The failure to read signs and navigate the vestibules of three major—two aspiring, one existing—super powers may lead to significant loss for Nepal. The Indian government is to get a makeover next year, and the Chinese and American governments this week. This week, there will be an election (the US) and once-in-a-decade transition (China) to choose new decision makers. It is in the long term interest of Nepal not to pass judgment on the way they are conducted, but rather to understand them and to be prepared for the ramification of the outcomes.
The 18th People’s Congress of Chinese Communist Party will convene and formally select Xi Jinping as its next leader along with members of powerful bodies including Politburo (being reduced to seven from nine members) and Central Military Commission. Jinping is the third decennial leader after the evolution initiated by Deng Xiaoping that liberalized China’s economy. The Chinese approach to getting to commercial parity with the West involves stifling political dissent while promoting economic freedom. The ‘princeling’ Jinpig—so called because he belongs to the group of offspring of the Chairman Mao’s fellow cultural revolutionaries—is set to continue the glacial process of opening up of political space from local level up, all the while continuing the country’s full march to market economy, regardless of the expected slowdown of the country’s breakneck double-digit growth.
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This Tuesday, the US will elect its 45th (or reelect the 44th) president since the birth of the republic. After Democrat Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, the Republican (GOP) legislative leadership pursued an agenda of total obstruction of all his proposals—an unprecedented event in the US political history. The Tea Party movement further hardened the right wing Republican politics which resulted in uncompromising stance to Obama’s policies.
In the US, before candidates can become parties’ standard bearers they have to go through intra-party election. The primary nomination process makes the two candidates cater to their most ardent bases to secure their nomination, the result of which is no better illustrated than by the loss of Hillary Clinton in Democratic party primary of 2008. In the Republican primaries of 2012, former Massachusetts governor Willard Mitt Romney out-winged the most right wing of Republican candidates to secure his nomination, in sharp departure from his record of relatively moderate Governorship of a progressive state (Pennsylvania).
His position on Israel was right of the Likud party (a minority position even within Israel); on immigration similar to the notorious Arizona “show me your paper” law; on tax cuts akin to Bush’s on steroids. But all those positions have dissipated since the first TV debate with Obama—the turnaround aptly termed by the Obama camp as ‘Romnesia’. Romney’s moderate stance of late has made the election results anyone’s guess with both tied statistically, at around 49 percent each.
From early summer this year, through the party conventions that nominated the respective candidates until the first TV debate, the Obama camp had played up Romney’s plutocratic vulture capitalist image, an image cemented with his own, secretly recorded, ‘47 percent’ comment, where he attributed that percentage of Americans as ‘moochers’. The polls around end of September reflected that slip, with Obama ahead by 7 points, well beyond the margin of error. But on the back of Romney’s very good debate performance, where he went toe to toe with the incumbent president who appeared lethargic, the gap disappeared and the polls showed a dead heat.
The number of Electoral College votes (which will decide US election) each state gets is equal to the total number of its federal legislative officeholders. California, with 53 Congress men and women, and two Senators, is the biggest electoral prize with 55 Electoral College votes; at low end there are seven states with three electoral votes each. There are a total of 435 Congressmen and 100 Senators, and Washington, D.C. has three electors. Obama is closer to the winning 270 electoral votes than Romney because the blue liberal states have higher number of electoral votes than the red conservative states. RealClearPolitics.com currently has Obama at 201 with Romney at 191, and 146 as toss ups. Huffington Post has Obama at 277, Romney at 206, and 55 as toss ups. Nate Silver of Five Thirty blog of New York Times has currently pegged chances of Obama victory at 79 percent. Should there be a tie of 269 votes each, the House of Representatives will decide the election outcome.
With Obama’s victory his policy of international collaboration, allowing global institutions to take the lead in areas where security of US may not be a direct concern, rather than imposing American agenda, can be expected to continue. His recent dealings with Iran and North Korea seem to be in line with that policy. The US is likely to continue the cooler, smarter head approach of Hillary Clinton even after she gives up her Secretary of State position. The comprehensive immigration policy will get an impetus. Economic policies of last four years will also get continuity.
With Romney’s victory, the neocons of Bush years will once again control foreign policy. To say that a war with Iran is inevitable with the Republicans at the helm sounds far-fetched, until one harks back to the second Iraq war. There will be greater focus on reducing tax receipts, thereby enabling the Republican mantra of “starving the [government] beast” and downsizing of domestic social programs and international aid programs. It’s easy to dismiss this prognosis going by the post-first debate moderation witnessed in Romney’s speeches, but a more telling sign of the policies he will espouse is the company he now keeps.
According to the 2010 Census there are 59,490 Nepalis in US, with only a small portion of them qualifying as voters in the November 6 election. Anecdotal evidences in Nepali community reveal that around 10-20 percent have Republican inclinations while the rest identify with the Democrats. That is in line with many other immigrant demographics similar to Nepalis’, who have gotten negative vibes from the Republican nativistic rhetoric. This block of constituents will have the ears of decision makers in future US dealings with Nepal.
The US will have greater interest in Nepal in coming years and decades for many reasons, no less due to the rising influence and interest of China. In recent years US policies towards Nepal seem to have been detoured via New Delhi. That will not be the case if Nepal recognizes the intricacies of American elections and understands the panorama of competing views that define the US political landscape. A democratic, secure, self-sufficient independent Nepal, where life, liberty and pursuit of happiness are enshrined as inviolable, is in the long term interest of the US. Understanding that the US does not have a monolithic view of Nepal and our ability to read the telltale signs emerging from the antechamber of US politics will be as crucial to protect Nepal’s national interest.
The author was president of Association of Nepalis in the Americas (ANA) and is chairman of American Federation of Nepali Organization (AFNO)
Simon@newweb.net