Thanks, George.


But it all means that for over a year before the Presidential election, each party has been seen to be divided...

Or am I missing the point again?

Oh dearie me. I suppose at least they have a government now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verhofstadt_III_Government

Meantime, the tiny Caucasus nation of Georgia is having Presidential Elections today - even given the mountainous terrain, an indication of the results will be known tomorrow.

Leading the field is the incumbent President Suckass-vili.  His political leanings can be easily assessed by his first "achievements" as President, during which he renamed the highway to the capital's international airport as "George W Bush Boulevard". Hair-splitters and carpers might ask where he got the money to mount a one-man revolution that dislodged Eduard Schevardnadze, the one-time USSR Foreign Minister who turned Georgia into his personal fiefdom when the Soviet Union imploded?  

Schevardnadze himself was no saint - he famously commented (without any Dario Fo-style irony), when questioned on the mysterious death of preceding Georgian Premiere Gamsakhurdia (an accomplished playwright, compiler of dictionaries, and translator of Shakespeare into Russian)... "Oh yes, it was suicide, no doubt of it.  My soldiers were there as witnesses when he shot himself".

Elections are being held now in Georgia as a result of the anti-Saakashvili riots which began in November 2007, but escalated to "State Of Emergency" level in December 2008.   The grievances of the Georgian people with their yankee puppet leader (Saakashvili holds a US Passport, which some might think a trifle unusual...) are many,  but almost entirely centre on his monstrous mismanagement of the economy.  Most homes in Georgia have had no domestic heating for the past three years - people have relied on hugely expensive-to-run electric plug-in radiators or cheap Chinese-made spirit-fuelled stoves which have seen fire-brigade callouts to domestic blazes rise fourfold.  Unemployment is rife, and underemployment even more prevalent.  

Many Georgian musicians have emigrated to Russia in search of work - still others have fled to EU countries.  I was last in Tbilisi in 2006, when we went to a concert at the Philharmonia.  We tried to check our coats, Russian-style, at the Cloakroom, but were told "you'd better keep them on".  The orchestra emerged in anoraks and duffelcoats - the temperature in the hall was +3C.   More than half the performances at the Rustaveli Opera House have been cancelled.

On the international scene, the situation in Abkhazia (the province at Georgia's western tip) is most controversial.  Under the Schevardnadze regime, groups of ethnic Georgian paramilitaries known as the "Mkhedroni" ("The Horsemen") began an ethnic cleansing operation there, driving the minority Abkhaz off their (valuable) lands, by the usual means of threats, beatings, murder and arson.  Russia siezed the (much-waited) opportunity to step in militarily to defend the Abkhaz from the Schevardnadze-funded "Horsemen" (the preferred "horse" being ex-soviet military jeeps in this case).   Abkhazia has subsequently held independent elections, and declared itself independent of Georgia - an independence Saakashvili refuses to accept.  There is much muttering on the Russian side here along the lines of "want an independent Kosovo don't they, but try mentioning an independent Abkhazia and see what reply you get from the EU?".

An even more complex situation applies to Georgia's other ethnic-minority area, South Ossetia - which wants to merge with North Ossetia (an equivalent region on Russian territory) to make an independent country that straddled the Russian/Georgian border.  Neither of the two bigger powers really want this, but both are ready to make political hay with the other's problem.

Russian-Georgian relations are at their lowest possible ebb currently.  The actual reason is Russia's allegation that Georgia is harbouring Chechen terrorists who have fled through the mountains across the border into the Pankisi Gorge area of Georgia.  Russia has sent "Special Forces" troops illegally across this border in search of the terrorists - which Georgia has interpreted as a breach of their sovereign borders.  Georgia arrested some Russian diplomats to illustrate her anger over this - Russia retaliated viciously, closing the land borders with Georgia and putting a blockade on all imports from Georgia (for which Russia was 90% of the market).  The blow caused to Georgia's enfeebled economy has been extremely severe.  Mr Saakashvili has been burning for a fight with Russia, and even went to the lengths of claiming Russia had dropped a bomb on Georgia (although all the evidence pointed to this having been a set-up by Georgia's own airforce, and Saakashvili was forced to drop the allegations with huge embarassment).

Sabre-rattling against Russia makes up the election platform of almost all the candidates running in the elections.  However, a concern against being the puppet of the USA surfaces in the manifesto of at least 2-3 of them.

It's not coincidental, of course, that the American-owned Ceyhan Oil Pipeline runs through Georgia, and was completed shortly after Mr Saakashvili's remarkable rise to power from the obscurity of exile in the United States.

It is not that they are "allowed" to go first, but each simply is an "early primary" state by tradition. Plenty of people find this troublesome, especially since the Iowa caucus process is similar to a meat-market more than anything. But all the other states could do is move their own primaries forward to some horribly early date. Most people agree that a primary on new year's day or before is out of the question.

It would be a good thing for democracy if we had all our primaries on the same day, and chucked out the caucuses as well; but then where would the fun be? Besides, it's not like that's the biggest obstacle to American democracy today, by any means.

Clearly you aren't paying enough attention then.

It's hard to take part in the Iowa caucuses:

1. You have to assert your vote in front of all your family, friends and neighbors. There is no secret ballot.

2. You have to stand in your corner for hours on end.

3. It's extremely cold and hazardous to travel to the caucus site, often.

4. The whole thing is transparently silly and craven and many choose not to take part for that very reason. (related to 1, above)

Footnote: the republicans' caucus is more streamlined and somewhat more anonymous than the Democratic caucus, but as I say the Democratic one is more 'fun' once one gets into it, I suppose. But I don't believe fun should be the point of it, nor that it is fun for everyone involved.

Dzat answer yer question, m'frien'?

Sorry - could you speak a little more clearly please?...
.................

The time Radio4 spends on the US Presidential election seems to get longer and longer each time, so now it's more like a whole year out of every four that I spend a lot of time turning if off or switching to Radio 3... no bad thing, I suppose!