The continuing saga resulting from three national elections

The Palestinian National Authority held elections in Gaza and the West Bank for its Legislative Council on 25th January 2006. Canada carried out a federal election on 23rd January 2006. Germany had federal elections taking place on 18th September 2005. The three election results deserve comparison. Of the three, Palestine is the youngest state having been established as the Palestinian National Authority in 1994. As it was new, it received large sums of money in the form of foreign donations from the European Union, United States, and other governments and individuals including Middle Eastern nations. Legislative and presidential elections were held in 1996; the former was won by Fatah (literally meaning conquest and really is a reverse acronym in for "Palestinian National Liberation Movement"), and the latter was won by the late Yasser Arafat who mishandled diplomatic relations with Israel. The next round of legislative election happened finally in January 2006. One could say that President Arafat was a poor administrator and diplomat--he died in office in December 2004 without having to face voters again. Meanwhile, abject poverty continued under ten years of government by Fatah-led Legislative Council. The 2006 Legislative Election campaign pitted Fatah against Hamas (literaly meaning enthusiasm or fervour and really is an acronym for "Islamic Resistance Movement"). Hamas campaigned skilfully, accusing Fatah of corruption--governing with foreign financial assistance and showing no results after ten years except for well-paid politicans and well-armed militia men on various payrolls. (Militia men, in other words, they were not part of the official police or army.) On 25th January 2006, Hamas won 74 out of 132 Legislative Council seats, forming a majority government. The "lame duck" outgoing Fatah government passed legislations giving certain Council powers to the PNA president, a Fatah member. The first act of the Hamas government was to rescind them, reclaiming Council powers from the PNA president, Abu Mazen or Mahmoud Abbas who succeeded Arafat. One has to reminded that Hamas is best known for suicide bombings against Israeli civilians and military targets. The saga continues with Western donor countries threatening to withdraw or withhold overseas development assistance to the PNA , and with Hamas representatives and new PNA ministers going on an international tour of non-Western countries soliciting alternative foreign donations. Canada was founded in 1867. The Liberal Party, led by Jean Chretien, gained power in 1993. Prime Minister Chretien's government while accused of being a democratic dicatorship, coincided with favourable business climate as a result of successful integration into the world economy. The Liberal government in Ottawa was accused of numerous counts of abuse of power and corruption and managed to win parliamentary majorities in the federal elections of 1997 and 2000. Prime Minister Chretien was succeeded by Paul Martin in December 2003. Electoral fortunes declined when Prime Minister Martin won only a parliamentary minority in the June 2004. Charges of corruption were renewed and it seemed some voters believed them. At the end with Liberals pitted against Conservatives, Martin had no luck in January 2006. Conservative Leader Stephen Harper's party won 124 seats out of 308 to form a minority government. The Liberal Party won 103 seats; Martin went into hiding, popularly known as vacation. In this Canadian federal election, voters did not have complaints of abject poverty nor massive corruption like in Palestine. Demographically, voters were categorized popularly as those who buy coffee from Starbucks or from Tim Hortons. The Conservative Party's message of bringing change for the better in Ottawa resonated with voters of low to middle income, and primarily in areas where the Liberal Party was the weakest, e.g. Western provinces and most of Quebec. The Conservative message was ineffective on middle to high income earners and in areas where the Liberal Party kept its strength, e.g. Ontario cities, Atlantic Canada, Vancouver, and parts of Montreal. Voters who were upwardly mobile, who benefited from globalization, readily discounted the rhetoric of corruption and were unaffected by negative advertising. Compared to Palestinian voters who wanted nothing to do with Fatah, over thiry percent of Canadian voters were tolerant of the Liberals and intolerant of the Conservatives. The saga continues with new Prime Minister Harper forming the first Conservative federal government in thirteen years, claiming he won a popular mandate to carrying out the Conservative Party's five priorities, and handling two problematic files in foreign affairs inherited from the Liberal government. Prime Ministers Chretien and Martin were unable to negotiate a resolution to an impasse on the export of lumbers and processed wood to the United States. Secondly, following Operation APOLLO in 2001-2002, Chretien's commitment of Canadian Armed Forces in the War on Terror in Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf, Canada participated in a United Nations mandate, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) beginning February 2003. NATO, of which Canada is a part, took on the leadership of ISAF in August 2003. Prime Minister Martin committed Canada to continue in ISAF in December 2005 with troop deployments in Kandahar province. Germany appeared in history as Germanic tribes during the time of Emperor Augustus in early Roman Empire around AD 9-15. Centuries later, Deutsches Kaiserreich, the German Empire was proclaimed in 1871, with Bismarck as prime minister to the Kaiser, emperor. Another century later, modern Germany was born out of the First and Second World Wars and the Cold War, with the Berlin Wall coming down in November 1989 and German reunification in October 1990. Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, Social Democratic Party (SPD) leader, first gained power in 1998 with a SPD-Green Party coalition and won reelection in 2002 with 306 out of 603 seats, a nine-seat majority. By 2005, the SPD-Green federal government had become unpopular among voters accustomed to benefits from the German welfare state. Facing slow economic growth, Chancellor Schroder experimented with cuts in taxes and welfare benefits. On 18th September 2005 Social Democrats were pitted against Christian Democrats. The SPD-Green coalition was reduced from 306 to 273 seats while Christian Demcoratic Union (CDU) leader Angela Merkel's coalition took 286 seats. Both Merkel and Schroder were unable to put together a parliamentary majority of 308. Two months later Merkel formed a CDU-SPD "grand coalition" and emerged as chancellor on 22nd November 2005. In Germany where proportional representation is a feature in the electoral system, no single political party really emerges as representing the majority. The saga continues with Christain Democrat Chancellor Merkel governing with fifteen cabinet ministers, eight being Social Democrats and seven being Christian Democrats. The expectation is that the German federal government will tread slowly because governing will involve constant negotiation at the cabinet table. Three elections, three totally different outcomes. One is a majority government headed by a terrorist political party; next is a minority government expected to always calculate and hope it has enough support in parliament in order to pass new legislations; and the other, a grand coalition government with more than enough support in parliament but always having to argue and negotiate behind closed doors in cabinet before coming out with any clear direction. The saga continues in Palestine, Canada and Germany.