Democracy in action - Obama win is a call for real change
In a process that is transparent though hideously expensive, Barack Obama has taken a significant step toward becoming the first black president of the US.
His victory in the Iowa caucuses was stunning and left a rebuffed Hillary Clinton, the Democrats’ anointed one, languishing in third place.
Mr Obama polled 37% with John Edwards, who has made opposition to corporate greed a cornerstone policy, second at 30%.
In the Republican opening round Mike Huckabee’s victory — 34% — to Mitt Romney’s 25% completed a night of upsets by beating a field of better known names by a comfortable margin.
In Kenya the corrupt incumbent Mwai Kibaki tries to cling to power using whatever means he has at his disposal. As his security forces shoot protesters, children are gang raped as inter-tribal scores are settled. All this after what by EU observers called a rigged election.
In Pakistan, shady government forces, along with militant Muslims, are accused of being behind Ms Bhutto’s murder. Her son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, may try to sustain his family’s political dynasty by succeeding her as leader of the Pakistan Peoples’ Party. Elections scheduled for next week have been deferred.
Kenya’s election has not given the country a chance to hold President Kibaki accountable. Mr Kibaki lost but his officials cheerfully faked the results and he blithely risked catastrophe by clinging to power.
This is a familiar, sad story.
In 2005, Ethiopia held a bitterly disputed election, again denounced by EU observers. Nearly 200 people were killed in subsequent protests. In April, Nigeria held polls which cost scores of lives and were marred by criminal interference.
However, there have been peaceful elections in Africa. Contests in Botswana, Namibia and Mozambique could be so described but those countries have a dominant ruling party. Holding a fair election is easy when you know you are going to win. Commitment to democracy is not tested until the outcome is uncertain.
From Kenya to Nigeria to the appalling example of Zimbabwe, tight elections in Africa usually end in bloodshed.
Mr Kibaki has joined the Robert Mugabe Club, that dismal cabal who believe themselves indispensable. If Mr Kibaki, a quiet, softly spoken 76-year-old with a first-class degree from the London School of Economics, is determined to hold power regardless of the cost in lives, the tragic lesson is clear: hardly any African president is willing to step down after an election defeat.
A significant factor in this spiral is that African elections are battle grounds for tribal loyalties rather than for policies. They are more a census than the defining moment in the democratic process; people vote for who they are rather than what they believe.
And, in that much at least, they find an echo in our own political process. Very often we vote as our parents did; we decide on which of the two, main and very similar conservative parties to support on the basis of inherited predisposition.
We may not be Kikuyu or Luo but we instinctively know green from blue, we know both from red. This is a default position that may not serve us as well as a more rational decision-making process might.
The events of the past few days present us with another question: how possible would the radical change represented by Mr Obama’s victory, no matter how nascent, in conservative, middle-aged, 95% white Iowa be in this Republic?
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