TEST OF CONFIDENCE IN BARACK OBAMA

The midterm elections to the US Congress are, in fact, a real nationwide test of confidence in the current White House administration. While the US president is elected for four years, Congressional elections are held every two years - once in the election year (actually starting from the January following the election year) and then in the midterm of the elected head of state. That is why they are called midterm elections.

As a result, there is a kind of political tradition - the president's party, for obvious reasons, almost always loses some seats on Capitol Hill in the midterm elections.

So, on 2 November, US citizens voted for a new House of Representatives (all 435 seats) and a third of the Senate (senators are elected for six years, which is why only 37 out of the 100 senators were up for re-election this year). In addition, Americans elected 37 of the 50 state governors.

The Republicans lost the midterm elections to the Democrats in 2006, as well as in the presidential election year (2008). However, in 2010 they had a genuine chance of revenge. And they took it. The US Democratic Party failed to maintain control of the House of Representatives, although Obama's party still managed to keep control of the Senate.

The Democratic Party's strategy for the election campaign was clear - its representatives tried to "reach out" to those who voted for Barack Obama two years ago. These were mainly young people, women voters and members of ethnic minorities. So, the Obama team remembered that two years ago a record number of people below 30 came to the polls, and during the autumn, the president tried to find time to meet with students at various colleges and universities.

However, opinion polls showed no favour to the Democratic Party or Obama at all - many Americans (25 per cent), who had previously supported the current incumbent of the White House, said that they would vote Republican on 2 November.

In this regard, Voice of America quoted Zach Howell, who heads the College Republican National Committee, as saying:

"Two years ago, it was considered shameful to be a Republican. It was so bad that it was better to keep quiet about it. So, for a while, many young conservatives went underground, so to speak.  This year, everything is very different. Now they are working hard and are proud to be conservative," said Howell. 

A poll conducted by AP and the mtvU television channel showed that, ahead of the elections, Obama's work was approved by 16 per cent fewer students than in May last year; this was a very serious loss.

The Democratic Party was also hit by the fact that this year Republican voters (white voters, male voters and citizens of advanced age), particularly conservative supporters of the party, were more active. 

Against this background, the Tea Party sparks especially great interest. It unites ordinary and the most conservative Americans, most of whom are very unhappy with the policies of the

Democrats and Barack Obama, although some of them do not like the Republicans either. The Tea Party is in favour of reducing government spending and limiting governmental authority.

According to experts, Americans expressed their disappointment in the Obama administration's policies and demonstrated their lack of confidence in the White House improving the country's economy any time soon. This, for example, is the reason why the president is losing support among young people - according to statistics, 20 per cent of graduates in the United States are currently unemployed.

Obama's team struggled to convince the public of the opposite - speaking on CNN and NBC, the president's chief domestic political adviser David Axelrod and White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said that the main priorities for the second half of Obama's presidency would be accelerating economic growth and reducing unemployment (currently about 9.6 per cent) and the federal budget deficit (1.3 trillion dollars). But it seems that ordinary Americans do not really believe these assurances...

The popularity of Obama and the Democrats was also seriously affected by health care reform. This area is a sensitive topic for almost every US president, but Obama decided on radical changes - the creation of a universal health care system, covering the whole population, regardless of whether a citizen is a law-abiding taxpayer. Many Republicans labelled such innovations too extravagant, and they are supported by ordinary people who do not want to pay for the health of those who, for example, do not want to work. However, on 21 March 2010, the reform bill was finally approved in Congress.

The Obama administration also clearly failed to turn to its advantage the correction of Bush's errors in the Middle East, namely the withdrawal of troops from Iraq - either because the long-awaited "withdrawal" has turned out to be somehow unconvincing, or because there is still Afghanistan, where the situation remains unclear.

As expected, the controversial website WikiLeaks added fuel to the fire on the eve of the elections. On 23 October, it published a so-called "Iraq dossier", which consists of almost 400,000 documents about military actions by the US and allied NATO forces in the period from early 2004 to the end of 2009. As revealed by the reports, 109,000 people have been killed as a result of the war in Iraq, including 66,000 civilians, almost 24,000 members of the enemy camp, 15,200 Iraqi troops and 3,800 allied troops. Thus, according to analysts who studied WikiLeaks, more than 15,000 civilians have been killed in unrecorded incidents and, apparently, remain unidentified.

The Democrats' image was also very badly affected by the scandal connected with plans for construction in an area two blocks from the site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York. Specifically, it is planned to build a mosque and an Islamic cultural centre there. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Barack Obama spoke out in favour of the plans. At the same time, the construction of the mosque was strongly opposed by Governor David Paterson, as well as by representatives of the Republican Party and the Democratic leader in the Senate.

Meanwhile, the Republican Party's victory might lead to quite noticeable changes in Washington's domestic and foreign policy. The Republicans, now a major force in Congress, will be able to block bills, and this will make the Obama administration's work extremely difficult. The United States Congress has great powers - suffice to recall that lawmakers approve the federal budget, pay debts on behalf of the state and regulate foreign trade. In addition, Congress oversees the activities of US government agencies and departments.

As for the Senate, one of its most important powers is that international agreements can only be ratified after approval by a majority of senators.

Obama had enough time to conduct his health care reform, but still on the agenda are such serious issues as urgent changes to immigration policy, environmental issues and climate change. The administration's foreign policy initiatives, such as the fate of the Russian-American START-3 treaty, might be in question.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the Republican victory in the midterm Congressional elections upset Russia: Moscow fears that this will provoke a departure from the principles of a "resetting" of bilateral relations and increase tensions. But, according to the publication, China and Israel were cheered by the Republicans' victory.

In addition, the 2010 midterm elections will likely have a direct impact on the presidential election in 2012. American experts indicate that by using their majority, the Republicans will be able to initiate various investigations against the current White House team, which will have a negative impact on the Democratic Party candidate.

"Our victory will affect the president's plans. The elections show that we can be very competitive in the battle for the White House in 2012," John Bolton, one of the most influential members of the Bush administration, said, in sharing his thoughts with La Repubblica.

While Barack Obama is doing everything possible to keep his election promises - he has withdrawn troops from Iraq, tried to revive the economy etc., it seems that Americans do not like everything that he and his team are doing and not all decisions are having the desired effect. And here the Americans, of course, begin to forget that Obama inherited many of the problems from the previous administration. In addition, too much was expected of Obama at the outset, and not a single president can manage all that in such a short period of time.

According to most political scientists, the president now has no choice but to act as a moderator between the Democrats and the Republicans. And the Republicans are likely to have to support him to some degree, because otherwise, the Democrats will have an opportunity to criticize their opponents for their unwillingness to compromise. In addition, the Republicans also remember that the errors made during George W. Bush's presidency are still fresh in people's memories.

As far as representatives of the Democratic Party are concerned, they should certainly review recent decisions. For example, the media has leaked information about possible reshuffles in the White House. You need to consider not only winning over voters, but also retaining them.

I must say that the growth in the number of "independent" voters in 2010, i.e. those who do not consider themselves either Democratic or Republican, is a wake-up call for the Republicans.

In this respect, it is also worth noting that according to some Western observers, the current US Democratic administration should reconsider its policy on the South Caucasus, and on Azerbaijan in particular. For example, this advice was given in the pages of "The National Interest" by experts Samuel Charap and Alexandros Petersen in an article entitled "An Opportunity to Reimagine Eurasia".

Ariel Cohen, another well-known American expert on political and socioeconomic problems in the former Soviet Union, told The Caucasus Times that US policy in the post-Soviet area in general, and in the Caucasus region in particular, is close to failure. "US efforts to normalize Armenian-Turkish relations in isolation from the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict yielded no positive result," said the expert. And it seems that the appointment of a US ambassador to Baku could be an indicator of change in American policy here.