In the coming nine days, the curtain will come down on the United States of America (US) campaign trail. The US will have a new president-elect, in either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, after a long and gruelling campaign season. It will mark the beginning of Barrack Obama’s presidency.
Develop me: Tapiwa Gomo
The campaign trail was a cut and dry job without broken bones, spilling blood or dead bodies. Albeit a few cases of violence, the whole process was an act of democracy at play. It has to be noted that this election had a lot of smear campaigning than being a clean market place of ideas, which often characterise the American campaign system.
However, the coming week is going to be tough, decisive and defining. It is not going to be an easy ride and both the Clinton and Trump campaign camps are aware of this. A lot of cleaning will be required than marketing new policy ideas. We have been hearing more of rebuttal of what the candidates didn’t do than what they intend to do.
There is just that time in life when one wishes nature could come and decisively re-arrange things without human effort. This is the quagmire that American voters face today. The short of it is that it is a pregnant election, whose outcome will have far reaching domestic and global implications.
For starters, it is a relevant election as Obama will be leaving office at the end of this year and his legacy, especially of having rescued the US from the financial recession and the economic doldrums created by the George Bush administration and his Republicans, needs to be protected, preserved and sustained. Secondly, it is also relevant as it is most likely going to be historic if the US chooses a female President for the first time in history.
Thirdly and most importantly, if Clinton wins against Trump, she would have saved the US from Russia’s political manoeuvres and also cushioned the world from one of the most capricious, unstable and braggadocios leaders in Trump.
In such a relevant election, it is surprising that there is no appropriate and clear cut candidate, which makes it a tricky situation for American voters and the world.
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It is a choice between a hard surface and a rock. As the email leaks and testimonies from her former aide have proven, Clinton has so many skeletons in her closet. There is no doubt that the recent email decant has rattled her campaign team even though there is not direct link to her servers. Voters’ confidence in her is also mostly likely going to be dented, as shown in the latest polls. However, that will not mean her supporters will vote Trump, but they may just decide to stay home and not vote, which may just favour Trump.
But on the other hand, Trump represents everything that humanity has been running away from since the beginning of civilisation and needs to be stopped. That said, Trump has a die-hard following, largely from those white supremacists, who believe other races have taken too much of the global economic cake. Russia has been accused of tampering with the US elections in favour of a weaker candidate for its own interests. And for the first time, the Democrats and the Republicans alike are as confused as the watching world, but the good thing is that they are uniting in their confusion in backing Clinton. It is good to be confused as a bigger group than as individuals.
A Clinton presidency is historic in many ways. It will save the US from many things, but it also means the US will maintain its global hegemony.
It gives the US and its two-party system a chance to regroup, refine and redeem themselves before they can map out their way forward. And that chance can be used to save and perpetuate the Obama legacy. In a normal world, that would be the ideal situation, which is why even some key members of the Republican Party have come out in support of Clinton.
A Trump presidency too will be historic in many ways. He would be the first to defeat a female presidential candidate, but he would be representing a regression of global progress to the days of World War One and Two. Trump will re-establish the old time imperialistic hegemony, one that thrives on directly exploiting weak nations, while submitting to Russia. While Russia will fast emerge as a global hegemony, it is no doubt that Trump will discard egalitarianism. America will once again be the global bully, but in this case, one that pays allegiance to Russia. It is an awkward situation to be in, but I am imagining Zimbabwe being in a similar situation, come 2018. Zanu PF will field a 94-year-old candidate to serve a five-year term if he wins. On the other hand, the MDC-T will field the same guy who has failed to claim victory on three occasions in 16 years.
We will also have recycled material in the form of Zimbabwe People First leader Joice Mujuru and a coterie of small political parties and citizen movement groups, which are also likely going to contest elections.
None of these can be trusted with the future of our children and yet those will be the only faces on our ballot papers.
Tapiwa Gomo is a development consultant based in Pretoria, South Africa
