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| Sunday, 31 October 2004 |
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Bush or Kerry, decision Tuesday Globescan by M.P. Muttiah Americans will cast their final votes on Tuesday to elect their 44th President. At last, the eagerly awaited result of the battle between incumbent President George W. Bush and Senator John F. Kerry would be known to the world. As for the incumbent President, the election is a referendum for his past performance. This is the first Presidential election since the September 11 attack and the first since the invasion of Iraq and toppling of Saddam's regime. This is also the first election since 1972 to take place at a time of war and based mainly on foreign policy issues that are crucial to all especially Americans. For both contending parties this is a decisive election. Democrat John Kerry says, `this election is the most momentous of our times,' and Vice President Dick Cheney, calls it as `one of the most important in American history'. President Bush could claim his foreign policy success with the toppling of Saddam and President Karzai's victory in Afghanistan elections. But with only two days left for the final vote, Kerry struck Bush on the missing 400 tonnes of explosives in Iraq. This issue was not resolved until today.The UN nuclear agency said US officials were warned about the vulnerability of explosives stored at the installation after another facility was looted. The video tape released by Minneapolis KSTP-TV could possibly undermine Bush's suggestion that the explosives were looted before the US invasion of Iraq. Another report said more than 100,000 Iraqis were killed since the US invasion. Bush also faces another challenge: Kerry said that the FBI had begun investigating whether the Pentagon had improperly awarded 'no-bid' military contracts to Halliburton Company, formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. The latest attack on both Bush and Kerry had emerged from Bin Laden's criticism of American policy. At the beginning of the election campaign it seemed there were no major foreign policy differences, but now it has become crucial. Domestically, differences on many issues between the contenders were not wide, hence the close battle. Both Republicans and Democrats complained each other of malpractice. The complexity of election process in the US hardly allows a free and fair poll. The Chicago Tribune says:`The last time Florida voters arrived to cast their ballots in the Presidential race, they had little reason to suspect the election would be riddled with errors. This year, suspicion is presumed. With 1.6 million new registered votes since 2000, the nation's most upto date system of balloting is showing signs of buckling. Though Election Day does not formally arrive until Tuesday, nine days of early voting have proclaimed their own problems, offering a glimpse into what could lie ahead in a contest that again appears narrowly divided. Unlike four years ago, lawsuits from Iowa to Michigan have started before election day creating prospect of an extended legal battle if the contest is close in some States.' Therefore, American political scientists fear a new quirk that could threaten the country's electoral system, a tie. This is possible because the president is not chosen by popular vote but by 538 electors in the electoral college. The electors are chosen by each State and there are many ways Bush and Kerry could end up with 269 electors each. According to a new computer analysis quoted in the Washington Post, there are 33 different permutations that could make that happen. The first crisis had already begun in Florida, where election officials declared themselves baffled by the whereabouts of tens of thousands of absentee ballot papers. Boward County, one of the focal points of the recount drama in 2000, said it would re-send at least 20,000 ballots by overnight mail, after complaints that up to 58,000 forms posted on October 7 and 8 might never arrive. Thomas Schaller, a political scientist at the University of Maryland said that if there was an electoral college tie, Americans would go berserk and there would be chaos for about a month. If the electoral college is still tied, the constitution stipulates that the President should be chosen by the House of Representatives and Vice-President by the Senate. |
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