Thursday, Jul 24, 2008
From the streets of Paris to offices in Japan, the world chuckles and shrugs at the U.S. election circus.
Nov 10, 2000 | As protesters and TV crews flood the streets of Florida, and the country keeps its eyes glued to recount results in the Sunshine State, the rest of the world looks on with even greater confusion, and in some cases, derision and glee.
World headlines wailed, moaned and guffawed at the current election crisis unfolding in the United States. London tabloid the Mirror led its Friday cover with a picture of George W. Bush and Al Gore's heads superimposed on a park bench like two Forrest Gumps, side by side, with the headline, "Forrest Chumps: U.S. humiliated in Presidential Shambles." Germany's tabloid Bild Zeitung led with "U.S. Vote: A White House Mystery Novel," and Italy's La Stampa described the election debacle as "The New Cold War."
The following dispatches were filed by Salon contributors around the globe.
JAPAN
The Japanese have found the election confusion both frightening and funny.
"This is very scary -- the world's lone superpower still doesn't have a president," said Samito Ito, deputy foreign news editor for the Japan Times, the country's daily English-language newspaper. "Since the American people like to file lawsuits, naturally the legal wrangling will take a long time. It seems to me the United States will be in a brain-dead situation come January."
Other Japanese found the situation humorous.
"It seems like a comedy to me," said Koichi Morikawa, a 29-year-old software consultant for Oracle Japan. "But the question is, if Gore won in the Florida race, I don't think you have a very accurate way of collecting votes because Bush won in the first round."
Junichi Yahata, 44, was one of four Japanese software consultants shown the Palm Beach ballot two days after the election. When asked to "vote" for Gore, he and his colleagues chose the correct hole.
"I was not confused," he said. "It was quite clear for me."
Less clear is America's level of technical sophistication, he said.
"America gives me the impression that it is an information-technology super-country, and they are recalculating by hand? It's quite strange."
-- Heather World
RUSSIA
The reaction in Russia to the U.S. election fiasco has involved equal measures of gloating, incredulity and humor.
After suffering through 70 years of American lecturing, hectoring and boasting about democracy -- not to mention a decade of Western aid designed to assist Russia in burying its totalitarian past and adopting American political values -- Russians are now able to point their fingers across the sea, enjoy a belly laugh and regain some self-respect.
"In Russia, presidential elections are conducted in a more democratic way [than in the United States] and are more easily understood by the voters," said Alexander Veshnyakov, chief of the Russian Central Elections Commission. There is no electoral college system in Russia; a Russian presidential candidate needs only to win a majority of the popular vote, or, failing that, a runoff round, in order to claim the top job.
President Vladimir Putin offered, albeit in jest, Veshynakov's services to the United States: "If necessary [Veshnyakov] can tell his American colleague how best to act." Former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov put it most bluntly: "This is simply quite stupid. The American electoral system needs modernizing."
Russian friends of mine have wasted no time in pointing out the similarities between past elections in their country and the ongoing poll in the United States: A privileged, inarticulate oaf with a history of boozing runs for president. The national media manifests its bias by misreporting the outcome, and turmoil ensues. That Gov. George Bush is the son of a former president evokes loathsome notions of favoritism and dynasties -- problems that have afflicted Russia throughout its 1,000-year history.
The campaigns of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Bush are not entirely symmetrical, of course. But the fact that the election now hangs on results from the one state where Bush's brother happens to rule, and where widespread "irregularities" in his favor just happen to have occurred, creates the appearance of Russian-style fraud and electoral finagling.
Russian women, I note, have strongly favored Gore both for his personal attractiveness and intelligent demeanor. Many have described Bush, in contrast, as having a "debil naya rozha" -- a dimwitted mug.
As they did with Yeltsin in the early days of his presidency, Russian men who are fond of the bottle enjoy perceiving a soul mate in Bush and consider him, between burps, "just like one of us."
-- Jeffrey Tayler
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