You know how in the US, we have an Election Day, and we vote for everything all at once? It’s nice in my district, because we’ve been using a computerized system for several years now, and the program walks me through all the ballots and the options. None of those silly hanging chads for us in Virginia, no sirree. I wonder whether Florida ditched the chads, and if so, how long it took them.
In Uganda, ballots for elections have both the photo of the contestant, as well as their name, presumably to allow the less than literate to vote as well. The presidential ballot, with nine candidates, was rather long. It turns out that 18 Feb, Election Day, was just for the presidential ballot, and members of parliament at the national level. The following Wednesday were the elections for LC5, and no, I’ve not yet asked what that means, but it’s a local seat of government.
We all knew the elections for LC5 would be that Wednesday; I even knew it. Tuesday evening it was announced (by whom, I have no idea) that Wednesday would be a public holiday. Seriously? You know it’s going to be a day of voting, and you declare a public holiday the night (NIGHT, not day) prior? Even better, the faculty announced that we wouldn’t be having classes that day to allow the locals to go vote, but all my lecturers came. Naturally.
I’m bringing this up because in conversation today, someone mentioned that it would be a public holiday on Wednesday. Since no one tells me when the public holidays are (and therefore when there will be no class), I asked Mr. Google what they were, and put all of them on my calendar. Mr. Google, obviously, doesn’t know about random election days. As it happens, this Wednesday is elections for LC3. I don’t know whether it will be a public holiday, and even if it is, I’m certain we’ll have lectures. But this is Africa, and that’s how things go. One never knows if something will change, and if it does change, whether it applies to you.
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