By Habib Aruna
American voters go to the polls in a few hours to elect a new President, in an election that is seen as the most critical, crucial and important in a generation. An election that might also greatly affect the American brand, a democratic brand that has for centuries been the envy of the world if it turns out in the wrong way.
The contest this time is between Vice-President Kamala Harris, who is the candidate of the ruling Democratic Party and Former President, Donald Trump, who is again the challenger, carrying the flag of the Republic Party. For months, after President Joe Biden was forced to leave the race for his deputy, due to poor performance in a debate with Trump, the candidates have been crisscrossing the country, particularly the battleground states also known as swing states to woo voters.
Expectedly, the world, particularly Nigerians, have been showing more than a passing interest in the campaign and hoping that Ms Harris comes out on top at the end of the day. It is however not as easy as that because we are just observers and onlookers in an exercise that is both unpredictable and consequential. Most parts of the world, going by reports, have not been comfortable with the tone and rhetoric of the Trump campaign and would therefore be hoping for a Harris presidency.
But, unlike in Nigeria where candidates with the popular votes are declared the winner, or in other countries where candidates with the highest percentage of votes are declared winners, the American electoral system is distinctly different. Winners of presidential elections are decided by the Electoral College. In other words, candidates like Hillary Clinton or Al Gore got more popular votes and still lost the election because Donald Trump and George Bush won the Electoral College votes. Each of the 50 states in the country has certain Electoral votes assigned to it by the constitution, this according to scholars, was to make all the states important in picking the leader of the country. There are however raging debates that the Electoral College has outlived its importance and that the winner of the popular votes should be declared the winner as is being done in other advanced democracies.
Over the years however, the way the swing states vote for candidates have become more dynamic because of changing demography and the mood of the country. For instance, Florida and Ohio, once regarded as swing or battleground states, cleared the path for the proverbial 270 Electoral College votes for Barack Obama. The difficulty faced by Democratic presidential candidates, after Obama, in winning the two states have made the path to 270 increasingly difficult for them.
And this is why the two major parties are now focused on Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia. Even North Carolina, a hitherto safe state for the Republicans is now a toss-up. Just by the weekend there were reports that Harris was leading Trump by four points in Iowa, a heavily white state with a history of voting for Republicans in presidential elections. In addition, the peculiarity of the United States electoral system is that there are traditional Red and Blue states where elections are easily predictable. That is why the focus is on the battleground states, where many believed the outcome of the presidential election will be decided. But the biggest of the swing states is Pennsylvania with 18 Electoral votes, which presupposes that the path to 270 required Electoral College votes will be smoother if any of the candidates is able to win this important state that hosted the delegates that came for the convention in Philadelphia in 1776.
Even so, the world is watching closely with trepidation and looking at the various options on the table if the outcome of the election is unfavorable to what they are expecting. There is however no doubt that another Trump presidency will disrupt the current alliances formed by Biden to solve challenges facing the world when he came in four years ago; it will affect illegal immigrants who came to the country without the requisite papers, most of who, the GOP candidate had vowed to deport; it will affect the economy, through his tax cuts that will make the rich richer and the poor poorer; Trump right wing and hawkish policies would also affect the already burning and unstable Middle East region, making a lasting peace between the Palestinians and Israel elusive and lastly, just like his first term, Africa will receive less attention if Trump is given another key to the White House. To him, Africa is not important and should not therefore be reckoned with.
On the contrary, Harris, who will be the first African/Asian American president, if elected, will continue what she met on ground. She will be friendly with Africa and her people and her policies won’t deliberately be inimical to the interests of our continent; there is every likelihood that the two-state solutions to the lingering crisis in Gaza will be pursue with vigour and a ceasefire will come in place immediately; on the economy, Harris will not tax poor and middle class, but the rich, who she said, will have to pay their fair share; the world will be a safer place under her and America will both be respected by comity of nations and be feared by adversaries; more importantly, decency and decorum would remain key features in politics and the American brand will remain undiluted.
As it is, the race, surprisingly and according to the various opinion polls, remain very tight. This should come as a surprise to watchers of the process outside the United States, who will be expecting the Democratic candidate to be coasting home to victory by now, given what is coming out of the mouth of Trump and his antecedents as the mastermind of the insurrection that took place at the Capitol on January 6th, 2020. Since then the former president had been convicted of multiple crimes by two or more courts. He was also impeached by the House of Representatives as a punishment for his attempt to stop the process for confirming Biden as the winner of the 2020 election.
In truth, it will be difficult for the world to understand the nature and character of a political system that will allow a person like Trump to again win the primaries of a major political party and be within a distance of the White House. I am not sure a person with that kind of character flaw will have a chance to be on top of the ticket of a major party in Western Europe or any country with a robust democratic tradition. But the American electorate thinks differently!
Even though the French traveler, historian and philosopher, Alex De Tocqueville told us more than a century ago that the American democratic system has a way of reinventing itself, as it has done at critical juncture of his enviable history, it is doubtful if he ever thought that a person like Trump, who represents a clear danger to its constitution, way of life and democracy, will one day be a dominant figure in the political terrain.
That is why we would heave a sigh of relief if voters give the job of leader of the free world to a woman of substance, who has the character, capacity, composure, decency, dignity, intelligence and above all, a safe and steady hand, Kamala Harris. America and indeed, the world will be a better place without Trump in the saddle!