French Run-Off

This year is in many ways an epoch-making year. From the inauguration of the POTUS last January we will be witnessing the elections of three other great Western powers, France (today), UK (June) and Germany (September). In living memory I don't remember all four economic giants going through the installation of leaders or new leaders within a calendar year but I could be wrong. It is epochal as the President of the United States of America had never held elected office before being elected President and the same could happen to France in the early hours of tomorrow. Promotion does not come from the East nor from the West but it is God who puts one down and sets up another. With Brexit in full swing now, 2017 proves to be momentous and ground shifting as doing politics in the West will never be the same again. European Union could prove more resilient without Britain as the Franco-German axis will anchor the European project for years to come and we may yet see a more Federalist Europe taking shape and Brussels exercising more authority not less despite populism and nationalist movements across several European states.
The private lives of leaders come into focus as we read for the past couple of weeks the unconventional love story of Emmanuel Macron and his wife, the presumptive French president. The much more puritanical America has elected a President who is twice divorced, and his treatment of women (groping allegations) would make any religious conservative squirms but a vast majority of evangelical Christians voted for Donald Trump. Any womanising weakness is overlooked as Trump is seen to be more pro Israel, pro life and the possible appointment of a conservative Supreme Court justice played a large part in the so-called Christian bloc in voting for POTUS. I suppose the Democrats have failed to figure out the electability or unelectability of their Presidential candidate despite claims that Russian hacking or the FBI director's disclosure of further emails to be investigated a week prior to the Election had cost Hilary Clinton the Presidency. If Madam Clinton had won, we could have seen a takeover of power by women with all four greatest Western nations ruled by females for per chance Marine Le Pen could pull off an upset today with Theresa May's expected landslide victory in June and Angela Merkel could still hold on to power come September. Even if half of the four have female leaders with the other two losing female candidates, the world has seen glass ceiling reached and gender equality as never before.