309 - Elections: The Bad and the Good

            We will all rue this day, none more than those who voted for Trump. Those who cast their ballots for him, assuming better times ahead, are bound to be disappointed.  Those who wanted strength will, in time, discover deep-seated weakness -- both at home and abroad. Many will lose their health coverage.  Many more will find a tariffed sales tax personally expensive. For some, I hope few, what exists of their social safety net will vanish. Mexicans and Canadians will be angered, Ukrainians crushed, and those who feared what Putin (and now Trump) could do to them and to their freedoms, will be trampled.

            There are readers who will think that my sour grapes are too fermented, too alarmist.  But the Hispanic voters who turned the tide toward Trump in county after county across many decisive states will find their relatives blocked from entrance into the United States. Others will be deported summarily. Corporate executives may profit from lower taxes and diminished regulations.  The Federal Trade Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and a host of other important rule-setting bodies will be stripped naked.

            Most of all, Trump has already succeeded in delegitimizing our democracy and our once cherished democratic institutions. The rule of law waves over Washington as a tattered and disheveled pennant.  As a nation, we no longer shine brightly as a beacon of promise and integrity in a dark, disturbed, war-ravaged world.  How to recover from this calamity, or whether four years of destruction will leave us able to recover, are two among many difficult questions.

            I had originally planned to write today only about other election results across the globe. In the past two weeks there have been several assertions of meaningful democracy in critical corners of the universe. There have also been victories by Putin-inspired anti-democratic forces similar to our own.  Both kinds of results deserve comment and mention, especially given Putin's influence over Trump.

             Possibly the most important of these other elections was the presidential runoff victory of Maia Sandu in Moldova.  Another was the overwhelming defeat of the Botswana Democratic Party after 58 years in office; it showed that voters in at least one of Africa's states could count on a fair vote and the gracious concession of a defeated president.  The election last week in Mozambique was less satisfactory; the ruling Frelimo party winning in an atmosphere of fraud.  Protesters took to the streets yesterday. Similarly, when the Russian-oriented Georgia Dream Party triumphed last week in that former Soviet satellite, the popular ceremonial head of state called foul.

Moldova

            Sandu and her supporters overcame a cascade of Russian-sponsored vote purchasing to retain her very pro-Western presidency.  Her side also narrowly won a referendum on whether Moldova should continue to opt for Europe instead of Putin.  The antagonistic actions of Russian-oriented oligarchs and their massive vote buying efforts were well documented.

            Sandu was pulled to a 55 percent victory thanks to the massive vote of 327,000 overseas Moldovans. They live free, out of Moscow's reach.  Inside Moldova, Sandu's Russian-backed opponent (who lost overall with only 45 percent of the vote total) actually led by 51 to 49 percent of the votes of those who now reside inside tiny Moldova.

            Now this 2.5 million-sized country can continue to pursue its candidacy status with the European Union. Sandu and a bare majority of Moldovans opted to join Europe as soon as permitted. They fear being invaded by Putin; they were forcibly annexed to the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1991 and now, led by Sandu, want never to return to a subjugated status.

            Moldovans speak a non-Slavic language almost identical to Romanian and share a culture with its larger neighbor. On the other side of Moldova there is a thin breakaway Russian-controlled satrapy called Transnistria; 1,500 Russian troops still occupy the unrecognized territory that was carved out of Moldova by Russians in 1991. Beyond Transnistria is Ukraine.

Georgia

            Georgia also won candidate status with the European Union in 2023.  But the pro-Western state that followed the rose revolution of 2003 and brought President Mikheil Saakashvili to power as a committed democrat is long past. The Georgian Dream Party is controlled and bankrolled by Bidzina Ivanishvili, an autocrat who made his fortune in Russia and favors Putin and Russia's hegemony in and about the Caucasus.

            President Salome Zourabichvili  has been outspoken since the "illegimate" election last week.  Georgian Dream cheated with Russian help, she says, rigging a number of poll results. She affirms that the results were “a complete falsification.”  “We were … victims," she declared, "of what can only be described as a Russian special operation, a new form of hybrid warfare.”

            Protesters in Tbilisi agreed and spent several days after the vote in the streets.  But Ivanishvili has long had the last word; he even wants Georgia to apologize for warring against Russia in 2008 and for opposing Putin's designs on Ukraine.

            Georgia will not be following Moldova into Europe or working with the West to stave off further Putinesque invasions. The EU has already signaled its displeasure at the collapse of democracy in Georgia. Under its current leadership. Georgia is also profiting from the smuggling of sanctioned technological goods that make their way from Ankara to Moscow via Tbilisi.

Botswana

            Many commentators ascribe the BDP's resounding loss on Saturday to the Umbrella for Democratic Change Party led by Duma Boko, a 54-year-old Harvard Law School graduate, to the recession in diamond sales globally. Botswana produces 20 percent of the world's gem diamonds and depends for 25 percent of its GDP on diamond sales.  Botswana's resulting 28 percent unemployment, and about 44 percent among younger workers, was a further factor in the BDP's massive lack of appeal to the electorate.           

            But voters also turned against the BDP because it had lost its way after six decades.  Originally, the party produced mainland Africa's most democratic, most free, most socially progressive, and, per capita, most prosperous state.  Thanks to the principled leadership from 1966 to 1979 of Sir Seretse Khama and from 1980 to 1998 of Sir Ketumile Quett Masire, the BDP was mainland Africa's least corrupt polity by a large margin.  The discovery of gem diamonds was a major contributor to unrivalled income growth from 1975, but so were sensible management policies, institutions that distributed power, and Khama and Masire's emphasis on integrity, transparency, accountability, fairness, tolerance, commons sense, and civility.  Politics and political performance in Botswana under their presidencies, and under President Festus Mokae from 1998 to 2008, was exemplary.  Botswana provided retroviral medicine to combat HIV-AIDS well before other African countries; owned the diamonds but let South Africa's DeBeers Co. manage the mines and a sorting center, and encouraged its people to speak out in a manner that few other African states permitted.

            But the people of Botswana felt that President Mokgweetsi Masisi's administration since 2018 had let corruption enter the national body politic. They also were unnerved by Masisi's long-running feud with his predecessor, President Ian Khama. The latter formed a competing party to campaign in this election against Masisi, something unheard of in Botswana. 

            Boko's presidency may be able take up where Mogae and Masire left off, returning Botswana to unquestioned probity and economic growth.  But what his victory unquestionably represents is democracy at its best.  Masisi did not rig the vote; he did not try to stay in office after being defeated at the ballot box. He conceded early and fit Botswana into the slim African ranks where transfers of power have been accomplished gracefully.

*****

            As U.S. Vice-President Harris said yesterday, in very different circumstances: "A fundamental principle of American democracy is that when we lose an election, we accept the results,” she said. “That principle, as much as any other, distinguishes democracy from monarchy or tyranny, and anyone who seeks the public trust must honor it.”

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