12-6-08

A few interesting election observations:

1) all compaigning had to stop, by law, last night at midnight. That makes today (the day before the election) campaign-free. Kind of refreshing.

2) if money is any indication of who will win, then the NPP (curent ruling party) will trounce the NDC. From my unscientific observation, NPP commercials outnumber all the other parties combined 10 to 1. They also seem to have more billboards and signs, though not by as great a margin.

3) i don't know if i menioned this earlier, but because there are multiple political parties, if a presidential candidate doesn't get 50% + 1 then there is a run-off between the top two candidates. The run-off would, by law, be held within the next three weeks.

4) The presidential candidate i met in yendi a few days ago was on the radio being interviewed. it was kind of weird hearing him on the radio after having met him. he talked about the last few rallies and i vainly waited to see if he would mention the crazy white man who had spoken at his rally only the day before... but no such luck.

5) i heard another of the smaller party's candidates on the radio. he had an electrical engineering degree from the university of california (or somehwere similar). He had started many businesses, including bringing Western Union to about 10 countries all over africa. he must be hideously wealthy.

6) They shut down the border between Ghana and Togo. It will be re-opened monday (or tuesday was it?) One contact suggested that it was to prevent the Ewe people in the east from brining their fellow tribesman accross the border from Togo to vote for the NDC. I suspect it was actually Togo that closed the border, in order to keep any election chaos from spilling over onto its soil.

peace,

ryan