Elections
As the counting in the month long Indian general elections begins tommorrow evening (US eastern time) many NPR stations will be broadcasting this program to commemorate the election.
Before discussing the Indian election, it will be worth while to look at various elections that took place from around the US election to till now and what it means to US.
Russian presidential election meant continued hold of Putin on power despite being term limited and continued source of pain, Russia is more like a wounded tiger waiting to strike, Baltic states will be first to go.
Eucador election and Bolivian referendum indicated the continued shift to left in Latin America, not a good trend in American backyard.
Israeli election meant a lot to US as it wants to be peacemaker, statements like "Annapolis agreement is dead" by President Netanyahu, diminishes US role in the region
Other important election was Algeria were a good Arab friend of US got elected.
South African and Indian elections are of a seperate category as seen by US, only expectation US had from these two countries was that the election to take and government to be formed.
South Africa which had shown alarming signals of being consumed by the African trend of anarchy after President Mbeki was eased out, was pulled back from sure disaster by none other than Nelson Mandela.
India (oh boy) surrounded by Pakistan (where Taliban is gaining strength), Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Burma, is a strong buffer against all the negataive forces of the world that is of importance to US. So, it is important that election results are declared at the earliest, but the election will throw a fractured verdict and it may be months before a government is formed. That should not hamper security operations because of the seperation of army and political process.
For India a delay in forming the government may not matter because the Indians are these days getting government out of the way instead expecting anything from the government. With strong socialist principles of governance in India, irrespective of any party that forms the government it will be a case of more things change more they remain the same
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