Date/Time: Wed Nov 8 13:30:01 EST 2000
LONDON (Reuters) - World reaction to the bizarre course of the U.S. elections ranged from bemusement to contempt Wednesday, with one commentator calling the American electoral system "idiotic." Even with 99.9 percent of the votes counted from Tuesday's balloting, no clear winner had emerged between Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore and his Republican challenger George W. Bush. In turmoil unprecedented in modern times, Bush's apparent victory was put on ice for at least another day pending a recount in Florida. World leaders who had rushed to congratulate Bush were forced to row back as Gore's hopes remained alive.
The Dutch even officially retracted their congratulations. Other quirky features of the closest U.S. election in decades included the dead man who won a Senate seat and the pensioners who mistakenly voted for the wrong candidate -- in Florida -- because they found the ballot slips too complicated. "What is happening in the United States?" asked Nabil Ramlawi, director of the Palestinian Authority's permanent mission to the United Nations in Geneva. "Usually the other parts of the world are accused when this happens in their country but today we see it in the United States."
Bafflement was widespread. "I'd certainly like to be the first from this dispatch box to congratulate the president-elect -- whoever he turns out to be," Britain's Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson said in parliament to laughter Wednesday. He was speaking as London's Evening Standard newspaper on the streets outside was demonstrating the dilemma faced by many media organizations. "BUSH WINS" - OR NOT? "Bush Wins," screamed the front-page headline as office workers popped out for lunch Wednesday. But later versions were headlined "Recount" while a story inside was entitled "How Bush was the next president for 84 minutes." "The leadership of the western world was today hanging on a few hundred votes -- and the result might not be known for 10 days," the Standard added. Confusion outside the United States was also widespread on the arcane workings of the electoral college, the body which actually chooses the next president and which had earlier seemed set to go with Bush despite Gore having won more of the popular vote.
"They have an idiotic system of government invented 200 years ago," said analyst Christoph Bertram, head of Germany's Research Institute for International Affairs. "Why should it work?" he asked in an interview with Reuters last week. "You may have a situation where the candidate who wins in the electoral college may not win the popular vote -- it is an extraordinary political system not to be emulated by anyone."
Another critic was Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson. "I'm a bit confused, but unlike some people I've not sent a telegram of congratulations then had to withdraw it," he said. "If Bush wins he will be president in an election where his opponent got more votes. I think that is going to lead to a debate about the constitution," said Persson, a Social Democrat who has made no secret of his preference for Gore.
Still, the furor failed to perturb at least one corner of the world. In the Central African Republic, few people turned up to watch the results come in at the U.S. embassy despite the offer of a free breakfast. "All that is a very long way away," Raphael Kopessoua, publication director of the Vouma weekly newspaper, told Reuters. "I wonder if Al Gore or George Bush Jr. could point to the Central African Republic on a map."