Monday, August 09, 2004
The heat is on! It switched on like a switch 3 days ago and I went from going round the house shutting doors to keep the wind out, to going round the house opening them to let it in. Maybe its only a few degrees but it feels really different. I ran 16km on saturday at 8pm at night. Even though it had been dark for 2 hours it was still sweat-tastic. Mmm I'm sure y'all wanted to hear that.
The elections are coming up, the ruling party will obviously win, but in any case will stop at nothing just to make sure. The donors are still holding up Moz as a poster-child of macroeconomic reform so they will tacitly turn a blind eye to any irregularities so as not to rock the boat. Nina (who works a 48-hour week and spends maybe another 18 hours getting to and from work) managed to go to the electoral registration post in her area FOUR TIMES in the two weeks it was open - and EACH TIME, after she had waited ages in the queue, they stood up and announced "the registration materials have run out and you all have to go home".
So, at the end of all that, she can't vote if she wanted to (and many people her age won't even bother to try they are so turned-off by the massive gravy train which is Moz politics). And she lives in Maputo - imagine what its like in the rural areas! Although on the other hand, the results of the last two elections showed that (as in other sub-saharan african countries) urban voters are less likely to vote for the rulling party, so it may well be intentional on the part of the supposedly-non-party-in-practice-heavily-biased electoral commission.
The elections are coming up, the ruling party will obviously win, but in any case will stop at nothing just to make sure. The donors are still holding up Moz as a poster-child of macroeconomic reform so they will tacitly turn a blind eye to any irregularities so as not to rock the boat. Nina (who works a 48-hour week and spends maybe another 18 hours getting to and from work) managed to go to the electoral registration post in her area FOUR TIMES in the two weeks it was open - and EACH TIME, after she had waited ages in the queue, they stood up and announced "the registration materials have run out and you all have to go home".
So, at the end of all that, she can't vote if she wanted to (and many people her age won't even bother to try they are so turned-off by the massive gravy train which is Moz politics). And she lives in Maputo - imagine what its like in the rural areas! Although on the other hand, the results of the last two elections showed that (as in other sub-saharan african countries) urban voters are less likely to vote for the rulling party, so it may well be intentional on the part of the supposedly-non-party-in-practice-heavily-biased electoral commission.
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