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Kerry Is Widely Favored Abroad
By Keith B. Richburg
The Washington Post
Wednesday 29 September 2004
Hostility toward Bush revealed in surveys and interviews.
PARIS - From Canada to Mexico, from London and Paris to Jakarta and Beijing, President Bush is widely unpopular as a candidate for reelection, according to surveys and interviews conducted in 20 countries.
Sen. John F. Kerry appears to be the runaway favorite abroad, even though few people outside the United States know much about the Massachusetts Democrat or his positions on foreign policy questions.
"If foreigners could vote, there's no question what the result would be," said Guillaume Parmentier, director of the French Center on the United States. "Bush's image, even before the war in Iraq, was not good. The way he comports himself, the vocabulary he uses -- good versus evil, God and all that -- even his body language, most people think is not presidential." He added, "I've never seen such hostility."
Kerry's foreign fans say they like his attitude about consulting allies and respecting their views. To them, he seems worldly, with an African-born wife. He attended school in Geneva and speaks French. A first cousin of Kerry's, Brice Lalonde, is a Green Party mayor of a small town in western France.
Bush appears to have strong support in such places as Israel and Singapore for his stance against radical Islamic groups, and in some countries that are benefiting from world trade, such as India, for his free-market views. But elsewhere, a majority of people appear to be hoping he loses.
"Kerry! Kerry! Kerry!" said Eros Djarrot, a filmmaker and founder of a small political party in Indonesia, the world' s most populous Muslim nation. "Simply because Bush knows what is good for Americans, but he doesn't understand what is good for people outside America, especially people in developing countries."
Karim Raslan, a lawyer and commentator in Malaysia, another Muslim-majority country, was more blunt: "Everyone would want to see Bush out. He is loathed." He added: "The view in Asia-Pacific is, Bush is dreadful. You've got to get rid of him. But is the other guy better? I fear not."
In the Arab world, Bush is widely despised for launching the Iraq war, supporting Israel and shoring up corrupt Arab governments in exchange for their help in the region. "Bush talks about helping Egypt, but he supports Mubarak," said Ahmed Shukri, an Egyptian computer science student, referring to Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's authoritarian president. "He supports lots of dictators. We don't trust Bush and we don't know Kerry."
In the Muslim world as a whole, Bush's Middle East policies are often seen not as targeting terrorism but the Islamic faith.
Elsewhere, the American president is viewed as too quick to use force, with no concern for the consequences to others. "I don't like Bush," said Hao Zhiqiang, 42, a taxi driver in China. "He launched the Iraq war. The price of oil is getting higher because of that."
In Canada, a public opinion poll by the Globe and Mail newspaper conducted in July found that Canadians favored Kerry over Bush 60 percent to 29 percent. In Japan, an earlier opinion poll published in the Mainichi newspaper, conducted before Democrats had chosen a candidate, showed only 31 percent of respondents supporting Bush and 57 percent against him.
In Russia, an opinion poll showed Russians preferring Kerry by a ratio of almost 4 to 1, although President Vladimir Putin quipped to reporters that the Bush supporters "include a few very influential people," an apparent reference to himself.
And a survey by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, conducted June 6 through 26 in nine European countries, found that 76 percent of European respondents disapproved of Bush's handling of international affairs, up 20 percentage points from a survey in 2002. The poll also found that 80 percent of Europeans surveyed -- compared with half of Americans -- said the Iraq war was not worth the cost in human life and material loss.
The deep antipathy has produced a round of Bush-bashing magazine covers, books and television debates that many foreign policy observers say is unprecedented, stronger even than the widespread repudiation abroad of President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.
In Germany, Stern magazine offered this declaration on its cover: "George W. Bush, MORALLY BANKRUPT." In France, Nouvelle Observateur magazine published a cover story entitled: "Why It's Necessary To Beat Bush."
In Canada, the animosity has been running so high that the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. this month aired a program called, "Has Bush-bashing gone too far?" And in France, a popular Sunday television show, "Le Vrai Journal," has a segment devoted entirely to Bush-bashing, with Americans invited to explain to the French why they hate Bush and plan to vote against him.
At times, normally circumspect diplomats and politicians have found themselves swept up in the sentiment. A Canadian official called Bush a "moron." Britain's ambassador to Italy, Ivor Roberts, said at a conference in Tuscany last week that Bush is "the best recruiting sergeant ever for al Qaeda," according to the Corriere della Sera newspaper. And the Spanish prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, shortly after his upset victory in March, said he hoped Americans would follow Spain's electoral example and replace the incumbent president in November.
The most obvious reason for these views is the war in Iraq, which remains almost universally unpopular around the world, even in countries whose governments have sent troops there as part of the U.S.-led multinational force.
But Bush-bashing predates the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Many policy analysts date it to the administration's decision in its early days in office to reject the Kyoto protocol on climate change. That move affronted many people in the world, in part due to perceptions that it was announced in a high-handed way with no concern for world objections. His subsequent renunciation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty provoked similar dismay abroad.
There was an outpouring of sympathy for a brief period following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in western Pennsylvania, and much of the world rallied to the side of the United States in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. But that goodwill flagged when the United States filled its military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with suspected terrorists and allowed them no access to the legal system.
Political leaders of many nations who supported Bush in Iraq now find their own political fates tied to his. Australians go to the polls on Oct. 9, with conservative Prime Minister John Howard, a Bush supporter who sent Australian troops to Iraq, trying to fight off a strong challenge by the Labor Party leader, Mark Latham, who is promising to bring the troops home by Christmas.
In Japan, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's support has plummeted to an all-time low of 40 percent, in part because of his strong association with Bush. And analysts cite the Iraq war in explaining the dismal showing of the British Labor Party of Prime Minister Tony Blair in recent European parliamentary and local elections.
Some world leaders on the other side of the issue are said to be quietly hoping for a Kerry victory in order to improve ties with Washington. One of them is President Jacques Chirac of France, who has had a frosty relationship with Bush since France lobbied against the Iraq war at the United Nations. One French official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, saying he could speak more candidly that way, said that if Kerry won, "I think it will change the atmospherics of the relations, because public opinion would say it's a new start."
The hopes for a Kerry victory sometimes extend to political parties whose ideology is similar to that of the Republicans. Britain's Conservative Party, for instance, is shying away from Bush this year.
The same is true in France, where most members of Chirac's ruling Union for a Popular Movement, or UMP are rooting for Kerry. "In my party, they are all pro-Kerry, except me," said Pierre Lellouche, a member of the National Assembly and a foreign policy specialist. "I am a very lonely voice here saying even if Kerry is elected, the fundamentals of U.S. policy will not change."
Lellouche and some others contend that the biggest change in a Kerry administration might simply be a difference in tone and perception. For example, they said, a Kerry administration might be no more likely than the Bush team to sign the Kyoto climate treaty or endorse the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court without major exemptions for U.S. soldiers that the Bush administration has demanded.
Also, a Kerry administration is likely to make uncomfortable demands on traditional U.S. allies to help share the military burden in Iraq, something that many diplomats say will not happen.
For all the rancor against Bush, he does draw strong support in some parts of the world. He has backers in Israel, for instance, thanks to a strong pro-Israel policy. A recent opinion poll by the Maariv newspaper found that 48 percent of respondents in Israel supported Bush and 29 percent backed Kerry. Bush also has a good reputation in the affluent Southeast Asian city-state of Singapore, whose government largely shares Bush's fears of Islamic extremism.
In East Asia and India, areas that are benefiting from the expansion of world trade, many people view Kerry warily because of criticisms during his campaign of the exporting of American jobs.
One other place where Bush appears somewhat popular is Sudan, particularly in the Darfur region.
Some Sudanese say they wish his interventionist policies would extend to their country. "We could use a regime change," said Halima Huessin, a Sudanese aid worker in Darfur, as she looked out over a gaggle of children covered in flies and men sleeping in thatched huts.
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Correspondents in Toronto, Mexico City, London, Moscow, Cairo, Jerusalem, New Delhi, Beijing, Tokyo, Jakarta, Indonesia, and Darfur, Sudan, and special correspondents in Berlin, Madrid, Budapest and Lund, Sweden, contributed to this report.
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Hurdles Remain for American Voters Who Live Overseas
By Michael Moss
The New York Times
Wednesday 29 September 2004
Four years after overseas voting became a battleground in the presidential election in Florida, millions of civilians and soldiers living abroad still face a bewildering and unwieldy system of absentee balloting that could prevent their votes from being counted.
Election officials concede that tens of thousands of Americans overseas might not get ballots in time to cast votes. Late primaries and legal wrangling caused election offices in at least 8 of the 15 swing states to fail to mail absentee ballots by Sept. 19, a cutoff date officials say is necessary to ensure that they can be returned on time, a survey by The New York Times shows. In Florida in 2000, late-arriving ballots became a divisive issue when some were counted and others were disqualified.
The tardy ballots are just one of several setbacks or missteps that have affected the ability of the estimated 4.4 million eligible voters overseas to participate in the presidential election. Some have been unable to send their registrations to a Pentagon contractor's computers, which are clogged by thousands of voter forms. Others were denied access to a Web site designed to help Americans abroad vote. And many voters simply have had trouble navigating the rules and methods that determine how and when to register and vote and that vary by state.
"I found it so convoluted I gave up," says Alex Campos, a management consultant in London who repeatedly tried to register using the Pentagon program, without success.
To help speed the balloting process, federal officials activated a new system last week in which voters can obtain absentee ballots instantly through the Internet. But the Web site, myballot.mil, will be offered only to members of the military and their families, quickly raising concerns about fairness in a program that the Pentagon has been directed to run for civilians as well. In addition, 23 states have already declined to join the system for various reasons, including security, according to Pentagon and state officials.
People on both sides vying for the overseas vote say the balloting system remains so flawed that some predict legal battles if these votes prove crucial to the outcome of the presidential race.
"If it's a close election, one can expect a great deal of challenges given the confused state of this complex matrix of rules and regulations, and the lack of central leadership in their implementation," said Jim Brenner, the executive director of Americans Overseas for Kerry.
In recent interviews, Pentagon officials defended their voting assistance effort and said the new Internet ballot retrieval system was only one item in a menu of services the program was using to help both military and civilian voters.
"There is no favoritism," said Scott Wiedmann, the program's deputy director, adding that the new system must be limited to the military because the identities only of service members can be verified.
Other efforts under way to help overseas voters include speeding mail delivery for people in the military and a special federal ballot that all voters can request if their regular ballot does not arrive from their state on time. But election volunteers working overseas say that many voters do not know the ballots exist, or if they do, do not know how to use them.
Republicans and Democrats are pushing hard to solicit these voters after some assessments indicating that President Bush's support among the estimated 500,000 members of the military and their families overseas may have weakened. There is little direct polling of soldiers, but Peter D. Feaver, a sociology professor at Duke University, says surveys have shown that while most officers are staunchly Republican, the rank and file newest to the military has been more closely divided between the parties.
"Kerry will do better in this group than Gore did,'' Mr. Feaver said, "but he will not reverse the Bush advantage."
There is also little polling of the 3.9 million civilians abroad. But last month, a Zogby poll of Americans who had passports found that they supported John Kerry over Mr. Bush, 58 percent to 35 percent.
The concern about states not getting their overseas ballots out in time surfaced most recently in a report this month by the newly formed United States Election Assistance Commission, which found that 18 states did not have systems in place to mail ballots at least 45 days before the election. A commissioner, Paul DeGregorio, said in an interview that states with late primaries did not have enough time to turn around and send out their ballots overseas.
Of the eight swing states that missed the 45-day mailing mark, only three will accept ballots that arrive after Election Day. Overseas voters have until Nov. 10 to send their ballots to Florida, which experienced problems four years ago that prompted widespread calls for improvements to overseas balloting.
In 2001, the General Accounting Office examined overseas voting and found numerous problems, from inadequate public education on the subject to late ballot mailings. In surveying small counties throughout the country, for example, the G.A.O., now the Government Accountability Office, found that 8.1 percent of the overseas votes had been thrown out mostly because they were late or not properly completed.
In response, the Pentagon placed voting assistance officers in military units worldwide and retooled its general Web site for voting assistance to help more Americans navigate the labyrinth of local voting procedures that apply overseas.
But some voters say the Web site remains difficult to use and that program workers have provided wrong information. Adam Hess, 26, a marketing coordinator in Ottawa, said he was told that he could not vote because he has never lived in the United States; he later learned that was not true since he received his citizenship through his American father.
In recent weeks the federal effort has also been clouded by a series of missteps that appear to have affected mostly civilian voters.
After blocking Internet systems in more than two dozen countries from gaining access to the general Web site, the Pentagon retreated last week and says it is trying to find a less encumbering way to protect against hackers.
Two weeks ago, Americans in various countries complained to voting rights groups that they received only ringing or busy signals when they tried to fax voter registrations to the number provided by the Pentagon.
"I come from Florida, and it's like, here we go again," said Timothy P. Mason, a telecommunications analyst in Britain who said he tried for two days before giving up.
In an e-mail message to one of the voting groups, a Pentagon official said that military installations were tying up the lines by faxing in hundreds of registrations in single batches, and that efforts would be made to accommodate the volume.
New questions have also arisen about the private contractor hired by the Pentagon to handle these faxes and unsealed completed ballots at its offices in Alexandria, Va. The company, Omega Technologies, was sued last year by Adams National Bank, which accused it of failing to pay off a loan of more than $500,000. In court records the bank also said Omega improperly gained access to a Pentagon computer to reroute payments to the company's new lender.
A lawyer for Omega, Daryle Jordan, denied wrongdoing by Omega and said it had countersued in contesting the debt claim. Pentagon officials said they were not aware of the litigation or another billing dispute, brought in 2002 by a Nashville resort. Omega settled the second dispute without admitting or denying accusations that it fabricated a Federal Express record. Mr. Jordan said Omega did not consider the litigation relevant to its Pentagon work.
An effort by the Pentagon to create a broad Internet voting program collapsed in February after criticism by security experts that the system was prone to manipulation.
Ten states so far have agreed to dispense ballots through the more limited service that the Pentagon is announcing this week, according to officials.
Nearly half of the states now also allow voters to fax back their ballots to election officials, but the loss of privacy is causing concern among some soldiers.
Scott Rafferty, a Democratic activist lawyer in California, said soldiers had contacted him to say they feared voting by fax. One, an Army sergeant in Germany who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution, explained his reservations.
"Some places you have to hand it off to get it faxed because the machine is behind the counter, at the finance office or personnel support battalion," the sergeant said. "They should come up with a better, more surefire system."
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Alexis Rehrmann, Eric Schmitt and John Schwartz contributed reporting for this article.
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