ONDON - The world greeted Sunday's news that George W. Bush had been declared the winner in Florida, and laid claim to the US presidency, with a sense of weariness but also a growing belief that a Bush administration will be in place by the end of January.
So often has the ''final'' outcome of the presidential race been reported in the last three weeks that many outside the United States regard bulletins from America as being as credible as Chicken Little's admonitions that the sky is falling. Vice President Al Gore's announcement that he would continue his legal challenge was greeted with frustration in many foreign capitals, where there is an increasing impatience with America's unending election.
Three weeks of chortling over the inability of America's vaunted democracy to declare a winner have given way to more serious consideration of what will happen when, as most of the world's media and governments now expect, Bush takes office.
London's Evening Standard newspaper yesterday seemed to capture the worldwide anxiety that the disputed results will weaken whoever makes it to the White House, saying the winner's ''legitimacy will remain in question.''
Europeans are especially keen on learning the outcome because Gore and Bush have pledged considerably different policies. Bush's chief foreign policy adviser, Condoleezza Rice, has said Bush favors withdrawing US troops from the Balkans and leaving the peacekeeping there to the Europeans. Bush is also seen as far more enthusiastic than Gore about building a missile defense system, which Europeans uniformly oppose, fearing it will restart the arms race with Russia.
Bush's indication that he wants General Colin Powell to be secretary of state raised concern in some capitals that a Bush administration will be guided by Powell's reputation for extreme caution.
Rice has said that a Bush administration will pay more attention to the Middle East, Asia, and Russia and less to Europe, and that the most pressing and daunting foreign policy challenges probably lie in the Middle East, where the lame duck President Clinton has been unable to persuade either the Israelis or the Palestinians to end their recent fighting.
While Gore was favored by many Israelis, Bush, with a background in the oil industry, is seen in the Arab world as more attentive to the industry's concerns, which directly affect the Persian Gulf states and the broader economy of the Arab world.
Although Moscow and Washington could clash over arms agreements under a Bush presidency, some Russian observers expressed guarded optimism about the future of US-Russian ties, if for no other reason than that few in Moscow believe the relationship could get any worse.
Privately, some officials hinted that the Kremlin was hoping for Gore to win, simply because that would ensure continuity in the Russian-American relationship. These officials believe that Bush, who is perceived in Moscow as an inexperienced politician, would, as one Kremlin analyst said, ''do what he sees fit for America regardless of the Russian position.''
But many Russian observers see that as a good thing. Legislator Viktor Pokhmelkin predicted that a Bush administration would probably take a tougher line toward Moscow, but that its ''detached, cold, and pragmatic'' foreign policy would also be easier to understand.
In Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, many policy makers have been quietly hoping for a Bush presidency, believing it would return Asia's three most established capitalist democracies to center stage on the US foreign policy agenda.
In China, however, Gore was perceived as the better candidate to continue Clinton's policy of engaging Beijing. China's leaders fear Bush will strengthen military ties with Taipei and support the building of a missile defense system to shield the United States and its Asian allies, including Taiwan - a move that Beijing sees as a threat to its primacy in the region, and to its self-assumed right to invade Taiwan if the island declares formal independence.
''Mainland Chinese are paranoid about any deviation in the status quo, because they think it'll be bad for them,'' said Bob Broadfoot, managing director of Political Economic Risk Consultants, based in Hong Kong.
Busy with national elections of their own yesterday, Canadians paid less attention than usual to the US race. Canada has calmly viewed the presidential predicament as a fluke of the electoral system, not a crisis or sign of flaws in the American democratic process.
A Bush presidency, however, will have consequences north of the border. Canadians are only too bitterly aware that their American neighbors pay far lower taxes and generally enjoy much higher incomes. If Bush cuts taxes, as pledged, Ottawa will come under intense pressure to slash Canada's expensive social service system or risk an even more massive loss of businesses and productive citizens to the United States.
''Canada may be forced to adopt a small-government model whether it wants one or not,'' said Chris Sands, Canadian affairs specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
While many Africans had a good laugh at those who have lectured them for so long on how to conduct democratic elections, they are now wondering whether the prospect of having two black Americans - Rice and Powell - in charge of US foreign policy will be good or bad for their continent. Allister Sparks, a South African journalist, said that Republicans are widely seen ''as hostile to Africa,'' and that Africans are keenly aware that African-Americans overwhelmingly backed Gore.
If the court challenges drag on, former Bosnian prime minister Haris Salijdzic suggested the United States try the rotating presidency that was imposed on his country by the Americans in the 1995 Dayton accord that ended the Bosnian war.
''We have three presidents rotating,'' he said. ''I am sure Mr. Nader will be glad to hear that.''
Globe Staff writers Charles M. Sennott in Jerusalem, David Filipov in Moscow, Indira A.R. Lakshmanan in Hong Kong, and Colin Nickerson in Montreal, and Globe correspondents Brian Whitmore in Prague, Kurt Shillinger in Johannesburg, and Ernesto Garcia Calderon in Lima contributed to this report.
