It took a long time coming, but the United States finally has its 43rd president - Texas Governor George W. Bush, the apparent winner for nearly five weeks but whose victory will remain forever marred by the peculiar conditions of this year's elections. Now the questions concern the leadership he will provide his country and to some extent the world.
To their credit, both candidates moved quickly to improve a testy mood. Vice-President Al Gore conceded with grace though without admitting that he actually lost, for he surely remains convinced that he would be on top if only more Florida ballots were recounted. Mr Bush responded with remarks about the need for conciliation and compromise. If this atmosphere holds, America should avoid the angry divisions which many feared would follow this disputed election.
Once in office, Mr Bush seems likely to run his White House in the style of Ronald Reagan, another leader of limited intellectual curiosity who grasped a few big themes and delegated the work to others. But his ideas are quite different. Mr Reagan considered government the enemy and tried to shrink it (he failed), and fought the 'evil empire' of the Soviet Union (which soon after crumbled). Mr Bush has more prosaic goals which involve both reducing and using government powers, while promoting global stability.
He will face complex challenges. He begins as only the fourth US president to gain the job despite losing the popular vote; his nationwide count was 330,000 less than that of Mr Gore. Mr Bush won because court rulings gave him victory in Florida, though unofficial counts may yet show that he lost there, too. And he will face a Congress in which his Republican Party's small majority in the lower house shrank further and a Senate majority became a 50-50 tie.
The new chief executive also will assume office just as the longest economic expansion in US history slows to a crawl and may halt completely; the dreaded word recession is being heard. If there is a relapse, none of Mr Bush's more ambitious plans for tax cuts and social reforms will do well on Capitol Hill.
These priorities largely are about social issues. He wants a US$1.3 trillion tax cut over the coming 10 years, which critics call both poor economics and a handout to the rich. He hopes to revise funding for the national social security (pension) programme by diverting some of its funds into the stock market and away from government coffers; many analysts believe this would bankrupt the system. And he wants to enforce higher education standards while allowing, with tax money, more parents to choose private schools and others outside the established education structure. Critics claim this would savage the public system.
