At the stroke of midnight on the 7^th of November, students, faculty, and staff members of EC campuses, gathered at the Student Lounge of Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar to attend the “Election Night Viewing Party”. The attendees were overwhelmed with anxiety and uncertainty as they witnessed the decision of the American people. When the event first started the attendees crowded in the student lounge, waiting to spend nine hours of watching American democratic politics in action. Will the elections result in the re-election of Obama or the election of Romney? Will the voice of the United States of America speak democratic or republican? Do the votes actually count? These questions remained in the minds of the event’s attendees, and the answers were one of two options.

 

 

There were only two ways the event would go about: either people show up in their PJ’s ready to nap until the results are out, or they arrive early in the morning to witness the closing of the polls, and a decision molded. The Student Lounge was entirely occupied by attendees. Some engaged in the voting polls held throughout the event, others debated about the future of countries in the Middle East over pizza, snacks, and energy drinks. Indeed, it was an event organized to depict what is it like to be an American citizen, presented with two options: re-election and new-election, with the opportunity to determine the course of the country’s next four years.

 

 

Electoral votes over the first seven hours indicated that Romney was initially in the lead. The course of events altered leading Obama with more electoral votes than Romney, at first with a 10-vote difference and ending with 303 electoral votes – 93 more votes than Romney. As CNN projected that Obama had won this election, and will be serving another term as the President of the United States of America, the crowd in both the Obama headquarters and within our student lounge broke out in an applause, chanting, with happiness due to the positive result. Although the majority of the attendees celebrated and praised the re-election of Obama, a few attendees were disappointed about the result.

 

 

Dean Brendan Hill, the Associate Dean of Student Affairs shouted, “Alhamdulilah!” to further express his relief and satisfaction of the outcome of the election. Attendees chanted slogans such as, “No Mitt Romney!” or “We’re safe!” and even “Thank God its Obama”. The themes discussed after CNN’s projection of the result of the election were justifications to why people would choose either candidate. Many attendees were ready to go home, and were assured that Romney will not speak as the President of the United States of America. Witnessing American democratic politics take place, despite the fact that many of them were not Americans, absorbed students from NU-Q, CMU-Q, and even GU-Q. Even though these elections were exclusive to Americans only, attendees of different nationalities, backgrounds, and opinions shared similar views with the American majority.

 

 

Some attendees, who had preferred a republican approach this year, indicated that if they could vote for a candidate it would be Romney, simply because his foreign policy towards the Middle East is transparent. Other attendees were “cautiously enthusiastic” about the projected result and chose to stay and witness the speeches each candidate will give, to satisfy the projected results with the real outcomes. The final debate that seemed to engross young minds was to what extent were these elections free and fair. Is democracy in the United States of America actually a democracy? Or does it satisfy a “duopoly” in which only two parties are only allowed to run: “Basically, the election wasn’t even democratic because there were only two parties to start with that were allowed to run,” indicated a critic of the election process. In the end, the people have spoken, and America has chosen Barack Obama as the next president.