by Eze Eluchie,
Under normal
circumstances and in the true spirit of Democratic values and ethos, people are
supposed and expected to make choices that are to their best interest. The
unique selling point of Democracy, as a system of government over which several
wars have been fought with thousands of lives lost and millions maimed, is that
it offers people the opportunity to choose their leaders based on the
fundamental believe that, all things being equal, people will go for leaders
that add value to their lives and generally better their lot.
Likewise
under normal circumstances and all things being equal, the United States had
always been looked upon as the ‘bastion’ and ‘defender’ of democracy and
democratic values, with several of its foreign policy and international military
engagements carried out under the guise of fostering and deepening democracy. A
country where democracy has repeatedly served to ensure the emergence of high
quality leadership at any given time, serving to ensure great respect for the
democratic process across the world, eliciting the admiration of friends and
foes alike
Current
events leading to the 2016 Presidential Elections in the United States have established
that neither are circumstances normal nor are all things ever equal – that much
has become clear with regards to the perception of democracy since the
emergence of one hell of a queer character, the Donald
‘some-mothers-do-have-them’ Trump phenomenon on the scene of the US Presidential
race. A phenomenon which to the amazement of all, including members of the Republican
Party to which he has presently shifted his membership, scaled through a most
thorough and rigorous Primary series to emerge the Candidate of the republican Party
for the November 8 2016 Presidential elections.
That a character
of doubtful stability (as chronicled by several high profile commentators in
the US, inclusive of President Barack Obama, Senator Cruz, former Governor Jeb Bush
and prominent members of the Republican Party and journalists) possessed of the
catalogue of incredulity associated with Mr. Trump can scale through a
democratic Primary process, clinch a ticket to contest for the US Presidency,
with a probable chance of victory during the main elections and subsequent
likelihood of being at the helms of the immense economic, social and military
authority wielded across the world b the US, senders shivers down the spine of
most objective observers of international affairs and serves to question the
validity and integrity of popular franchise and democracy as a means of
selecting political leaders. From Mr. Trumps mannerisms at his own campaigns
rallies (such as asking those opposed to him to be punched and thrown out of
the hall or thrown into the freezing cold without their jackets; to asking for
a mother to be sent out on account of her crying baby; to repeated assurance to
force an independent Mexico to foot the cost of building a wall along the
US-Mexico borders; and palpable expressions of ignorance about real life issues
and foreign affairs; the litany of absurdities exhibited by the Trump fellow is
simply unending. And yet he emerged as winner in a democratic process@#?
If despite
its over 200 years of continued governance under a democratic arrangement and a
supposedly relatively enlightened populace, a Trump can still happen in the US,
one can only feel sorry for the situation across most emerging States in the
so-called global south which are pressurized into an all-comer electorate
system where all and sundry irrespective of their knowledge and awareness of
issues at stake are accorded the ‘right’ to vote – in some climes, a vote can
be bought for as little as one single meal, thus leading to the emergence of
all manners of sickos and weirdo’s as ‘democratically elected leader’. In one
rather pathetic instance of the hypothesis propounded here, under the guise of ‘democracy’,
Nigeria incredulously recently (s)elected, in a dubious process applauded by the
main ‘custodians of democracy’ – the US and EU, an octogenarian tyrannical ex-dictator
notorious for his inclination for ethnocentricism and religious bigotry to rule
over a multi-ethnic and multi-religious state. Nigerian, neighbouring West
African states and all in that perpetually ‘potentially great’ country are now living
testaments to the horrors of ‘democracy’.
From a Sub-Saharan
perspective concerned more particularly with how an outwardly engaging and militaristic
US would have been quite aggressive in addressing the expansion of extremist
Islamist jihadists across the region, one would have wished for a Trump victory
come the Presidential elections, but when one totals up the enormity of the
damage such a man will cause on virtually all other aspects of international
affairs, and that it would be unfair to wish ill on a friendly and exceptional
country, one can only hope the electorate in the United States do not wake up
the morning after November 8th 2016 wondering what manner of harm
they had just bequeathed on humanity.
Picture: US Republican
Presidential Candidate, Donald Trump.
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