US elections: results farce highlights undemocratic system

After counting 100 million votes there is no clear decision on who is to be the next President of the United States. A recount in Florida is underway after less than 0.5 per cent of the vote separated Bush and Gore. The decision here is critical since it determines who will win. But amid protests that the ballot paper was confusing and led to many of Al Gore 's votes going to far-right candidate Pat Buchanan three things are already crystal clear about these elections.

First, little separated the two candidates on policy. Both are bought and sold by the big US corporations who provide them each with the bulk of their campaign finance. Whoever wins will prove to be an enemy of working class people in the USA and those abroad fighting for justice and against oppression.

Secondly, more was spend on buying votes and fixing heads through TV on this election than ever before. Around USD150 million was spent by each camp in direct campaign and more than this again was "soft money", spent by unofficial bodies promoting the causes of each candidate. The final bill will total nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars.

Ralph Nader spend USD 8 million, less than what Bush and Gore spent in one week in TV ads in the final week of the campaign. Neither main party is serious about reform of campaign finance. Both insist on the right of big business to buy votes and victories in this way, thus rendering real democratic debate about alternatives impossible.

Thirdly, despite a massive effort to persuade people to vote, barely half the electorate did so (51 per cent). This is a function of the first two points: Around 100 million voters think that their vote is a waste of time given the monopoly big business has on setting the political agenda and given the insignificant differences between the parties.

Fourthly, the media, especially the TV networks, have further contributed to the hollowing out of democracy by the role they played in the immediate aftermath of the closing of the first polling booths. They ran exit polls to "prove" that Bush was winning and would win, and actively contributed to voter apathy and encouraged Gore voters to stay at home.

Fifthly, the closeness of the vote has highlighted the crucial role played by the electoral college which actually decides who is to be President. These few dozen party officials gather in the next weeks and cast their vote, usually in accord with the decision of the popular vote in their state on a winner takes all basis.

But if Bush gets the 270 electoral votes he needs to win he will be the first President to win for 112 years while getting a minority of the popular vote; already it is clear that Gore won more votes throughout the USA.

This system originated at a time when white men with property alone where entitled to vote and was then retained to ensure that if the "masses" did not deliver the result that the big bosses wanted then they could overturn it in the electoral college. It still exists as a safety valve for the US ruling class in times of social crisis that will surely develop in the years ahead.

But the very institution of the Presidency itself is an affront to democracy, undermining as it does the sovereignty of the elected deputies. Like the electoral college and the existence of two houses of Congress, the whole system is designed to create a system of checks and balances that diffuse radical challenges to the rule of property.

These preliminary observations alone underline the corrupt and undemocratic nature of bourgeois politics in the western world's biggest democracy.

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