the election issue

This post is dedicated to my friends and family in Toronto, where the municipal election campaign is coming down to the wire.  Having followed these elections from afar - particularly the mayoral race - with an ever-increasing sense of morbid fascination and dismay, my heart goes out to the residents there who have some difficult choices to make on Monday.  

Not that this is any consolation, but I am also surrounded by wacky electioneering here in Jordan.  About two weeks after I arrived here last December, parliament (which by many accounts was more than somewhat dysfunctional) was dissolved and the appointed cabinet was sent off to rewrite the election law to render better results next time around.  So I guess that happened without any fanfare and suddenly  11 months later, approximately two weeks ago, a parliamentary election campaign opened with a bang.

In the course of two days, the streets of the city were taken over by campaign posters.  And every day more appear. There are handwritten banners across all the streets, taking over the parks and circles.  There are printed posters plastering the sides of buildings, tacked to every possible street sign.   White canvas tents filled with plastic garden chairs have taken over the vacant lots all around town and out into the countryside where candidate meetings seem to be going on every night.  I guess petitioners come and make requests and candidates make promises.  And then maybe some roast lamb on a bed of rice is served on huge trays for all comers.  I am not sure about that last part - but keen to find out.  I am trying to convince my friend Robert to check out a meeting with me one evening, where we will unquestionably stick out of the crowd.

Like in places such as Hungary or Lebanon or New Zealand, the Jordanian parliament has seats reserved for minorities - circassians and chechens - and also for women.  So it is interesting to see some (small!) diversity in the posters.  I have also noticed one candidate who is posing in traditional bedouin garb in some posters - kefiyeh, dishdash - and western jacket and tie in others.   Others are almost uniformly in western business attire.

We will get the full day off work on election day - November 8th, I think - though I am not sure whether that helps or harms voter turnout.  I would think the desire to head out of town for the day off will be strong.  We'll see.   In the meantime, I am enjoying parsing the script on the posters and trying to figure out if there are any actual election issues.

I can't vote here and I also won't be able to exercise my vote in Toronto, so I can only hope that my compatriots make wise choices in exercising their right!  Good luck.  May the worst man not win.