue. With its own farmers suffering losses amid intense heat waves and drop in Nile waters, atop the food-security crisis in the Horn of Africa, Egypt has placed agriculture front and center to an unprecedented degree at the current “conference of parties,” or COP.

“All of these converging crises are making people realize that food is something that we absolutely need to pay attention to in a climate context in the next few years and decades if we want to reach a 1.5 degree [C] future, create a sustainable future, ensure food security, livelihoods and promote biodiversity,” says Chantal Wei-Ying Clément, deputy director of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food). 

“Food systems are so cross-cutting that if you are not dealing with food systems, you are missing a huge piece of the puzzle.”

Seeking water, from Mexican orchards to the Andes

Agriculture experts say some of the solutions will involve mass-produced technologies such as battery-operated farm equipment. But it will also involve the rise and transfer of hundreds of local, homegrown solutions emerging across the world, many of which advocates say can cut carbon, improve resilience, and be replicated elsewhere. 

In Mexico, where last summer eight of 32 states experienced moderate to extreme drought and where half of all municipalities in the country face water shortages, some farmers turn 2-liter soda bottles upside down over saplings to capture morning dew or dig holes and line them with organic materials like leaves, to retain rainfall around young trees.

To the south in Peru, Alina Surquislla’s family has never seen anything like the current effects of rising temperatures in their three generations of alpaca herding. 

Courtesy of Alina Surquislla

Alpacas graze in the parched highlands of the Apurimac region in southern Peru. Rising temperatures and decreased rainfall have led many herders to take their alpacas to higher altitudes – sometimes close to 17,000 feet above sea level – during the dry season in search of water and grass for grazing. Many report alpacas dying or miscarrying due to climate change.

“There’s no water; the grass is turning yellow and disappearing for lack of rain,” says Ms. Surquislla. Alpacas are dying out at worrying rates. Speaking over a Wi-Fi satellite connection while walking at nearly 16,000 feet above sea level in the Apurimac region, she says, “More and more the feeling is that there is nowhere to escape.”

For now, she says the answer for herders is to go to higher and higher elevations in search of water and grazing.

New experiments, old traditions

Water is also scarce in Jordan. There, local Bedouin communities and authorities are scaling up pioneering desert agriculture in Al Mudawara, a border region near Saudi Arabia that has been hit by longer and more intense heat waves in the past few years. 

Since 2019, under a directive by Jordan’s King Abdullah, each family in the area has been tending to 6-acre plots of yellow corn and green onions, watered from an underground aquifer. The crops have proved resilient to more frequent 120 degree F temperatures, sprouting up into green waves amid reddish desert sands that have not been utilized for agriculture in modern history. 

Now over 4,000 acres of corn stalks stand 3 feet high and onions sprout in Al Mudawara. These provide alternative sources of income and living for Bedouin families, many of whom have been forced to abandon traditional camel shepherding due to the mounting costs of imported animal feed. 

“It has been a successful project. This is encouraging a lot of young people to go into agriculture,” says Abu Fahed al Huweiti, former director of the Al Mudawara Agricultural Cooperative that has steered the project. “It has given a new hope for people here.”

Other solutions date back centuries. 

In Tunisia, amid the lush fig and olive groves of Djebba, clinging to the tops of the Gorraa mountain, farmers continue a centuries-old terraced farming that has helped them cope with massive heat waves and drought that has hit much of Tunisia. 

Taylor Luck

Irrigation equipment waters green onion crops in the reddish-yellow sands of Al Mudawara, southern Jordan, as part of a desert agriculture initiative, on Oct. 29, 2022.

A series of cement-lined canals crisscross down the hill through the terraced farms, carrying water from natural springs fed by winter’s snow to groves of figs, pomegranates, quince, and olives on a rotating basis of collective water-sharing. 

This ingenious method of traditional Berber farming provides timed irrigation of entire land plots, allowing local farmers to grow not only trees but also herbs and diverse flora and fauna, feeding livestock and chickens – all from the same measured water delivery. 

It is this biodiversity and careful water management that has made Djebba the most resilient of Tunisia’s farming regions.

“We in Djebba keep using the same old techniques because it has shown success. It is an inherited model of coexistence and represents the ideal use of available water resources,” says Fawzi Djebbi, Djebba farmer, activist, and head of the annual Djebba Fig Festival. 

“Here we use the water as a collective resource from the mountains. This water belongs to all of us.” 

One key need: transferring best practices

Knowledge- and expertise-sharing has also been critical to speeding up farmers’ adaptation to the pummeling effects of severe weather events. 

The CCDA, an Indigenous and small farmers movement for land rights and rural development in Guatemala, is working with many of their 1,300 affiliated communities around new techniques to help farmers adapt. This year’s rainy season has been one of the longest and heaviest this century, for example.

One technique is planting trees and plants with deep roots around crop plots. The plants are a buffer against erosion, provide shade during the hot and dry season, and sometimes include edible plants as well.

“Setting up living fences helps the conservation of the soil, among other things, for people to keep producing,” says CCDA coordinator Marcelo Subac. “The farmers we accompany and others who have … implemented changes see the difference.” 

Global organizations are seeking to spread helpful practices and information.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has been teaming up with Vodafone to get early warning systems and messages to rural farmers across Africa to better prepare for projected climate trends and to provide advice on mitigation measures. 

Other information-sharing projects include smartphone apps Mufeed and Muzaraa, which alert farmers in Egypt and Jordan, respectively, on more modern agricultural practices, weather warnings, and tips to become more environmentally sustainable. 

At COP27, calls for action

The importance of farm adaptations worldwide is clear enough on the basis of food security alone. It is also a climate action imperative. Agriculture is responsible for about 20% of greenhouse gases, and currently only 3% of climate financing for adaptation goes to agriculture. 

This year’s climate summit included the first designated food and agriculture day in the 27-year history of the conference – an event Saturday where Mr. Kwende from Burkina Faso participated. 

Behind the scenes, Egypt’s veteran diplomats have been pushing for increased climate financing to the adaptation of agriculture in developing countries to make them more resilient and sustainable.

In its key policy as chairing the presidency of COP27, Egypt announced last week the Sharm El Sheikh Adaptation Agenda, an ambitious plan to scale up climate resilient agriculture that increases yields by 17% and reduces farm greenhouse gas emissions by 21% without increasing the expansion of agricultural lands globally by 2030.

It also aims to halve food production loss and per capita waste, boost alternative proteins to equal 15% of the global meat and seafood market, and extend smart early warning systems to reach 3 billion people.

On Saturday, Egypt and the FAO announced the Food and Agriculture for Sustainable Transformation (FAST) initiative to develop sustainable farming and food production by improving access to finance, knowledge-sharing, and policy support with U.N. agencies acting as facilitators between developing countries and international finance institutions and donors.

“Words are no longer enough”

One glaring shortfall remains amid the rising focus on local solutions and knowledge-sharing: funds.  

The Sharm El Sheikh Adaptation plan requires an estimated $140 billion to $300 billion in combined public and private financing per year.  

However, the international community has yet to live up to the $100 billion in global climate financing commitment agreed to in the 2015 Paris accords, a number widely recognized as a tiny fraction of what is now needed to help communities face and adapt to the current effects of climate change. 

Some lending bodies, such as the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank FMO, have already started to back local farming innovations and climate-resilient and climate-sustainable farming in the developing world. 

However, Egyptian and other African negotiators warn that some aspects of adaptive agriculture – such as expanding renewable energy or improving water infrastructure – are not profitable ventures on their own and will not attract investors or lenders looking for a return. 

Meanwhile, the major presence of big agriculture and large food corporations at COP27 – speaking at panel events and hobnobbing with government ministers – is raising fears among environmental experts that the discussion over adaptive agriculture is being steered toward expensive high-tech innovation that only modestly cuts carbon and is monopolized by big ag rather than true agroecology and local, sustainable, and enduring solutions. 

One point of broad agreement: With famine, drought, and geopolitics colliding, world governments and finance institutions must act fast. 

“We are heading to crop failure in many parts of the world in the next six months,” warns Mr. Kwende of Serious Shea. “Real change will be measured by specific indicators. Commitments and words are no longer enough without action.”

Taylor Luck reported from Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt; and Al Mudawara, Jordan. Whitney Eulich reported from Mexico City; Ahmed Ellali from Djebba, Tunisia; and Sandra Cuffe from Guatemala City.

Body armor and a first aid kit are critical gear for Oleksandr Kozachenko as he finds and defuses unexploded ordnance in this recently liberated town in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. But just as essential to survival in his high-risk job, he says, is his good luck charm: a tiny, fading-purple teddy bear given to him by his niece.

“I am alive, my limbs are in place – so yes, I feel lucky,” says Mr. Kozachenko with a broad smile that passes quickly. October took a heavy toll on Ukraine’s demining efforts and teams. He knows  of at least three deminers who have been killed and another two wounded while working in territory recently regained from Russian forces. Among the fatalities was a friend and colleague: Kurilov, or “Chili” for short.

“It’s the nature of the job,” Mr. Kozachenko says. “You can’t be safe.”

But making Lyman safe was the goal for Mr. Kozachenko and his 16 colleagues as they worked to clear the streets of explosives in late October, after the town had been liberated from Russian occupation. Lyman is but a small corner of what experts say will be an epic, decades-long task of clearing Ukraine of land mines and other unexploded war materiel.

For Ukraine’s deminers working all across the country, the task is a daunting one. A life-and-death job even when a war isn’t going on, demining demands not just technical skills and training, but intuition, focus, calm, and courage. And as Ukrainians drive back Russian forces and civilians try to rebuild shattered lives, the work that the deminers do is crucial to creating a safer future.

An urgent, painstakingly slow job

The territories of Ukraine where explosive ordnance have been reported encompass nearly 54,000 square miles – an area the size of the state of New York in the United States, or Greece in Europe. That means experts will need to survey these areas to assess the level of contamination – a painstakingly slow process even in peacetime. In the city of Kherson, liberated last Friday, such surveys have just begun, and almost 2,000 explosives have already been removed, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a televised address Saturday.

Dominique Soguel

Anna Davydovska demines a road in the village of Fasova near Kyiv, Ukraine. She says she loves the chance to move about and breathe fresh air, even if her muscles are sore and her hands blistered at the end of the day.

But in Lyman and its surrounding villages – once home to about 45,000 people before the area came under Russian control – people started to return once the area was liberated, primarily to repair battle-scarred roofs and windows before the season’s heavy rains give way to snow. 

The approach of winter, when clearance work becomes impossible, creates a sense of urgency among the deminers. They work from dawn to dusk, taking only short breaks, so that electricians can restore power to strategic locations in the city. Their eyes are quick to spot the silver shine of unexploded rifle grenades lurking in the grass. Booby traps and tripwire mines worry them the most; one such trap killed a whole sounder of wild boars running in the forest, providing a ghastly reminder of the danger.

“The area is very polluted by bombs, shrapnel, and rocket remains,” says Vitaliy Vorona, tasked with overseeing the work of the state emergency services in Lyman. He sleeps at the fire station that the deminers use as their base because the windows and door in his home are gone. Pro-Russian graffiti sprayed on walls and bus stops have been crossed out and replaced with a simple question: How could you?

“Fortunately rockets are landing less frequently now,” says Mr. Vorona, knocking on his wooden desk to ward off a change in fortune. “Unfortunately, I think it will take over a year to clear this whole area.”

“I never imagined I would do so much demining”

The demand for demining experts is so high that crash courses have been launched, teaching the appropriate skills in double-quick time. 

For most on the team in Lyman, demining is a job they took on many years before Russian troops invaded Ukraine last February. What began as a relatively low-risk but rewarding task became a high-risk endeavor demanding professionalism and patriotism. The teams working in Lyman are part of the Pyrotechnic Works and Humanitarian Demining Department of the government emergency services. Most are highly trained, seasoned veterans, with many years of experience under their belt. Their rotations last 50 days.

Mykhailo Marchuk, a native of Rivne in western Ukraine, has been demining since 2007. Back then, he was primarily tackling leftover mines from World War II. He says the most challenging part of his work now is demining unexploded cluster munitions, anti-tank mines, and small, scatterable anti-personnel minelets. “I never imagined I would do so much demining – that I would be working in an actual war,” he says.

“If the war ended we could do our jobs calmly and easily demine everything,” says his colleague Taras Depanov. “Now we clear an area but a few days later a rocket lands. Then the civilians think we did not do our job properly.”

Dominique Soguel

Deminers look for unexploded ordnance and mines in residential streets of Lyman, Ukraine. They work from dawn to dusk, taking only short breaks, so that electricians can restore power to strategic locations in the city.

The level of risk for deminers varies with the seasons and the distance from the front line. The further away you are, the more effective and consistent your work can be, explains Mr. Depanov, whose meticulous character is evident in his tidy gear harness. In the case of Lyman, the sound of artillery duels in the nearby village of Torske serves as a reminder of the war’s proximity. 

“You need to have willpower and a strong spirit as well as professional skills and knowledge to do this job,” says Mr. Depanov. “If we are in an anxious state of mind or have a bad feeling, our commanders tell us to stay home.”

The deminers say they are often flagged down by homeowners who want their advice on whether rocket fragments or artillery shells littering their rooftops and gardens pose a threat. Those living in areas that experienced intense fighting, like Lyman, are more sensitive to the risks. But lives are still lost; soldiers and civilians perish in explosions as they drive down roads once controlled by Russians; farmers are killed tilling land peppered with mines; walkers set off booby traps in the forest as they pick mushrooms.

“There are two aspects of vulnerability to this danger: physical and psychological” says Tymur Pistriuha, head of the Ukrainian Deminers Association, a nongovernmental organization. “The most vulnerable people from a mental point of view are children, who, because of their natural interest in the world, now have to live in fear and beware of danger at any time.”

Physically, the most vulnerable are men, he says, because they often ignore or underestimate the danger of touching or moving an undetonated shell. They include men who gather salable scrap metal in areas close to the front line.

“Mines are perfect soldiers”

Demining teams are also hard at work in a forest-fringed stretch of land that falls within the once bucolic, now highly traumatized district of Bucha, outside Kyiv, which Russian troops occupied and then abandoned soon after the war began. This was a front line then, and it is still littered with anti-tank mines. They need over 100 kgs (220 lbs) of pressure to be triggered, but become volatile over the years.

“Mines are perfect soldiers,” says Oleksandr Kotvytskyy, Kyiv regional supervisor for The Halo Trust, an international demining NGO working in several regions of Ukraine. “They can lie in wait for years and then strike.”

The Ukrainian deminers working under Mr. Kotvytskyy’s supervision do so at a steady pace, equipped with protective gear that includes face shields, modern metal detectors, and color-coded stakes to mark their findings. They work 25 meters (82 feet) apart to minimize casualties if something explodes.

The rusting carcass of a car that hit an anti-tank mine hints at danger, and illustrates the need for attention. “For small villages like this, roads are their lifeline to the world,” says Mr. Kotvytskyy.

He calculates that one year of war creates about 10 years of demining work. The organization has identified over 60 minefields in the broader Kyiv region. The need for personnel is high.

For now, committed recruits can be found. Among them is Anna Davydovska, who attended a month of intensive demining training in October 2021 and relocated once it became impossible to live in her native Donetsk region.

“The biggest priority is that we are doing something for our land,” she says, adding that she loves the chance to move about and breathe fresh air, even if her muscles are sore and her hands blistered at the end of the day. Her adult son followed her lead and became a deminer too.

“I know that my family and I are 100% useful to our country,” she says. “That’s the most important thing.”

Oleksandr Naselenko supported the reporting of this article

Lee Jin-man/AP

Unification Church followers hold signs during a rally in downtown Seoul, South Korea, Aug. 18, 2022, protesting negative Japanese media coverage of their religion after the suspect in the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minster Abe Shinzo blamed the church for his family’s troubles.

Hashida Tatsuo struggled to hold back tears as he vented pent-up anger at a controversial church he says ruined his family.

His wife became a follower of the South Korea-based Unification Church about 30 years ago, Mr. Hashida explained during a recent meeting with opposition lawmakers in Tokyo. His wife was told there were “evil spirits” in the family’s rice field on the island of Shikoku, which she later sold and donated the money to the church. In total, Mr. Hashida says she gave them about 100 million yen, or $678,000.

“Why did an ordinary family have to do this for the sake of the Unification Church?” asked the farmer.

He and his wife, still an active member of the church, divorced about nine years ago. Their adult son died by suicide in 2020.

Throughout all this, Mr. Hashida approached police, lawyers, and local government officials for help. “But nobody would listen,” he said. 

Japanese society is now listening to Mr. Hashida and other victims after the assassination of former premier Abe Shinzo in July broke a decades-long taboo, and exposed the ruling party’s cozy relations with the church, which critics call a cult. Since the shooting, ties between members of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the church have emerged, and approval ratings plummeted, as the public calls into question the integrity of the government. 

As Prime Minister Kishida Fumio tries to contain the crisis, even ordering a first-of-its-kind investigation into the church, some voters say the controversy has them reevaluating how they pick their leaders.

“In the next elections, we need to be more careful about who we vote for and what kind of background candidates have,” says Kaneko Mitsuhiro, a small business owner in Tokyo.

A longstanding relationship

The LDP’s ties with the church, known officially as Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, trace back to the 1960s. Prime Minister Kishi Nobusuke, Mr. Abe’s grandfather, developed a friendship with Sun Myung Moon, who founded the church in 1954 and shared the Japanese leader’s staunch anti-Communist stance. That relationship helped the organization establish itself in Japan. 

While the church has also been active in other countries, Japan is the only nation that sees victims of its “spiritual sales,” in which followers are pressured to buy items like jars and beads at exorbitant prices to supposedly free them from bad ancestral karma, according to the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales. Followers were also told to pay for their ancestors’ war crimes committed during Japan’s colonial rule on the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945, says Yamaguchi Hiroshi, one of the lawyers who leads the network. 

From 1987 to 2021, lawyers and the National Consumer Affairs Center of Japan have received nearly 35,000 complaints concerning such sales, according to the network. 

As for political ties, church officials argue they have not asked followers to support any specific party, but they are willing to support lawmakers who have an anti-Communist stance.

Eugene Hoshiko/AP/File

Japan's Economy Minister Yamagiwa Daishiro, shown speaking during a press conference at the National Press Club in Tokyo on Jan. 12, 2022, submitted his resignation to Prime Minister Kishida Fumio last month. He is one of several lawmakers who have stepped down in a widening controversy that has rocked Mr. Kishida’s government.

For some politicians – including Mr. Abe’s younger brother and former Defense Minister Kishi Nobuo, as well as LDP policy chief Hagiuda Koichi, who was Mr. Abe’s right-hand man – that means followers, widely known as “Moonies” though they refer to themselves as “Unificationists,” volunteered to work on election campaigns. According to journalist Suzuki Eito, who has covered the Unification Church for more than a decade, some LDP lawmakers also received monetary donations from Church-affiliated groups. 

Meanwhile, LDP lawmakers’ involvement in church activities have helped boost Unificationists’ credibility, Mr. Yamaguchi says. Indeed, his group had repeatedly urged Mr. Abe to refrain from attending events organized by the church and its affiliates, but their pleas were dismissed. 

In September 2019, Mr. Abe appeared in a video message aired at a church event, paying his respects to the church’s leadership and followers for their “efforts toward conflict resolution around the world, especially the peaceful unification of the Korean Peninsula.” 

From open secret to political crisis

This summer, the church and LDP’s intertwined history was thrust into the spotlight when Yamagami Tetsuya, suspected gunman in the Abe shooting, told police that he resented the former prime minister for his links to the church, which he blamed for destroying his family.

Fukumoto Nobuya, a lawyer for the church, has confirmed Mr. Yamagami’s mother made “excessive donations” amounting to more than 100 million yen.

Soon after, an internal LDP survey showed 179 of its 379 national lawmakers had some connections with the church, for which Mr. Kishida apologized and vowed to sever relations between the party and the church. But public opinion continued to plunge as more interactions between the church and LDP heavyweights, including House Speaker Hosoda Hiroyuki, surfaced. 

According to a Jiji Press poll, the approval rating of Mr. Kishida’s cabinet plummeted to the record low of 27% in October from 50% in July. Rising prices without wage growth, and the premier’s decision to hold a state funeral for Mr. Abe in September despite strong public opposition, also contributed to the sharp fall, analysts say.

Sadayuki Goto/Kyodo News/AP

Japan’s Prime Minister Kishida Fumio raises a hand at a meeting of the Lower House Budget Committee in Tokyo on Oct. 17, 2022. The leader ordered an investigation into the Unification Church in an apparent move to calm the public outrage over his governing party’s cozy ties with the controversial group.

And the connections keep coming. Economic Revitalization Minister Yamagiwa Daishiro was forced to step down in late October after a 2019 photo emerged of him and Hak Ja Han, the current church president and widow of Mr. Moon, standing side by side. Until the photo surfaced, the minister had evaded the issue, insisting he had “no recollection” of his involvement in the organization’s events.

To calm the waters, Mr. Kishida has taken the highly unusual step of ordering an investigation into the Unification Church. Depending on the outcome, it could be deprived of its tax-exempt status. 

Education Minister Nagaoka Keiko announced on Friday that authorities will complete initial questioning by year-end, marking the first time the government has utilized its right to question a religious organization under the Religious Corporations Law. The full probe may take much longer. 

Mr. Hashida and ex-followers who want the church to be dissolved view Mr. Kishida’s decision as a “step forward,” though some critics have called it a “stall tactic.”

Hard look at Japan’s institutions

The crisis has not only cast doubt on the integrity of the LDP, but also other institutions that have failed to scrutinize the church’s political influence. 

Some argue that Japan’s major news organizations have largely failed to report on the authorities’ long-standing ties with the church.

“The LDP should no longer exist as a political party because it utilized the Unification Church for its election campaigns,” says Asano Kenichi, a former journalism professor at Doshisha University in Kyoto, adding that journalists must continue investigating the LDP and Unification Church. Through their reporting, he hopes the media can help improve government integrity, as well as establish a higher standard of journalism that “the public can trust, whose main duty is to serve as a watchdog on power.”

Others attribute this crisis in part to a lack of clarity about the role religion should play in Japanese law and society. 

A group of 25 religion scholars from across the country issued a statement saying Japan “needs to develop a clear understanding of the whole concept of religion and the relationship between religion and politics,” and calling on the government to “provide a prompt and appropriate response through a transparent process to prevent more victims.”

That’s one area where there now seems to be broad agreement – that Japan’s government has been failing the people who’ve watched their families deteriorate while pumping money into the Unification Church. Since establishing a victim hotline on Sept. 5, the government’s received more than 3,800 calls, mostly from ex-Unificationists and concerned relatives. 

While the forward momentum is inspiring hope, many are left wondering why it took so long. 

“That the problems had not come to light for decades is a big issue in its own right,” says Kimura Sou, a lawyer in Tokyo. “Police and government officials had duly hesitated to deal with it because they thought it was a religious matter. I believe that attitude was fostered by the fact that lawmakers received support from the church and that some lawmakers even … seemed to give endorsement to the organization.”

“The government should have offered a helping hand to those in trouble with the church,” he adds.

Reuters

A woman in Ciudad Juarez shouts during a Nov. 13 mass protest against the electoral changes proposed by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and in support of the National Electoral Institute (INA).

Over the past four years, proponents of democracy have grown increasingly alarmed as Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has gained outsize influence over Congress, the judiciary, and the military. But on Sunday, the people drew a red line. In some 50 cities across Mexico, tens of thousands poured into the streets in coordinated protests over the president’s proposal to replace the National Electoral Institute.

The marches were the largest single public expression of dissatisfaction that Mr. López Obrador has faced since he took office, for good reason. The INE, as it is known by its Spanish acronym, is one of the most trusted government institutions in Mexico and the guardian of the public’s desire for self-government. Critics worry that the president’s reforms would render the institute a tool of the ruling party and jeopardize the country’s fragile renewal of democracy since 2000 after 71 years of one-party rule. “I defend the INE,” protesters chanted. “The INE defends my voice.”

“Today, we reaffirm our deep commitment to democracy,” José Woldenberg, the institute’s former president, told marchers in Mexico City. “We defend an electoral system that ... allows the coexistence of diversity and the replacement of governments through peaceful and participatory means.”

The protests are a response to a set of government reforms proposed by Mr. López Obrador, a populist and one of the first in a wave of leftist leaders that has spread across Latin America in recent years. Those measures, first floated in April and now being debated in Congress, would cut 200 (out of 500) legislative seats, eliminate public funding and media to political parties, and replace the INE with a new body composed of candidates named by the president, Congress, and Supreme Court.

The proposals have almost no chance of passing since the ruling party lacks the votes to enact constitutional amendments. But critics say they reflect an ongoing effort by Mr. López Obrador to consolidate power in the ruling party and “gut the institutions that have guaranteed democratic practices for a generation,” as Pamela K. Starr, a professor at the University of Southern California, told The Dialogue. The president, critics note, still harbors resentment against election officials from his failed bids in 2006 and 2012.

Mr. López Obrador reiterated his claims of widespread electoral fraud yesterday, dismissing the protests without explanation as “a false flag” in favor of corruption, racism, classism, and discrimination.

Watchdogs of democratic wellness use a range of indicators such as free speech and political competition to measure the openness of societies. If those factors focus too much scrutiny on what governments are doing, however, they may miss underlying currents of civic strength – particularly in places where populist or autocratic regimes seem to be flourishing. In Mexico, the people’s defense of a trustworthy democratic institution offers a rebuke to Mr. López Obrador’s tilt toward one-party rule dominated by a singular personality.