Pre Election Monday
Tis a Monday just prior to a country’s elections and all conversation turns towards whom shall come into power. There are a couple of facts relating to the elections which I find rather interesting.
• You vote in your home town. As opposed to the place that you are working. For most of the guys in the mining towns, they are migrants, therefore are required to travel to funny sounding places in order to vote.
• Having an election day on a Tuesday is bad planning. Effectively everyone wants to knock off early as they have to travel in order to vote. This means there are a lot of people absent from work today, and even though tomorrow is not a public holiday, we will have maybe 10% of our workforce at work – after they have voted. (which could be anything from 10 am – 5pm depending on the queues.)
• Voting is carried out at a polling station by placing your thumb print in a box next to the party/candidate you wish to vote for. In my book this does away with each vote been secret, given the fact that a thumb print is uniquely identified to the person who places it. Whatever happened to the good old fashioned X.
• African democracy is such that if you are a member of party X and you “stumble” on to a rally been carried out by party Y, you will get beaten up by the supporters of party X. This been the headlines in today’s newspaper. Not to different from the early SA elections (except then you stood a good chance of been killed). Things have changed!
• Ghana has only been a democracy since 1992.
• Presidents can only hold office for 8 years
• News has the current president winning the race. Speak to the people on the ground here and it seems they all think it is going to be close.
• There are stunning debates happening as to weather Ghana is better off now then when Rawlings was president. (for those that do not know, Rawlings took power by way of a coup and in 1992 decided to have democratic elections, for which he won two terms) Rawlings was also quite a butcher apparently with a huge amount of unexplained deaths and corruption during his “non democratic” years.
• Business leaders are watching the election results with interest. Apparently there are huge mutterings about the Anglo Gold / Ashanti Gold merger and who benefited from it. All the mutterings are about the mineral resources and who gets what when.
• There is general consensus that all the politicians are corrupt. It just remains to be seen by the voters who is less corrupt then the other.
And so it continues.
One thing that will not happen it appears, is the election will be marred by violence. Everyone seems fairly relaxed about the election and it is very much, whoever wins, wins.
I continue to fight the flu, and have to be losing weight given the amount of sweat that I generate over the day. Albert and Piet have malaria and are popping tabs, and I did suggest to Albert that he should go home, as he quite honestly looks like death warmed up! Dedicated as the lad is, he decided to stay but I do not think he will last much past lunch time.
The physiological aspect of malaria is interesting. It is a parasite, carried by the (female) mosquito, that once gets into your blood, happily sets about killing off the red blood cells. As we all know from biology 101, red blood cells carry oxygen to all the lil places in the body that needs it. Less red blood cells, means less oxygen and the symptoms of soreness, tiredness and other flu like issues. Eventually if left untreated, you will have not enough red cells to sustain life and will effectively suffocate. This obviously excludes cerebral malaria, which attacks the brain and can kill you in three days. There must be a case for the use of DDT I would think, as with the amount of rain we have here and the consequent amount of standing water, mosquito’s breed like wildfire!
On the personal note side, everyone who knows me well, knows that I value my privacy and am happy with my own company. That was why I was so chuffed when I got my own house. I now have a supervisor from SA staying with me, as we do not have enough rooms at the main house. The man is a constant chatterbox. Quiet time is limited to me escaping to my room and reading. I know the guys entire life history, and of his family. More than I need to know methinks. *sigh*
The one positive aspect is he will move out on the weekend when a room becomes available in the small works house. Peace will reign once again.
People and peoplesses – have a great day – and may the smiles be really really big!!
• You vote in your home town. As opposed to the place that you are working. For most of the guys in the mining towns, they are migrants, therefore are required to travel to funny sounding places in order to vote.
• Having an election day on a Tuesday is bad planning. Effectively everyone wants to knock off early as they have to travel in order to vote. This means there are a lot of people absent from work today, and even though tomorrow is not a public holiday, we will have maybe 10% of our workforce at work – after they have voted. (which could be anything from 10 am – 5pm depending on the queues.)
• Voting is carried out at a polling station by placing your thumb print in a box next to the party/candidate you wish to vote for. In my book this does away with each vote been secret, given the fact that a thumb print is uniquely identified to the person who places it. Whatever happened to the good old fashioned X.
• African democracy is such that if you are a member of party X and you “stumble” on to a rally been carried out by party Y, you will get beaten up by the supporters of party X. This been the headlines in today’s newspaper. Not to different from the early SA elections (except then you stood a good chance of been killed). Things have changed!
• Ghana has only been a democracy since 1992.
• Presidents can only hold office for 8 years
• News has the current president winning the race. Speak to the people on the ground here and it seems they all think it is going to be close.
• There are stunning debates happening as to weather Ghana is better off now then when Rawlings was president. (for those that do not know, Rawlings took power by way of a coup and in 1992 decided to have democratic elections, for which he won two terms) Rawlings was also quite a butcher apparently with a huge amount of unexplained deaths and corruption during his “non democratic” years.
• Business leaders are watching the election results with interest. Apparently there are huge mutterings about the Anglo Gold / Ashanti Gold merger and who benefited from it. All the mutterings are about the mineral resources and who gets what when.
• There is general consensus that all the politicians are corrupt. It just remains to be seen by the voters who is less corrupt then the other.
And so it continues.
One thing that will not happen it appears, is the election will be marred by violence. Everyone seems fairly relaxed about the election and it is very much, whoever wins, wins.
I continue to fight the flu, and have to be losing weight given the amount of sweat that I generate over the day. Albert and Piet have malaria and are popping tabs, and I did suggest to Albert that he should go home, as he quite honestly looks like death warmed up! Dedicated as the lad is, he decided to stay but I do not think he will last much past lunch time.
The physiological aspect of malaria is interesting. It is a parasite, carried by the (female) mosquito, that once gets into your blood, happily sets about killing off the red blood cells. As we all know from biology 101, red blood cells carry oxygen to all the lil places in the body that needs it. Less red blood cells, means less oxygen and the symptoms of soreness, tiredness and other flu like issues. Eventually if left untreated, you will have not enough red cells to sustain life and will effectively suffocate. This obviously excludes cerebral malaria, which attacks the brain and can kill you in three days. There must be a case for the use of DDT I would think, as with the amount of rain we have here and the consequent amount of standing water, mosquito’s breed like wildfire!
On the personal note side, everyone who knows me well, knows that I value my privacy and am happy with my own company. That was why I was so chuffed when I got my own house. I now have a supervisor from SA staying with me, as we do not have enough rooms at the main house. The man is a constant chatterbox. Quiet time is limited to me escaping to my room and reading. I know the guys entire life history, and of his family. More than I need to know methinks. *sigh*
The one positive aspect is he will move out on the weekend when a room becomes available in the small works house. Peace will reign once again.
People and peoplesses – have a great day – and may the smiles be really really big!!
1 Comments:
I wonder if the thumb print thing would work in here South Africa ....
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