Well after all this is an international forum! So why not speak of other elections and not focus only on US elections this year.
For instance there are elections brewing in Senegal, in France and lot of other countries.
For sure there is almost no way to compare political hues across big cultural gaps but since this forum is to open up our mind …
starting with France: presidential election in May this year.
many candidates (we do not have a two-party system).
incumbent president Nicolas Sarkozy … hard to define (except by “mercurial”), we label him to the right but it is a very different right than in the US.
François Hollande: tag is “socialist” which means “social-democrat” in Europe and “liberal+statist” (an oxymoron) in the US.
Marine Le Pen: far right populist (in fact “national-socialist” without the sabre-rattling)
François Bayrou: center (whatever that means: kind of hybrid between british “lib-dem” and US “Clintonista”)
“real socialist” + green + isolationist + whatever you want …
there are two runs: the 2 first past the post compete in the second round.
Who are going to be the 2 last competitors? bets are opened … stay tuned …
I no longer live in Senegal, but I do follow Wade’s attempt to kill what’s left of democracy in the only African country that’s been democratic since it’s independance to this day.
I’ve always been cynical when it comes to politics and politicians and usually expect nothing but trouble from them, but I have to admit that Wade [pronounce WAD, excuse my French] has done worse than I expected.
He’s broken every safeguard, including electoral commissions, parliament and senate. With age (he’s like 2000 years old) he’s become more and more authoritarian, and he can’t tolerate any form of protest.
I was at his press conference when he got elected in 2007, he spent his time dissing the press and foreign observers, rather than exposing his plans for the years to come. When a journalist asked him what he would do about corruption he answered, irritated :“we created an anti corruption commission, this commission hasn’t received any complaint, so there is no corruption in Senegal”.
Needless to say I had to bribe officials on countless occasions when I lived there, including to get my children’s birth certificates…
Pathetic.
He will steal this election and there’s probably gonna be some riots. But he belongs to the most influent, and richest ethnic group and sect (Wolof and Mouride), so he’ll probably go through it without a scratch…
You know, the old man might prove us all wrong, I’d be very impressed if he looses and withdraws after all the tweaking he’s made to the constitution and the corruption that’s happened.
Let’s wait and see, this should be an interesting round…
Auld alliance sounds good to me … kind of like having a queen even if they arent really in touch with reality … The weather is wonderful here … it would be nice to more gaelic but in reality that aint going to happen
Only a few times have I been so happy to be wrong, despite being an old fart, Abdoulaye Wade deserves a lot of respect for not stealing this election when he easily could have. Macky Sall is the new president of Senegal, let’s hope he cleans up the administration -the corruption is endemic- but it might be tougher than cleaning the Augean stables…
first round: François Hollande (social-democrat) leads Nicolas Sarkozy (hyper-kinetic) so they will compete in the second round.
good news: more than 80% of people went to the polls.
bad news: one in 5 voted for the extreme right
France’s elections … A message for politicians elsewhere ?:
I know many “dyed in the wool” conservatives who suprised themselves by voting for a “socialist”! Why that? because by wooing populists and extreme right (former) president Sarkozy alienated parts of his “natural” electorate!
Being himself the son of a migrant he alienated migrants and their offspring by declaring that they were part of “the problem”… too bad: new migrants tend to be a rather conservative bunch.
This said the mercurial and Dr_Jekyll_Mr_Hydish president mostly fired a “anybody but Sarkozy!” backlash. So character is important.
By electing François Hollande people wanted to say they were tired of the “Alpha Male as President” practice!
I guess I’m a few cm taller now that the weight I’d felt on my shoulders for 10-5 years has gone.
It will most probably come back one day, the later the better.
… kind of like having a queen even if they arent really in touch with reality … The weather is wonderful here 