Global caucuses for the American primaries

LONDON : John Mbugua, 56, a taxi driver in Mombasa, Kenya, woke himself at 3 a.m. on the day of the Iowa caucuses and flipped on CNN. He said he watched for hours, not understanding precisely what or where Iowa was but thrilled about the victory of Barack Obama, the first US presidential contender with Kenyan roots.

“I have never been interested in the elections before,” Mbugua, who also got up at 4 a.m. to watch the New Hampshire primary results, said. “But now everybody is watching. Everybody feels that Kenya has a stake in the outcome of the US election.”

From Mombasa’s sandy shores on the Indian Ocean to the hot tubs of Reykjavik, Iceland, the US primary elections are creating unprecedented interest and excitement in a global audience that normally doesn’t tune in until the general election in November.

This year’s wide-open primary season, filled with big personalities and dramatic story lines, has created an eager global audience that suddenly knows its Hillary from its Huckabee.

“It’s a great spectacle, and people are avidly devouring it,” said Jeremy O’Grady, editor in chief of the Week, a British magazine. O’Grady said major British newspapers last week devoted more than 87 pages to news of the US primaries, including 22 front-page stories. More than 700 correspondents from 50 countries covered the Iowa and New Hampshire events.

A popular BBC radio programme, ‘World Have Your Say’, devoted an hour last week to parsing how pollsters wrongly predicted that Obama, an Illinois senator, would win the Democratic primary in New Hampshire. The show attracted detailed and nuanced calls and text messages from Romania, South Africa, Liberia and other countries.

About 1.5 million people visited the BBC Web page reporting the win by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton over Obama in New Hampshire, making it one of the most-read stories in months.

But much of the enthusiasm comes from anticipation of Bush’s departure, according to analysts. US prestige and popularity in much of the world have sunk to historic lows since Bush took office, over such issues as the Iraq war and climate change.

In South Africa, political analyst Justice Malala said discussion of the US primaries eclipsed even domestic politics. There hasn’t been much interest in Republicans Mike Huckabee or Mitt Romney, Malala said, “but Obama and Clinton are something special. It reminds me of the Mandela presidency.”

In Brazil, too, pictures of Obama and Clinton were on the front...

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