Obama’s mandate for change earned

Change, emphatic and historic, has come to the White House. With it, the promise of a transformed America and a changed world.

The Standard joins the world in congratulating President-elect Barack Obama on achieving the former and challenging him to keep his promises on the latter.

Obama’s victory will bolster the faith of many in democracies the world over who seek to create societies in which everyone has the freedom and opportunity to decide their future. At a time when many, including this paper, will be glad to see the back of an America infatuated with its military might and ready to trample values it espouses, voters in the US have reminded us of the "enduring power of their nation’s ideals — democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope".

This, as Obama said yesterday, is the true strength of the nation, not the might of its arms or the scale of its wealth.

Sharing these ideals with the world and defending them from the forces that would rather less progressive and more fundamentalist ideas prevailed, will not be easy. Fears of an international crisis to "test Obama" are not misplaced: The same, after all, happened to John F Kennedy and George W Bush, among others.

The truer tests, however, the ones to tell the world change has come, will not be in dealing with terrorists or rogue nations, but in undoing the damage caused by President Bush’s "cynical, fearful and doubtful" America.

STATURE

The contempt for law and institutions, American or international, represented by presidential decrees approving the use of torture and places like Guantanamo Bay must never return.

Neither must the disregard of voices in the international community, whether friend or foe.

More importantly, the pursuit of war for strategic or economic advantage must not be repeated. Yes, there are two key wars being fought and dangerous situations around the world for the US president to resolve, but this need not require measures that diminish the stature of a great nation like the US in everyone’s eyes.

The choice of Obama, son of a black Kenyan father and white American mother, to lead the US in reclaiming its principles proves its people held faith in the ideals even as an increasingly imperial presidency pursued an agenda at odds with them. It also makes a statement about what race relations can become.

The country was able to see past differences that just a generation ago seemed insurmountable and settle on a leader given to measured, thoughtful action for the journey. We trust this faith and these qualities will hold as Obama embarks on the more challenging task of governing America in a time of crises.

Kenya, fresh off an electoral catastrophe, could learn from the system of checks and balances in the US electoral system that ensure candidates are properly vetted and receive wide national support on the basis of credible platforms, rather than populist appeals. The contest and the environment it took place in were not perfect, but they did not need to be. This knowledge should inform our approach to party and electoral reform before the 2012 General Election.

Finally, Senator John McCain’s concession of defeat — after a campaign fought so hard and dirty his angry supporters were still booing at the mentions of his rival yesterday — was an act of patriotism as important as the many he has made before.

That Obama earned a convincing victory in no way diminishes it. It reflected an American tradition of mostly graceful departures that recognise the need to heal the rifts caused by divisive election campaigns and rally a nation behind the winner.

MATURITY

Having fallen to civil unrest over a flawed presidential election, and learned from a review of the polls that even a valid but close result either way would have had the same result, Kenyans should learn from it.

The electoral maturity that allowed for Al Gore’s concession in 2000 is a goal we must aspire to if we are to take pride in offering a mandate for change to the Obamas in our nation’s future.

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