Fingers crossed that US President George Walker Bush will emulate the performance of his father and only serve one term in office. But the race at the moment is too close to call. Let’s assume President Bush loses the election but having acquired the taste for high political office he seeks to become president or equivalent in another nation.
Which countries would be his best bets? Using the data from BetaVote.com the site which asks What if the whole world could vote in this election?
I’ve compiled a list of those nations where a majority of people have voted Bush along with the associated vote percentage.
Niger – 98%
Liechtenstein – 80%
Mauritania – 77%
Faroe Islands – 76%
Turks And Caicos Islands – 60%
Central African Republic – 57%
Azerbaijan – 55%
What do we know of these nations? Like President Bush I’m sure most of us are in the dark about them so I turned to the CIA World Factbook to discover more.
Niger
With an overwhelming vote of 98% Niger a country of Western Africa, southeast of Algeria would appear to be a good choice for Bush. However, Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world with minimal government services and insufficient funds to develop its resource base. The largely agrarian and subsistence-based economy is frequently disrupted by extended droughts common to the Sahel region of Africa. The good news is that with a climate that is hot, dry and dusty throughout most of the country and tropical in the extreme south he may feel that he is back in Texas. Aside from the climate there is little for Bush here I believe, with very few resources he’ll have to look elsewhere for a base from which to launch his plans to become a world power once again.
Liechtenstein
Next on the list with 80% comes the tiny European nation of Liechtenstein. Situated between Austria and Switzerland it covers an area of only 160 sq km which is probably smaller than his ranch in Texas. The good news is that it is a country with a high standard of living with low taxes much like the US. Unluckily for Bush it is a principality so he would have to settle for merely being Head of Government as the Head of State is Prince Hans Adam II. Perhaps we should overlook Liechtenstein as a Bush prospect much like the Nazis did in World War II.
Mauritania
If Liechtenstein appears too small for Bush how about over a million sq km of prime North African real estate in the form of Mauritania. The good news as the country is a republic Bush would be able to become President Bush once more if he were to run for election. The nation’s coastal waters are among the richest fishing areas in the world, but overexploitation by foreigners threatens this key source of revenue, sounds like a good excuse for war. The bad news is that there are rising ethnic tensions between its black minority population and the dominant Maur (Arab-Berber) populace, as a good Texan I’m sure he knows how to deal with black minorities.
Faroe Islands
So with number four on his list Bush goes back to Europe and once again it is a tiny little nation but this time it’s not landlocked for it is the Faroe Islands. Situated between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, about one-half of the way from Iceland to Norway it is ruled over by Queen Margrethe II of Denmark. Surely an opportunity exists here for a new War of Independence and Bush could set himself up as President/Dictator for Life.
Strictly speaking we should be considering the Turks And Caicos Islands or the Central African Republic but islands and Africa are well represented already in the list so let’s instead journey to Southwestern Asia and to the nation of…
Azerbaijan
At first glance as Azerbaijan is stuck between Iran and Russia, traditional enemies of the US and has a majority-Muslim population this may seem a poor choice for Bush but let us explore deeper. The main advantage that this nation has over the others is that Azerbaijan’s number one export is oil. That’s right OIL, Black Gold, Texas Tea. Azerbaijan shares all the formidable problems of the former Soviet republics in making the transition from a command to a market economy, but its considerable energy resources brighten its long-term prospects. For plain talking Bush that means some excellent real estate that was left to rot by it’s former long-time owners but now a superb prospect with many development opportunities. With tons of oil and enemies on both sides this is I believe the place for Dubya to become once again President Bush.
Tags: politics, US