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Show ee 14 TheS.Salt Lake Tribune OPINION Wednesday November ¢ 1999 ‘Recent Elections Reveal How Different Countries View the World, America WASHINGTON Foreign correspon whenI spoke to the Tunisian president, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, ju: before the election (which he won over- jents’ trips most often arefilled mes homefrom Beirut, San Salvador, ates ), he spoke warmly of how his ymy, Kabul or Baghdad, wanting Army, influenced himin his OE One returned from suchtrips — and time when faced with the visiting rican. * But [just returnedfroma trip that was thing else, even thoughit involved four spots on the globe that could hardly be moredifferent. What, for instance, could the Middle East's little Tunisia, Central Asia’s huge Kazakhstan, Germa s sophisticated Berlin andthe Balkans’ vutiful Croatia possibly have in ymmon? lhe answeris “elections” what they i] forth in a society. Each one of those intries or cities had recent elections ere revealing for what they said uit the way the worldis going and ut the changing perceptions of the OO enema ey said thoughtfully, “a people which sees of the new er new period work sonably fre as a systemof remuneration. | was struck by how an American friend would into national psy- UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE UnitedStates, I went to Tunisia onthenorthcoast of Africa, where the first multiparty presi send his child to mow lawns for $20. He didn’t have to, but it was to teach him that money comes inspiring. learning nation while from work. That was very The U.S., in general, is a great school, a very important wt Fothet leitmotif was also clear that a had begun. Once even rea elections are held, a country is never the same tin. And the results in Kazakhstan were that the old communists gained from ear lier electoral indicators. That serves as a warningto the prese many of its policies were yvernment that losingfavor From | ikhstan I made my way back, through ‘ankfurt, to Berlin mostly to see the mood at the enc 1 dential elections in that prospering coun: s history were held on Oct. 24. On the , it looked like manyother elecin fact, these were uniquebele: ise the country’s leadership was delib: erately helping the countryto evolveto- Astana, built to move people and events deeper into the vast but sparsely popu In fact, the ruling party, the Demo- also being held for the first time. True, they wereonlyforthe lowerhouse of the voted once again for the communist rst time sustaining other presidential candidates, plus assuring that 20 percent of the parliament seats would go to the opposition, whatever their vote. Here y parliament, a body which has never had much power, yet, despite plenty of “machine politics,” there was something alerting the their failure democratic parties there to wardafar larger multiparty future. cratic Constitutional Rally, wa: have in practice a new kindof philosophy of a modernizingstate, in effect building in the evolution of democracy. an in the very center of in the newcapital of lated country, multipartyelections were deeplytouching about them Way out there, where “Soviet power” had for so long built upon old traditions of ruling khans and autocracy and where he mood the 10-year period since the Berlin Wall went down in November of 1989. Here, too, recent elections were the indicator of dis content. Fully 40 percent of the popula tion in what had been Bast Germany Finally, my odd trip took me to Croat ia, the beautiful former republic of Yugo: slavia that had fought so hard to stop Serb aggression from 1991 onward. Now, the } 1 @ Granie, declared to a s journalists in a Muh rare Croatia is a Mediterranean ow. which see ad society and Euro onthe developing a demo civil are not thing they are every { out right It wa n tha brought Slobodan Milosevic to 4 in Serbia and an election that started the holocaust in Rwanda. (Sometimes ele tions only upset other political balances which, while not overtly democratic, are workable.) Yet elections as pro iso can play an invaluable role as peoples be come more self-governing and as coun tries move from one-party or autocratic rule to more complicated systems and in titutions almost all of them t ingly enough, based on the experience i, for one, was impressed to witne these countries changing before one's first independent Croatia in history was Sensible Campaign Reform Must Reduce Candidate’s Needto Pay for TV Time VASHINGTON —The most sensible peech in the recent Senate debate on vaign finance reform wa it was over. A few di jackers ofthe MoCainFeinevid bill ban- DAVID BRODER ing “soft money” contributions to the itical parties hadfailed, once again, to eak the opponents’ filibuster, retiring ». Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New york rose to offer a fewreflections on the perience, ported the reform with only a faint of familiarity. Here weare, reform theresultsofthelast reform, a not in requent task of Congress. cholar, he reminded sional Record of the iesaga of such »ts, going back to the Naval Appropri ions Act of 1867, “which prohibited officers and federal employees from oliciting Samialen funds from Navy rd worke i his eal fashion, Moynihan was streacting the fervent younger reformn his Democratic Party, like Wiscon. Russ Feingold, that we have been jown this path oftrying to regulate orresivict contributions many timesbefore. ‘you must." That sort ofpractical wisdomis what has been missing in the moralizingap: preh taken by Feingold and the sup: po gislation he and Arizona uifts to the political parties. Ben John McCain » been pushing. When Feingold called He the other day to register his disagreement with a previous column questioning their approach, he pointed out that the original McCain to improve financial disclosure, raise in: idual contribution limits (to an in Feingoldbill hadincludedprovisions for free or reduced-cost television time for With quiet irony, he remarkedthat “I THE WASHINGTON POST WRITERS GROUP He federal candidates But the sponsors abandoned that pro: vision, rather than take on the lobbying influence of the broadcast industry a paraph ed the wise comment of former New York Times Editor Max Frankel that “if we want to make signifi cant changes with regard to how wecon. duct campaigns, we must look beyond limiting the flow of money into politics strange decision for people who portray and rather look to limiting the candi cheapTV time, or fordirect public subsi dates’ need for moneyto pay for television time” for their commercial As Frankel wrote in his column, ‘hereis no point dreaming ofa law that says ‘you maynot’ so long as the political system daily teaches the participants themselves as the scourge of “special interests.” Thelarger point is that by failing to recognize the reality Moynihan de: scribed, by failing to fight for free or dies of campaigns, or evenforraising the outdated $1,000 limit on ind’ tributions to candidates, Feingold ha made it easy for opponents to thwart hi laudableefforts to get rid of the $100,000. plus corporate and union “soft money Fortunately, others are exploring more realistic approachesto the problem Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republi can, ast week introduced a bipartisan bill dexed $3,000 per year) and cap “soft mon: ey” gifts at $60,000. The measure has the support of four other mainstreamcon: servative Republican senators (none of whom has backed the McCain-Feingold legislation), as well as Democrats Bob Kerrey of Nebraska and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. With backers like that, it might actuallypass At the same time, former Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, along with former CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite and a host of civic leaders, re- newed theirpleato television executives to give the candidates short segments of free time just before the election. They placed newspaper ads urgin that the broadcasters, who were handed licenses to the public airways worth bil lions of do contributefive minutes a night of free time for the final month be: fore each state primary and the RALPH LAUREN INTIMATES SAVE 5% dy lle ing its next period y elections for the ul probably late in Decembe for president in two ye ful, as Croatia's fore suddenly every “That is a wholenation that works,” he vem to be. 1 bows walking to- determina tionto buildadifferent Tunisia 0 bad as you nowclearly know ealousy or reason, America-bashing sepmed to be everybody's favorite pas- f ing trained as a military manby the U.S. and some warmhearted philoson call to tell you that humanbeings ind cultures —- assured that the le world hated America. Whetherout proudly own experiencein the United States, be: ing so much asa hotbath, a strong y really are “trips” yaev still mothers President Nurs holds nearly dressed up, th their hair, families Sale ends liarsera e Sy Dillard's 10-9 and Sunday Shop In Salt Lake City: Fashion Place and South Towne Center. In 12-6 at all Dillard's locations, Newgate Mall. In Provo: Provo Towne Cent Wewelcome your Dillard's Credit Card, The American Express® Card, Diners Club International, Mastercard? Visa® and The Decwver C card. , November general election, to be vised for policy statements fromthe candidates or mini-debates. Yet another good idea come Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of nenberg School for Communication of the University of Pennsylvania. And this one can be put into effect by the andidates themselves. Her proposal is that when a political aspirant launches a newradio or TVad, the candidate simultaneously posts on his or her Website the supporting information and sources behind every assertion in the ad. Since the advent of newspaper “ad watches,” manycontenders have be- gun to provide such documentation to reporter helping the press ist the public in evaluating these messages. But with the growing reach of the Internet, Jamieson points out, there is no reason why that same contextual material should not be made available by campaigns di rectlyto the voters. Noneofthese measuresis a panacea But theyarepractical and they would help |