or: No alcohol for the weekend – it’s voting time!
It’s one of those rare times in Mauritius where it is almost impossible to buy rum.
Almost…
It’s illegal to buy any form of alcohol over this weekend as it is local election time. That means on Saturday and today, no alcoholic beverages may be sold by any establishment.
Obviously there are workarounds because, well, this is Mauritius.
Onto the elections…
The advertising for the village elections is a little different to the national elections which I saw about this time last year.
There are nine political parties and each is assigned a symbol of some sort. They can apply to have their own symbol though I’ve been told this is quite a lengthy process to get approved so most go with the assigned symbols.
These symbols have no relation to the party ideology at all.
The symbols include a horse, shell, torch, anchor, umbrella, lion, flowers, chilli and I can’t remember what the ninth is! Not bad to get this from the top of my head which just goes to show the power of symbols and why they are used.
There is a portion of the voting population that can’t read English or French so the use of these symbols on the ballot papers makes it easier for them to identify who they are voting for.
I quite like this idea as it makes the election process more inclusive.
I can’t help but think though if the political parties in some other countries I’ve lived were also assigned symbols, how the opposing political parties would try to use it against them in their advertising.
That doesn’t happen here (yet) as it is all very local. There are small rallies at the villages and signs around the areas advertising the various parties on small boards or sheets.
I like it because it’s not about which party has the most money but which one actually gets out and talks to their constituents and helps them understand what they represent.
The voting has now finished for the day so we await the results.
I’m not expecting any recounts.
Thanks to Janis Joplin for the title to this post.