It's coming up to election time here, and folks are all in a tizzy. Pickups full of people drive around and around and around our island waving flags, shouting slogans, singing songs, taunting. Posters are stuck up on telephone poles, buildings and coconut trees, and almost every conversation comes around to politics eventually.

Sheesh. I'll be so glad when it's over.

There are about 85,000 people in Seychelles ... the population of a fairly small town in the US ... unevenly spread across a few islands. You would be forgiven for thinking politics should be simple here, but you'd be wrong.

Since 1993, Seychelles has been a multi-party democracy. Three parties ... the Seychelles Popular Peoples Front (SPPF), the Democratic Party (DP), and what was once the United Opposition, but is now called the Seychelles National Party (SNP) ... dominate the politcal scene and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone ambivalent about the race.

The Seychellois, like many citizens of new countries, are passionate about their politics, and like the British who formed many of the ideas that still hold in this former colony, party members are very big on sporting the colors their group has chosen ... red for SPPF; blue for DP; green for SNP ... and heaven help the person who's wearing the wrong color in the wrong place. SNP-ers won't even get into a red car this month, and I'm rather surprised no one's thought to spray the coconut trees scarlet. (I'm sticking to black, purple and yellow!)

Rallies are being held all over the place, so football fields and other open spaces are awash with whatever color happens to be the hue du jour. Since t-shirts, caps, umbrellas, backpacks, watches, cell phone covers and more are handed out freely to dedicated followers, EVERYONE is decked out in their party best, and it's either red or green as far as the eye can see. (Blue joined green this year ... long story ... so you may see the occasional tinge of aqua, but since DP didn't bother with goodie bags, there's not much of it around.)

Political party affiliation here is a huge divider of people, and more than one family has been split right down the middle because of it. There's not always a lot of reasoning behind one person's conviction, but there's no doubting the dedication with which they will defend their stance.

There's more of this to come, but if you'd like to follow along with the local coverage in the run-up to the election, here's the link for the daily newspaper.