***The result of the election is a referendum on the Bush administration's mishandling of issues important to the American people. The control of the House of Representatives by the Democrats means that they will set the congressional agenda, and will have the power to conduct investigations in the Bush administration affairs, including the handling of the war in Iraq.****

AMERicA was the promoter of human rights around the world. Today, the Bush administration and the Republican Party have ruthlessly destroyed the values of human rights by their methods of torture and abuse of power. As a result, the Bush administration could not dare contest the election in the newly created Human Rights council of the United Nations.

America was known as an advocate for freedom and liberty -a land where the Bill of Rights protected the liberty of the people. That protection for the American people has been destroyed by the Patriotic Act initiated by the Bush Administration.

Today, America has lost face in the world because of the invasion of iraq by utilising falsified intelligence reports to pursue the hidden agenda, masterminded by the neo-cons, of the Bush Administration. The war in iraq cost $378 billion as of March, 2006. What a colossal loss of taxpayers' money. A research report published by the Public Health School of John Hopkins University and printed in the Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal, states that the war in iraq has resulted in 655,000 iraqi deaths. Misuse and misinterpretation of intelligence reports by the Bush administration undermined the intelligence agencies, compromising their credibility.

college costs are soaring, and loan and grant programmes are not keeping up. America today faces the largest wave of teacher retirement in history, and young teachers are leaving the classroom at an alarming rate. The Republican mantra 'lower taxes, smaller government' may sound appealing in theory. in practice, it means tax breaks for the wealthy, and cuts in the key domestic sector -- higher education for the working class and the poor.

congress balances the power of the Executive branch. However, congress has turned out to be a rubber stamp for the Bush administration because of the calculated and systematic misuse of power by the administration. What purpose does the congress serve if it does not defend its own laws? i mean foreign the surveillance act. Runaway spending without trans-

parency has generated unprecedented scandals that have jolted the public in America today.

Against this backdrop, the people of America spoke out on November 7 to register their frustration and anger in a massive way, which remains unprecedented in the history of a mid-term election. it was a very impressive turnout of voters. This could be compared to some extent with the election when President Richard Nixon was to be impeached because of the Watergate scandal in 1974. in the midterm election the Democratic Party won 43 more seats in the House, and picked up 4 more seats in the Senate.

occupation of iraq, the present conflict in iraq, scandal-rocked congress, bad handling of the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, and unsuccessful reform of the social security programme are among the issues that affected the results of the election in favour of the Democratic party. When scandals hit, the Republican congress handled the situation badly, particularly in the recent case of the disgraced former Representative Mark Foley. The Republicans also alienated their base on the issue of immigration reform. The president's unpopularity is another reason for this debacle.

of the 435-seat House of Representatives, the Democratic Party has 201 seats while the Republicans hold 230. Three Republican congressmen resigned because of scandals, while one Democrat resigned because he was nominated to contest for a seat in the Senate, which he won from New Jersey. The Democratic Party captured 24 seats to become the majority in the House of Representatives after 12 years. The present election scenario in the House of Representatives is that the Democratic Party has won 229 seats, while the Republicans have 196, with 10 seats remaining undecided. Nancy Pelosi, the incumbent Minority Leader in the House, is now poised to be the Speaker of the House, who is also third in line for the presidency. This is the first time a woman will steer the House of Representatives. President Bush has congratulated her. in an Election Day victory reception Nancy

Pelosi said: "Today the American people voted for change, and they voted for Democrats to take the country in a new direction, and that is exactly what we intend to do."

one of the sweetest victories of the Democrats is the winning of a seat in Texas 22 district, which was vacant following the resignation, in June, of powerful Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, Tom Delay, a friend of President Bush, because of charges of misuse of public finance, and other scandals. Another surprising defeat of a Republican incumbent is that of Senator Jim Tallent in Missouri, who was a strong supporter of the president and the war in iraq. President Bush himself had campaigned for him in the elections. in another development a Muslim Democrat, Keith Ellison, was voted to the congress for the first time, from the fifth congressional district in Minnesota.

of the 100-seat Senate, the Democratic Party has secured 22 seats out of the 33 contested. one-third of the Senators contest every two years. The Democratic Party has won 51 seats while the Republicans 49 seats, and there are two independents. Therefore, the Democratic Party wins the Senate as well.

The result of the election is a referendum on the Bush administration's mishandling of issues important to the American people. The control of the House of Representatives by the Democrats means that they will set the congressional agenda, and will have the power to conduct investigations in the Bush administration affairs, including the handling of the war in iraq. i would like to conclude this piece by quoting Stephen Wayne, a political analyst from Georgetown University: "There would be a great incentive to investigate the executive branch, and the Democrats would try to drag the administration through with non-stop investigations for the next two years." President Bush will have to seek the advice of the Democrat dominated congress on issues of national and international matters over the next two years of his tenure. Not an easy-going time, of course.

Mohammad Amjad Hossain, a former diplomat, writes from Virginia, US.

***The result of the election is a referendum on the Bush administration's mishandling of issues important to the American people. The control of the House of Representatives by the Democrats means that they will set the congressional agenda, and will have the power to conduct investigations in the Bush administration affairs, including the handling of the war in Iraq.***