"The monitors indicated that it was a credible election, I think, in an overall sense, it apparently is a free and fair election, so it's a real milestone and one of the things we can take some little confidence in"
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The sentence tries to sound like history while tiptoeing around the kind of certainty history usually demands. Christopher piles on qualifiers - "indicated", "credible", "I think", "overall sense", "apparently" - until the core claim ("free and fair") arrives cushioned in bubble wrap. That is not verbal clumsiness; it is diplomatic craft. A U.S. statesman endorsing an election in a fragile or newly legitimized political environment is never just reporting a fact. He is managing consequences: signaling support without writing America into a blank check, affirming a process without overowning an outcome.
The intent is to confer legitimacy in public, but in a way that preserves an exit ramp if violence flares, fraud allegations spread, or the winning coalition turns repressive. "Monitors" functions as borrowed authority: the judgment is outsourced to a technocratic instrument, which makes the endorsement look procedural rather than political. Yet the repeated hedges also hint at what cannot be said outright: the election may be decent by local standards, messy by ideal ones, and politically convenient for Washington to bless.
Calling it a "milestone" is classic post-Cold War democratization rhetoric - progress framed as incremental, measurable, and therefore bankable. Then he undercuts the triumph with "some little confidence", a phrase that tacitly admits the surrounding landscape is still unstable. The subtext is reassurance aimed in two directions at once: to the country holding the election ("you are being welcomed into legitimacy") and to skeptical observers at home ("we're not naive; we're watching").
The intent is to confer legitimacy in public, but in a way that preserves an exit ramp if violence flares, fraud allegations spread, or the winning coalition turns repressive. "Monitors" functions as borrowed authority: the judgment is outsourced to a technocratic instrument, which makes the endorsement look procedural rather than political. Yet the repeated hedges also hint at what cannot be said outright: the election may be decent by local standards, messy by ideal ones, and politically convenient for Washington to bless.
Calling it a "milestone" is classic post-Cold War democratization rhetoric - progress framed as incremental, measurable, and therefore bankable. Then he undercuts the triumph with "some little confidence", a phrase that tacitly admits the surrounding landscape is still unstable. The subtext is reassurance aimed in two directions at once: to the country holding the election ("you are being welcomed into legitimacy") and to skeptical observers at home ("we're not naive; we're watching").
Quote Details
| Topic | Human Rights |
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