Around world, voters’ focus can be perplexing

These are the closing stages of the elections in the United States, nearly bringing to a close an election year in the world.

By next week, the world’s only remaining superpower will have a president-elect. Either it will be a woman – a first in US history – or a man elected for the second time after being rejected in the last elections.

It is hard to think of a candidate anywhere for any election who has remained popular while promoting some of the most extreme positions that would appear to be very unpopular or differ significantly from the convention.

Donald Trump is an enigma. He has said and done things that would have brought down a candidate anywhere, yet in his case, he soldiers on. This past week, with only days before people go to the booths to vote and long after early voters had been streaming nationwide to cast their ballots, his surrogates were at it again.

A comedian mounted the stage in New York’s iconic Madison Square and referred to Puerto Rico, which is part of the United States, as a floating island of garbage.

Trump has had complex relations with Puerto Rico. While president, he held back support for the island when it was facing a natural disaster, and when he turned around, he offered them toilet paper, which he tossed to the people of Puerto Rico.

He has said terrible things about women and his exploits with them. He has said even worse about migrants in a country made up of new and historical migrants. On top of that, he has been accused of lying and resisted his speeches being checked for accuracy. He has been convicted of felonies.

But he cuts the image of a successful businessman. Never mind that his businesses have encountered challenges with breaking even or sometimes have had difficulty complying with the standards of ethics.
Yet, in the middle of all this, he rides high.

The evangelical church in the US embraced him, finding ways to explain away his foibles and find fault with those who find fault with him. That segment of the church has explained away that no human is perfect — a good argument only that they have not extended similar graces to others before.

Instead, the church wing has found faults they cannot overlook in others — Barack Obama, who is well known for attending a Baptist church, and Joe Biden, a Catholic. The Republican candidate’s history of church attendance is patchy at best, and his difficulty navigating through the Bible is now well documented.

It does appear in contemporary politics that the issues that the public focuses on may be difficult to explain as they are concerns that should ordinarily end the quest for higher office for such candidates.
The public’s tolerance of acceptable office standards is now astounding.

This is not only in the case of the US. Of course, the elections running in Europe, South America, and elsewhere, including Africa, are surprising, as they explore what the public is looking for in a candidate and what may emerge as the standards for office going forward.

Two years ago, Kenyans went to the polls with candidates making lofty promises, and it does appear that sometimes candidates have no intention of following through but simply to help them cross the line. But it is the gullibility of the electorate that is astounding. Or could it be that the public’s nature and expectations are also changing?

Sometimes, indications are that specific candidates would implement policies with dire consequences for society. But maybe society cannot discern these consequences in time, or perhaps they do not care.
The end of this year will be monumental indeed.

Across the globe, more voters than ever headed to the polls this year to elect new leaders. Some have been tried, but others are entirely new—even those who have been tried often come into office with new policies and promises. What will the world look like in the years to come?
The world is journeying into unchartered territory.
— The writer is the Dean of Daystar
University’s School of Communication