Election week - hurrah! China and the US go the polls.

I wrote on here last year sometime that in the previous 12 months I’d been in three countries – Lebanon, Trinidad and Britain – where sitting governments were kicked out in favour of coalition governments.  They’re all still hanging in there – no surprise in Lebanon, where coalition is a way of life and always has been, but Trinidad seems to be doing ok too.  As for Britain…..well, it seems to me that Cameron’s government is only hanging on for two reasons: first, the lack of a credible alternative, as the Labour party continues to struggle with the search for an identity (such a shame that after all the early promise of Blair’s New Labour it all soured under Brown and has left them totally useless).  Second, and more importantly, the first thing Cameron did after taking power was introduce legislation that essentially removed from Parliament the Vote of No Confidence, and guaranteed a full 5 year term in office – no matter how incompetent and unpopular the coalition turned out to be.  And they are certainly that – from the outside looking in, this ConLib coalition seems confused over policy, unsure of anything except staying out of the Euro at all costs, and specialises in government by SoundBite…….  Should the Vote of No Confidence still be there, I have no doubt they would be kicked out at the earliest opportunity, and it seems grossly undemocratic (and hypocritical) of Cameron to deny the British people the opportunity.  So Britons will have to wait another couple of years to make their feelings known at the ballot box.

Shame.

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There is no chance of a coalition in either country that has an election this week, of course. 

In China, there is the “election” (if you can call it that) of the new governing Politburo.  But since they are all members of the Communist Party and the decisions were taken weeks ago and are only being rubber stamped by the Party Congress in its once a decade beano, it’s all a foregone conclusion.  The major interest will follow over the next weeks and months as the new boys get to grips with running the second biggest (or is it the biggest now?) economy in the world.  This latest government has undoubtedly made monumental strides in bringing China forward, moving from a peasant and agricultural economy to an industrial and financial powerhouse.  The challenge for the new boys will be to maintain that progress, and maybe even move to a more democratic society.  Not that I will hold my breath over that happening anytime soon.  They also need to get to grips with the corruption that seems endemic in China (as in Russia, Ukraine, Byelorus…..see the common theme there?) and the continuing authoritarian rule that blocks freedom of speech, Google and Facebook (amongst others) for the merest critical comment.  I’m not holding breath over that one, either.  It will take a whole new generation to come through for that to happen – so probably not in my lifetime then.

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There will be no coalition in the US either.  While China is a one-party state, the US has two, and there is never any credible opposition or alternative to either.  Now and again someone will stand as an Independent, and proceed to get hammered at the ballot box and lose a fortune without making any difference at all – this is democracy, American style, where votes and elections are won by bank balance as much as policy.  This year, between them, the two parties have raised and spent half a billion dollars to try and get elected.  Much of the money has been spent in advertising, a lot of it virulent and nasty, as each party tries to paint his opponent in the worst possible light.  And much of the advertising has been, shall we say, less than honest.  Another heap of cash has been spent ferrying candidates from state to state, electioneering at town hall meetings and making speeches to carefully vetted invitation only audiences – and of course the world’s media.  Against a machine like that, what chance has any independent or minority party (for instance the Greens) of making any kind of impact come election time?  None – they hardly have any nuisance value, let alone a relevant voice.

But no matter how bad the situation, there is no prospect of the Democrats and Republicans sharing responsibility or decision making in the way a European style coalition ever would.  It’s just not in their political DNA.   For the past four years, Obama has been struggling with a global recession and a discredited banking system, not to mention two expensive conflicts thousands of miles away in Afghanistan and Iraq, all bequeathed to him by good ol’ Republican George Bush.   The recession gave him unprecedented unemployment numbers, and industries, notably the auto industry, that were all but deceased from their extreme uncompetetiveness.  He has tried to make a difference and do something about it, and at every step a Republican-dominated Senate has blocked him.  To his credit, he managed to force through bills to provide billions of dollars of state aid to save the car industry (and with it millions of jobs).  He forced through his “Obamacare” health reforms, decried by Republicans as an expense too much, despite providing guaranteed health care to millions who previously had been unable to afford any kind of treatment.  US troops have largely been brought home from Iraq and a timetable is in place to do likewise from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.  He even managed to do something Bush, for all his gung-ho rhetoric, had failed to do and take out Osama bin Laden.   There has been a huge cost, of course, to all this and the national debt is running at record levels. 

I think, given what he’s been up against, he’s done a pretty good job.  Things are turning round, the economy seems to be slowly recovering, with jobless numbers going down month by month.  If the rest of the world – notably Europe, that is in a dreadful state – could manage to drag itself out of its own recession, he’d be in a much better position, and his re-election guaranteed.  Even with all the problems still to be faced and debt to be paid off, he seems to me to deserve a second term, to finish the work he’s started.   Mitt Romney, his Republican opponent in tomorrow’s Election, seems to have spent much of his campaign calling Obama incompetent and worse, and offers the alternative of lower taxes and smaller government as a way forward.  He cites his success running private equity firm Bain & Co before moving into politics – despite Bain being a leading player in the very casino banking that is now universally (if somewhat unfairly) vilified as the root cause the world’s financial crisis.   Hardly a ringing recommendation, I would have thought.  He has also pledged that the first piece of legislation he will sign, on his first day in office, will be to repeal Obamacare in its entirety, thus throwing those millions of beneficiaries back onto the medical scrapheap.  That promise alone should set alarm bells ringing nationwide and disqualify the bloke from office.

But no.  With voting tomorrow, the Presidential race is neck and neck – too close to call.  Obama 49%, Romney 48%.   Or 48% and 50%.  Or 49% to 49%......it all depends on which poll you look at.    So here we are today, with the pair of them flying across country, last minute speechifying to try and persuade the few undecided voters to go their way.   Obama has surged a little over the past week, as he has been perceived to manage the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy very well.  Will it be enough?

Personally, I hope so.  The guy seems more genuine than Romney by a mile, and the policies he’s followed and implemented so far have clearly been aimed at the less well-off and improving the lives of all Americans, not merely the wealthy.  I remember at his first election, to counter his politics of Hope (“Yes, we can!” – remember that?) there were all kinds of scare stories circulating about his being a closet Muslim and dangerous, but of course they all proved to be so much hot air.  This time around, despite Romney being a Mormon, religion has proved to be a non-runner as a concern to the electorate…..and to me, this is how it should be: an individual’s religious beliefs should not disqualify him from holding office if all other factors show him to be the best qualified.  The same goes for colour, gender and sexual orientation – I can’t wait to see the first native American lesbian elected to the White House.