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Thursday, June 5, 2008
Haitians intrigued by US presidential race
Beset by almost daily kidnappings, terrible poverty and a food crisis that triggered riots in April, Haitians could be excused for paying scant attention to the U.S. presidential race.
But some Haitians — mostly the educated and the island’s tiny middle and upper classes — are watching closely, mindful of a long history of American involvement with their impoverished Caribbean nation.
Many are intrigued that a black man, Sen. Barack Obama, is poised to claim the nomination of one of the major American political parties and will head the ticket in the fall.
“A lot of Haitians are talking about it,” said Fritz Pierre, 36 an unemployed mechanic who makes a living changing money for foreigners in Petionville, a suburb of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. “Haiti is a black nation and I think he’d be more likely to help us because he is a black man.”
But other Haitians said Sen. Hillary Clinton was their first choice, because they feel Bill Clinton was a good president who helped Haiti. “Bill Clinton was a gem, smart and powerful,” said Sergot Soufrance, 38, who sells flowers in Petionville. “I preferred Hillary, because Obama doesn’t have as much experience. But I’d love to see Hillary as his vice president.”
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Asians cheer Obama’s victory
Senator Barack Obama “rewrote American history” when he claimed victory in the Democratic primaries, The Press Trust of India editorialized.
The South China Morning Post, the largest English-language newspaper in Hong Kong, called Obama’s win “a turning point in U.S. politics.”
Across Asia - a continent with roughly half of the world’s 6.6 billion people - people welcomed Obama’s victory.
“There has never before been an American presidential candidate like Barack Obama,” the South China Post wrote in a Thursday editorial. “Charismatic, black, multicultural, urbane and an orator, he has captured the imagination with his platform of change.”
Indonesians have been particularly supportive of an Obama presidency. Obama lived in the predominantly Muslim nation from age 6 to 10 with his mother and Indonesian stepfather.
“Indonesians are very confident that Indonesia-U.S. relations will be much warmer when Obama is at the helm in the White House,” the Jakarta Post newspaper said on Thursday.
“They also believe the world will be much more peaceful under Obama and that the nightmare under George W. Bush will pass as bitter history never to be repeated,” the newspaper added.
In Japan, which has had a close relationship with the United States during the administration of President Bush, some experts have worried that a Democratic president would seek closer ties with China - to Japan’s detriment.
But former Japanese ambassador Ryozo Kato said that Obama “is the only politician who delivered very meaningful speeches about the bilateral relationship with Japan ahead of the respective U.S. visits of [former] Prime Minister [Shinzo] Abe and Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda,” the Yomiuri Shimbun reported last week.
He added that Obama is “a very pragmatic person” and said that “Whoever will become the U.S. president, it’s important that Japan remain a nation that is not negligible”.
China’s state-run media did not editorialize on Obama’s win. The Chinese government traditionally has favored Republican Party candidates because they have been more likely to promote free trade - helping Chinese exports.
But Jin Canrong, an expert in international relations at People’s University in Beijing, said many Chinese intellectuals welcomed Obama’s victory.
“The intellectual community feels that it shows that multiculturalism in the U.S. is growing and the mainstream is becoming more tolerant,” Jin said.
