In Africa, Hoping for Kerry Because He's Not Bush
Tue Oct 26, 2004 07:16 AM ET
By C. Bryson Hull

NAIROBI, Kenya (Reuters) - President Bush's administration boasts no other American presidency has done more for Africa than his, and many on the world's poorest continent agree.

But despite Bush's championing of a $15 billion anti-AIDS program and efforts to drop trade barriers, sub-Saharan Africa appears to want to see his Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry, in the White House for the next four years.

Though many Africans are preoccupied with crushing poverty, disease or conflict, the continent -- like the world -- is keenly interested in the outcome of the Nov. 2 contest.

"If Africa was to vote, Kerry would get a landslide," said Robert Kabushenga, a political analyst and journalist in Uganda.

But it is not so much of because who Kerry is, but who he is not: George W. Bush.

"All public opinion surveys show the publics of the world don't know Kerry but they don't like Bush. Someone sitting in Chad doesn't know who Kerry is, but he sure knows who Bush is," said John Stremlau, a professor of international relations at Johannesburg's Witwatersrand University.