Two Elections

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.

"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.

"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.

"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