No US presidential election in recent history was so fiercely contested and keenly watched by the rest of the world as the one on Tuesday that gave George W. Bush a second term in office. It proved to be just as close a contest between the President and his Democratic challenger, John F. Kerry, as predicted by earlier opinion polls.
Until midnight, Bush was held up at 254 electoral votes until Ohio handed him its 20 votes to cross the magic number of 270 needed for the win. But unlike his last election, this time he also secured a convincing lead in popular vote, getting ahead of his rival by a margin of 3.5 million votes. And to crown his personal success, his Republican Party scored substantial gains in both the Senate and the House of Representatives adding four seats to its one member majority in the Senate and five seats to its 227 strength in the 435-member lower house of Congress.
Which, needless to say, means he will have a smooth sailing in Congress while implementing his future plans and policies.
It was after a long time that an American election campaign centred on foreign policy issues, namely the country's so-called war against terrorism and its occupation of Iraq. What may also have weighed in on the American voters' minds was the Democratic Party candidate's stance on some divisive social issues such as his support for abortion rights, same sex marriages and stem cell research. But without a doubt, what proved to be decisive was the American people's paranoia over the threat of terrorism. Bush played on this sense of insecurity well, projecting himself as the 'War President' who was decisive and ruthless in taking on the 'enemy' while portraying his opponent as a weak-kneed waffler.
Kerry did little to erase that impression as he accused the Bush administration of misrepresenting facts about Iraq, calling Bush's war against that country 'a mistake', and yet going on to state in the middle of the election campaign that even if he had known that Saddam did not possess WMDs, he would still have voted in favour of the Senate resolution for war.
Which played right into the hands of Bush's men, who had the readymade retort to offer, why then make all this noise about the Iraq invasion being a mistake? Kerry's supporters, nonetheless, liked to point out that their candidate being an intellectual superior of Bush, was more thoughtful and took a nuanced approach to this and other issues of import.
However, the truth of the matter is that a majority of the people in the most powerful nation on earth lacks the ability to appreciate an intellectual, nuanced approach to policy.
Forty percent of them are church-going Christians, who rely on a dangerous mix of ignorance and arrogance in viewing the US's foreign policy and its image abroad. Add to that their fear of an 'Islamic terrorism' threat, and it is not surprising if they have lent their whole-hearted support to the 'War President' who brandished the fear before them that "if America shows any weakness in this decade, the world will drift toward tragedy."
He used the sense of insecurity of these people to cobble together an effective alliance of the Christian Right and neo-conservatives. As it turns out, the churches played an exceptionally pro-active role in this election, exhorting their members to come out and vote for Bush.
Mindful of the divisions the highly charged election campaign has created in the country, in his victory speech, Bush underlined the need for unity telling his Democratic opponents that he would work to earn their support and deserve their trust. More to the point, he averred, "A new term is a new opportunity to reach out to the whole nation."
One hopes he will work in the same spirit to mend the divisions that his policy of unilateralism and bullying has created with his country's allies across the Atlantic as well as the Muslim world, which is facing the brunt of his first term drive at shaping the Middle East in accordance with the wishes of American oil interests and pro-Zionist clique of neo-conservatives surrounding him.
This victory may be an endorsement of his policy of unilateralism and pre-emptive wars in the name of fighting terror, which in reality are aimed at controlling the Middle East's oil and to help advance Israel's expansionist ambitions. But it has only created new dangers to international peace and security.
Just like he has promised to end divisions at home and win the trust of his opponents, Bush must also start his new term with a resolve to end international divisions and bloodshed by advancing a just solution of the Arab-Palestinian conflict and the Kashmir dispute.
He must also find an early and, of course, a face-saving, exit out of the Iraqi quagmire his neo-con advisors had pushed him into.