[As
U.S. results trickled in, they were analyzed far and wide with the sort of
blanket news coverage most often reserved for elections closer to home.]
“Trump-Biden:
The United States is tearing itself apart,” the newspaper Le Monde said in a
front-page headline, summarizing French coverage of the election that has often
depicted a country coming apart at the seams.
“OK,
America, so what the hell happens now?” wrote Marina Hyde, a columnist for The Guardian, Britain’s
main left-leaning newspaper. She answered her own question by venturing, “Rule
nothing out, except maybe optimism.”
By
Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Biden predicted “we will be the winners” but stopped
short of declaring victory. Mr. Trump vowed legal challenges to what he cast as
fraudulent Democratic votes.
In
Australia and Indonesia, crowds converged around televisions in cafes, trying
to steal a glimpse of states turning red or blue. In Iran, the hashtag
#Elections_America trended on Persian Twitter, while in Japan, Fuji Television
covered the election with graphics that mixed old-school cardboard cutouts with
the avatars common in video games.
All
over the world, the results trickling in from across the American
electoral map made for confounding, fascinating must-watch drama. The
stakes are global, and so was the audience, illustrating the truism that
presidential elections in the United States affect everyone, even those
ineligible to vote in them.
“It’s
kind of like the World Cup finals,” said Moch Faisal Karim, an international
relations professor at Binus University in Indonesia.
For
many, the election was an opportunity to watch the hoped-for defeat of Mr.
Trump, who has frayed alliances, started trade wars and vexed many foreign
leaders with his erratic, transactional style. After the nonstop drama of his
first term, much of the world hungers
for the United States to shift back toward the more traditional course
Mr. Biden has promised.
For
those countries that have benefited from Mr. Trump, the prospect of a President
Biden awakened more conflicted emotions. In Israel, where Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu has forged close ties with Mr. Trump, right-wing
commentators seized on the closeness of the race to vilify American news media
that had foreseen through polling a more clear-cut advantage for Mr. Biden.
“The
gap between what they said and what happened is simply too wide to believe they
did not see this,” Shimon Riklin, an ally of Mr. Netanyahu’s, said
on Twitter. “We had predicted the most organized and splendid fake news in
history.”
Many
viewers wanted nothing more than a quick resolution, but instead there was
uncertainty and angst. First came the quadrennial refresher course on the
complexities of the American process for electing a president — and then, as
votes were counted, the hours of waiting, as news websites and television
channels filled with the 50-state maps and charts familiar to Americans.
They
tried to make sense of images of stores
boarded up against potential violence. When Mr. Trump appeared at the
White House around 2 a.m. in Washington and prematurely
declared that he had won, warning that he would go to the Supreme Court to
try to shut down the rest of the vote counting, anxieties deepened.
“Donald
Trump is playing with fire in a context that is already quite explosive,” Le
Monde declared.
Michael
Fullilove, executive director of the Lowy Institute, a research institute in
Sydney, Australia, said, “President Trump’s statement should concern anyone who
believes in democracy.”
“A
contested election may be the worst possible result for the United States,” Mr.
Fullilove added. “Covid had already made America look seriously unwell. Now it
appears febrile and disoriented.”
In
South Africa, where opinion polls showed a strong preference for a Biden presidency, many on social media
noted the implications of Mr. Trump’s wide support in the United States.
“It
does not matter who wins, the USA is a very divided population,” James
Bernstein, a financial risk analyst, said on Twitter. “Trump with all his disgusting characteristics
and amid bungling Covid pandemic, is still able to garner 50% of the US
population approval — that says a lot.”
Feyi Fawehinmi, a Nigerian author and analyst, summed up what the election meant to many Africans
following from afar: “No other country could have scripted this. This is pure
entertainment. Edge of seat stuff.”
In
Asia, the election results came in while the markets
were trading, setting off wild fluctuations. Stocks in Asia ended mixed.
In
a region that has mostly controlled the coronavirus, many people tried to
fathom how Mr. Trump, a leader who had falsely claimed the scourge would
disappear in the United States, could still garner so much support among a
population where infections are still rampant.
South
Korean newspapers relayed real-time updates on the vote counting with banner
headlines on their websites, and cable channels had uninterrupted coverage,
making this the most closely watched American election in the country in recent
memory.
In
India, where the mother of Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice-presidential
candidate, was
born, viewers took a special interest in watching updates on television all
day — particularly in the southern village of Thulasendrapuram, birthplace of
Ms. Harris’s maternal grandfather more than 100 years ago.
“Usually
we don’t follow American elections,” said Pradeep, the manager of a small hotel
in the village, surrounded by lush rice paddies. “But this time we have been
following the elections very closely, like our own elections.”
Pradeep,
who goes by one name, expressed dismay that the election was so close and
blamed what he called racist voting patterns, saying it was “evident this time
as the whites have completely voted for Trump.”
In
China, the state news media repeatedly highlighted the potential for riots or
other election-related violence. CCTV, the state broadcaster, aired footage of
the heavy police presence in Washington and protesters shoving one another near
the White House, though protests there Tuesday evening had been largely
peaceful.
For
some countries, hopes rose that the election would augur a shift in the United
States’ relationship with the world.
In
Indonesia, some analysts said a Biden victory would soften the American
approach to the Muslim world, while in Iran, where the economy has been battered
by Mr. Trump’s sanctions, there was a sense among some that the election
would have a greater impact on Iranians than on Americans.
“The
slogan for the revolution was ‘no to the West, no to the East,’” Ebrahim
Alinia, a real estate agent, wrote on Twitter. “But after 41 years we are
looking to America’s election to save our economy.”
In
Afghanistan, where Mr. Trump has vowed to extricate American forces in a deal
with the Taliban insurgents they have been fighting since 2001, there was some
hope that Mr. Biden would prevail.
Many
Afghans, particularly women, see Mr. Trump as having abandoned them. “We are
worried about losing our two decades of achievements,” said Marzia Rustami, a
women’s rights activist, who expressed hope that if Mr. Trump loses, “the
Afghan people will be given more attention.”
In
Brazil, where President Jair Bolsonaro is a populist
ally of Mr. Trump, critics pinned their hopes on Mr. Biden to change Mr.
Trump’s policies. “A change in U.S. policy can help to postpone and even
reverse the tipping point of the Amazon rainforest,” Natalie Unterstell, an
environmental activist, said on Twitter.
Mr.
Bolsonaro, who has said he fears a Biden White House would seek to curb
development of the Amazon, unabashedly expressed support for Mr. Trump during
the ballot counting on Wednesday. “I hope he is re-elected,” he told supporters
outside the presidential palace.
While
the gravity of the election was evident in news coverage, in Japan it came with
a bit of whimsy, intended or not.
On
Asahi TV, the hosts explained the Electoral College with puzzle pieces of
battleground states imprinted with electoral vote counts. A vote counter on the
bottom of the screen showed images of the candidates reacting to increases in
the counts: Mr.
Trump was depicted with his mouth agape, hands waving on either side
of his face. Mr. Biden appeared with a soberly thrust fist.
Even
Alexei A. Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who has challenged President
Vladimir V. Putin and nearly
died after being poisoned with a nerve agent, found humor in the uncertain
outcome.
“Woke
up and went on Twitter to see who won,” he posted Wednesday.
“Still unclear. Now that’s what I call elections.”
Mark
Landler reported from London, and Damien Cave from Sydney, Australia. Reporting
was contributed by Aurelien Breeden from Paris; Steven Erlanger from Brussels;
Ernesto Londoño from Rio de Janeiro; Letícia Casado from Brasília; Isabel
Kershner from Jerusalem; Motoko Rich from Tokyo; Hannah Beech from Bangkok;
Vivian Wang from Hong Kong; Yan Zhuang from Melbourne, Australia; Choe Sang-Hun
from Seoul, South Korea; Jeffrey Gettleman from New Delhi; Prakash Elumalai from
Thulasendrapuram, India; Farnaz Fassihi and Rick Gladstone from New York;
Andrew E. Kramer and Anton Troianovski from Moscow; Abdi Latif Dahir from
Cairo; Monica Mark from Johannesburg; and Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Najim Rahim
from Kabul, Afghanistan. Claire Fu
