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I’ll be writing about the election here in Seychelles off and on until it’s over … and perhaps beyond … hoping it’s interesting to those of you out there in big countries with hundreds of years of practice in democracy.
Because this country is so small, everyone knows everyone else … their backgrounds, their business, their foibles, their indiscretions … so it can seem that it would be a simple thing for candidates to run on their own merits without the need for a party machine. Perhaps they could … and we do have one independent candidate running for president … but the parties remain very, very popular.
No only do we all know foibles …
(I really like that word! It’s fun to say, AND fun to write … foibles, foibles, foibles … Oh! facryinoutloud, Sandra, stick to a point!) (That was a shoulder angel, the other shoulder angel … the one in charge of getting work done, as opposed to the one in charge of making sure I’m having fun … speaking up. Thank you.)
Ah hemmm …
Not only do we all know foibles, we also know where every politico lives, what sort of car they drive, where their kids go to school and which hairdresser they visit. We see them on the road and in the shops, and no few people sat next to them in algebra some years back.
So, why does a community this close need political party machines to get folks elected?
Picture, if you will, a small American town with a population similar to Seychelles … Port St. Lucie, Florida, Davenport, Iowa, or Youngstown, Ohio, for example. How about one in my former back yard, Citrus Heights, California?
Citrus Heights is a suburb of Sacramento, and although it once was a separate and distinct area, it’s been fairly swallowed up in the sprawl which is the River City’s greater metro area. It has its own management, however, and regularly elects responsible citizens to take care of the things that need taking care of to provide services to the 85,000 people who live there.
A local election will consist of a load of lawn signs, some articles in the paper, and if some contentious issues come up, perhaps letters to the editor, a few radio spots and maybe even some ads on late-night cable TV.
If the election isn’t tied to some big State or Federal race or a really juicy proposition or two, maybe … just maybe … 25% of eligible voters will bother to cast a ballot.
In another post we’ll take a look at how differently this scenario plays out on an island in the Indian Ocean …
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.
