A
number of general and presidential elections are taking place next month. One of
these, predictably, is getting worldwide attention, whilst the others are of local
interest only. As you would expect, the big one is taking place in America, gobbling
up huge amounts of money and media time.
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| "Red is the colour of my vote" |
Did you know that Americans are spending a staggering 6
billion dollars on their presidential election? You would think that they are
getting value for money. Instead, they are saddled with an incumbent bored out
of his mind, to the extent that he couldn’t even be bothered to show up at the
first of their presidential TV debates. The
wannabe, on the other hand, disses half of the electorate as plebs, not worthy
of attention from his kind.
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| "We will bark you all the way" |
A world away in Sierra Leone, people there too, have
been consumed by their presidential election set for November 17, although campaigning
was not supposed to have begun officially until a few days ago. Salone is a
small country with an annual budget that is as far from the $6bn that Americans
are wasting on their election as it is geographically remote from that country.
But still, you can make quite a splash
with a few leones in a country where a sizeable crowd can be hired for the
equivalent of a few hundred dollars. And certainly, the cost of kitting out
supporters in party regalia, whether human or canine, does not amount to much, a
fact that one party has taken full advantage of. Such low-tech devices can also
be deployed to send messages, calibrated to shock, even in those supposedly
enlightened and sophisticated United States.
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| "My neck is red" |
Violent subtexts abound everywhere, of course, whether
in a constituency determined to keep its right to bear arms (for what?) or
where, more explicitly, violence stalks the political landscape. Here
participants do not necessarily take naturally to the business of jaw-jaw, so the
Sierra Leone version of the televised debate between the front running
aspirants seems, for the moment, to be languishing in the long grass.
But let us hope that we will all get to the other side
without any major bust-up and America will have its 3 billion-dollar man in the
White House whilst Sierra Leone will have its own one thousand-dollar version
at State House. One can only hope that each would deliver the goods they
promised. We can’t wait for ever.
Tell Fren Tru
