***It is unclear what the governor can do about the deficit short of raising taxes or cutting services, neither of which will endear him to the electorate. Indeed, Governor Schwarzenegger is now on record as saying that he will not raise taxes, which leaves cutting services. If he takes that route, California's 38th governor could find that his popularity is short-lived.***

IT'S official. Arnold Schwarzenegger is the 38th

governor of California, the largest state in the US and the sixth largest economy in the world. In the end it wasn't even close. The incumbent governor, Gray Davis was recalled by a resounding 10 point margin and Schwarzenegger romped to victory, garnering 48 per cent of the vote to replace him, and easily outpacing his nearest rival from out of the field of 135, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, who finished a distant second with 32 per cent.

Confused observers around the world who best know Schwarzenegger from his role as a robot from the future come first to destroy mankind and then to save it in the Terminator trilogy can be permitted to wonder what this all means and whether his election should be taken as the latest sign of the Apocalypse.

Now, it would be understandable for one unfamiliar with Schwarzenegger beyond his roles on the silver screen to conclude that the state of California has lost its collective mind. But

Schwarzenegger is more than the muscle-bound Neanderthal he appears to be on screen.

The first thing to note about Schwarzenegger is that, appearances to the contrary, he is not a complete idiot. In interviews he comes across as thoughtful, astute, and intelligent, and he is considered to be an impressive man by political commentators and pundits. He sounds a lot dumber than he really is due to his impenetrable accent, but his mangled vowels and comicbook physique mask a shrewd and calculating intellect.

Nor is Schwarzenegger a political novice. Even before his run for governor, he was well-known in Californian political circles for his

activism, acumen, and ambition, and has for years been spoken about as a man with a bright political future. He campaigned for the first President Bush in 1988 and has been active in Republican political circles for almost two decades.

Recently Schwarzenegger spear-headed a ballot initiative to fund after-school programmes for school-children, and his leadership was widely credited with being instrumental to the initiative's success. Indeed, one can reasonably argue that Schwarzenegger's political ambition and acumen have been evident since 1981 when he married Maria Shriver, JFK's niece, and thus connected himself with the first family of US politics.

But to fully understand Schwarzenegger's election as governor, it is important to appreciate the different factors that converged to bring it about.

The first factor was the massive unpopularity of the sitting governor, who was blamed by the public for the state's economic woes and was perceived to be running a corrupt, politics-as-usual administration. When people are turned off by politics and politicians in general, the field is left wide open to someone outside of the political mainstream to come in and set things right.

The second factor was the circus-like atmosphere which surrounded the recall election. The state constitution permitted anyone who garnered 80 signatures and put in $3000 to run, resulting in a field of 135 candidates who included diminutive former child-star Gary Coleman (of Different Strokes fame) and editor of Hustler magazine Larry Flynt. In addition, due to the vagaries of the laws governing the recall, the campaign ran a mere 77 days from start to finish. Such a situation was always going to favour a celebrity with star power and high name-recognition. The choice for voters was essentially

Schwarzenegger, Lt. Governor Bustamante, conservative Republican Tom McClintock, and a freak show of 132 odd-balls. Astonishing though this might sound, Schwarzenegger was the only legitimate non-politician in the field, which meant that if you were sick of politics-as-usual and wanted to send a message to the lawmakers in Sacramento (the state capital), he was the only game in town. But the most important factor behind Schwarzenegger's election was the fact that he is a Republican. The recall election can best be understood as a coup engineered by the Republican party to oust the Democratic governor and replace him with a Republican. Gray Davis limped to victory over the relatively unknown Republican nominee, Bill Simon, by 47 per cent 42 per cent. Soon after the election, as the enormity of the state's economic distress began to finally filter through to the electorate, Davis's popularity plummeted and the Republicans saw their opening. Electable Republicans are in short supply in California and the Republican party was looking for someone with the star power to ensure that David would be recalled and to defeat Bustamante in the election to replace him. Schwarzenegger fit that criteria to a T -- and this more than any other reason is why he is sitting in the governor's mansion in Sacramento.

The question now is what kind of a governor he will make. The last days of the campaign were dominated by revelations of Schwarzenegger's misogynistic behaviour towards women and rumours of his admiration for Hitler. Schwarzenegger and his supporters have tried to brush off these accounts of him groping and pawing his way through Hollywood over the past three decades by suggesting that they amount to nothing more than bad behaviour and that he is

duly repentant. The allegations of misbehaviour which for the most part have not been denied by Schwarzenegger, however, are troubling in the extreme as they paint a picture of a man with a cruel and sadistic streak who enjoys using his power and authority to demean and humiliate others, especially women. The quote attributed to Schwarzenegger about Hitler reveals not so much admiration of Hitler per se as admiration of the power he wielded, but to my mind the megalomania hinted at is almost as disturbing as if Schwarzenegger did have Nazi sympathies.

So while Schwarzenegger's intellect and political acumen are not bars in my mind to his suitability for elective office, I remain deeply concerned by his apparent misogyny and megalomania. Nor do I have much faith that he will be able to cure California's economic ills. The state is running a deficit of $38 billion due to a revenue shortfall caused by the poor economy and the after-effects of an energy crisis during which electric companies such as Enron bilked the state for $9 billion through illicit market manipulation.

It is unclear what the governor can do about the deficit short of raising taxes or cutting services, neither of which will endear him to the electorate. Indeed, Governor Schwarzenegger is now on record as saying that he will not raise taxes, which leaves cutting services. If he takes that route, California's 38th governor could find that his popularity is short-lived. Zafar Sobhan is an Assistant Editor of The Daily Star