Here it is at last, Election Day. I anticipated the long lines and voted early so now I’m just sitting back, eagerly awaiting the ballot counts. There is something truly majestic about the process of democracy. Perhaps it's merely the mood of the day, but I do tend to get a stirring of patriotic sentiment as I watch the process unfold, the willingness of citizens to brave cold, wind, rain or snow and stand in lines for hours to cast their vote in this orderly nonviolent transition of awesome power. The U.S. is not the oldest democracy in the world or the largest (India), but we do take great pride in being an example, a role model, of the democratic process. In this report from Daily Nation, a Kenyan daily newspaper, we find an affirmation of how the U.S. example resonates around the word:
At a time when everyone, except, of course, the loser, is excited about the election outcome in the United States, it is necessary for us in Kenya, and in Africa in general, to ask ourselves how it is that a gruelling 21-month campaign period can be so free of the sort of incidents that always mar our best efforts in the electoral process. […] Is there, perhaps, something wrong with the way we Africans view competitive politics? The relatively genteel manner in which the candidates conducted themselves should be a lesson for Africa. […] Here is one value that can profit us in Kenya ‚ that true democracy requires tolerance and the ability to give in with grace when we lose a political contest.
There are very real differences between the U.S. political parties, different world views, and yet we know that at the end of this day, John McCain or Barack Obama will make a concession speech in which they thank their supporters and pledge their support for the new president. More than the principle of representatives democracy it is perhaps this idea of the legitimacy of the process itself, and the idea that the losing party lives on to fight another day (on to the next election!), that can contribute most to the new and emerging democracies of the world.
