World leaders hedge bets while US election unclear

TOKYO – Faced with a US election that was still too close to call, world leaders hedged their bets and said there would likely be no substantial change in US foreign policy no matter who ended up winning.

Several hours after Tuesday’s polls had closed, President George W Bush had moved tantalisingly close to victory over Democratic Senator John Kerry but questions over provisional ballots in Ohio delayed a final verdict. Without Ohio, neither candidate could reach the magic number of 270 electoral votes.A senior adviser said Bush was set to declare victory on the grounds that the disputed ballots would not be enough to eliminate Bush’s lead.”It seems that a close race is continuing as expected,” Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters on Wednesday afternoon.”Regardless of which candidate wins, I think there will basically be no change in the recognition of friendship between Japan and the United States and the importance of the Japan-US alliance.”Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom was equally sanguine.”In the case of President Bush and the candidate Kerry, there is no significant difference when it comes to their deep and warm support for Israel,” he told Israeli radio.In a scenario that evoked memories of the prolonged election recount in Florida in 2000, the Kerry campaign said it would not concede Ohio until all votes, including an unknown number of provisional ballots, were counted.Officials said those ballots would not be counted for 11 days.It was an election people around the world watched possibly as closely as they would their own, reflecting the wide arc of America’s influence in the post Cold War era.Issues of deep interest to the rest of the world — the US-led war on Iraq, the state of the US economy and the war on terror — had dominated the extremely close-fought race.Bush called Kerry a “flip-flopper” who was too indecisive and weak to lead.Kerry criticised Bush’s “go-it-alone” attitude and accused him of invading Iraq without securing enough international backing.Ahead of the election, world leaders who supported the war and sent troops to Iraq such as Koizumi and Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi had wanted to see Bush re-elected.Opponents of the war, though publicly silent, privately made clear they preferred Kerry in the hopes of seeing an end to US unilateralism.Other big powers such as China and Russia favoured the status quo.Many analysts reached on Wednesday agreed with the value of continuity, especially at a time of war.”Irrespective of who wins, continuity in policy at time of war is going to be crucial and I think re-election of Bush is far better because any new administration, Democratic or Republican would involve changes in personnel, in approach and style,” said Farid Al-Khazin, political science professor at the American University of Beirut.”In a war situation, I don’t think anyone can afford these changes, with things this chaotic and volatile already.”For many outside the United States, the crucial question now was whether Bush, if he ends up winning, would be able to restore goodwill eroded by the Iraq war and US opposition to issues with widespread global appeal such as the Kyoto pact to fight global warming and the International Criminal Court.Bush ally British Prime Minister Tony Blair has made progress on climate change a top issue for his leadership of the G8 next year.”That’s not an easy issue for Bush to shift on.He may be prepared to make some cosmetic, face-saving shifts to try and help Blair, but I can’t see him making a fundamental shift of position — not to the extent of signing the Kyoto treaty or anything like that,” said British political analyst Wyn Grant, a politics professor at Warwick University.Pratap Bhanu Mehta, president of the Centre for Policy Research in the Indian capital, New Delhi, said: “I believe a second Bush presidency will be a little more conciliatory, simply because the cost of war in Iraq is turning out to be high.There will be a little more pressure to curb unilateral impulses after the experience in Iraq.”No official comment was available from North Korea, the reclusive state accused by Washington of building nuclear weapons.Pyongyang is widely believed to have put off multilateral talks on its nuclear ambitions until after the elections, hoping for a better deal with Kerry than with Bush.The fact that the election result could be a while in coming sparked some comment.”We have a nightmare.We have a ‘banana republic’, said Jesper Koll, chief economist at Merrill Lynch Japan.”It’s the greatest democracy that’s not functioning.”- Nampa-Reuters (Reporting by Linda Sieg in Tokyo, Joe Logan in Beirut, Dan Williams in Jerusalem, Kate Kelland in London and Sanjeev Miglani in New Delhi))Without Ohio, neither candidate could reach the magic number of 270 electoral votes.A senior adviser said Bush was set to declare victory on the grounds that the disputed ballots would not be enough to eliminate Bush’s lead.”It seems that a close race is continuing as expected,” Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters on Wednesday afternoon.”Regardless of which candidate wins, I think there will basically be no change in the recognition of friendship between Japan and the United States and the importance of the Japan-US alliance.”Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom was equally sanguine.”In the case of President Bush and the candidate Kerry, there is no significant difference when it comes to their deep and warm support for Israel,” he told Israeli radio.In a scenario that evoked memories of the prolonged election recount in Florida in 2000, the Kerry campaign said it would not concede Ohio until all votes, including an unknown number of provisional ballots, were counted.Officials said those ballots would not be counted for 11 days.It was an election people around the world watched possibly as closely as they would their own, reflecting the wide arc of America’s influence in the post Cold War era.Issues of deep interest to the rest of the world — the US-led war on Iraq, the state of the US economy and the war on terror — had dominated the extremely close-fought race.Bush called Kerry a “flip-flopper” who was too indecisive and weak to lead.Kerry criticised Bush’s “go-it-alone” attitude and accused him of invading Iraq without securing enough international backing.Ahead of the election, world leaders who supported the war and sent troops to Iraq such as Koizumi and Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi had wanted to see Bush re-elected.Opponents of the war, though publicly silent, privately made clear they preferred Kerry in the hopes of seeing an end to US unilateralism.Other big powers such as China and Russia favoured the status quo.Many analysts reached on Wednesday agreed with the value of continuity, especially at a time of war.”Irrespective of who wins, continuity in policy at time of war is going to be crucial and I think re-election of Bush is far better because any new administration, Democratic or Republican would involve changes in personnel, in approach and style,” said Farid Al-Khazin, political science professor at the American University of Beirut.”In a war situation, I don’t think anyone can afford these changes, with things this chaotic and volatile already.”For many outside the United States, the crucial question now was whether Bush, if he ends up winning, would be able to restore goodwill eroded by the Iraq war and US opposition to issues with widespread global appeal such as the Kyoto pact to fight global warming and the International Criminal Court.Bush ally British Prime Minister Tony Blair has made progress on climate change a top issue for his leadership of the G8 next year.”That’s not an easy issue for Bush to shift on.He may be prepared to make some cosmetic, face-saving shifts to try and help Blair, but I can’t see him making a fundamental shift of position — not to the extent of signing the Kyoto treaty or anything like that,” said British political analyst Wyn Grant, a politics professor at Warwick University.Pratap Bhanu Mehta, president of the Centre for Policy Research in the Indian capital, New Delhi, said: “I believe a second Bush presidency will be a little more conciliatory, simply because the cost of war in Iraq is turning out to be high.There will be a little more pressure to curb unilateral impulses after the experience in Iraq.”No official comment was available from North Korea, the reclusive state accused by Washington of building nuclear weapons.Pyongyang is widely believed to have put off multilateral talks on its nuclear ambitions until after the elections, hoping for a better deal with Kerry than with Bush.The fact that the election result could be a while in coming sparked some comment.”We have a nightmare.We have a ‘banana republic’, said Jesper Koll, chief economist at Merrill Lynch Japan.”It’s the greatest democracy that’s not functioning.”- Nampa-Reuters (Reporting by Linda Sieg in Tokyo, Joe Logan in Beirut, Dan Williams in Jerusalem, Kate Kelland in London and Sanjeev Miglani in New Delhi))