As long-time readers of this site know, I periodically check-in on what is going on in other democracies.  As much as some Americans think that other countries should just do what the U.S. demands, leaders in other countries face internal restraints on what they can do.  In democracies, those constraints come the voters and the desire to win the next election.  As such, elections in other countries matter to U.S. foreign policy.  This post will focus on three countries with elections (either on-going or about to occur).

Up first is South Africa.  In South Africa, voting is over and the results are almost final.  What makes South Africa important (other than being the largest democracy in Africa) is that this election represents a crucial turning point for South African democracy.  Since the fall of apartheid, the African National Congress has been the dominant party.  But there comes a point in every democracy when the founding generation either gives way to a younger generation or personality conflicts results in splits within the founders.  At this time, the governing party loses an election.  And the hallmark of a functioning democracy (as much as a certain presidential candidate may disagree) is that the parties accept such a result and there is a peaceful transfer of power.

Based on the results so far (about 99% of the vote has been counted as of the writing of this post), the ANC has only received about 40% of the vote.  While there are some complexities to South African elections due to the use of national and provincial lists, that should result in the ANC getting about 160 seats out of the 400 seats in parliament.  That leaves the ANC as the largest party in parliament but not the majority.  There will need to be coalition talks to choose the new president and the new premiere.  How these talks resolve will lay a foundation for the future of democracy in South Africa.  Will the current president (as demanded by some of the opposition parties) step aside to allow a compromise candidate (but still from the ANC) be chosen or will there be some shenanigans and corrupt deals to keep the incumbent in power. Continue Reading...