I hadn't heard that one before

“When there are elections in Holland, who do you vote for? I mean, why?” asked my slightly inebriated friend.“I usually vote for the party with the best program,” I said, “and then I chose the candidate I prefer.” “Ah yes…” he sighed, “that’s probably how it’s supposed to be right? Well, maybe we’ll get there in a hundred years….”

I’m playing a game of trying to find out which candidates people are going to vote for. This is not a neutral question, so most will not volunteer this information, and I have to throw in a bit of the ‘clueless foreigner-thing’ to get my answers. I usually start by asking where they will vote. The country is divided into districts, and you can only vote for the candidates from your district. Then I ask what their options are, and if they have made their choice yet.

Many of my friends vote in the third district of Beirut, which means they have to chose 10 people out of a total of 41: five Sunni seats, one Orthodox, one Druze, one Shia, one Anglican and one Minority. Some will chose one or two candidates they can get behind and leave the rest of the ballot empty, but most of them are utterly disgusted with the choice they have and say they will drop a white ballot in the box, or not vote at all; to them, the difference between candidates from the ‘majority’ and ‘opposition’ is negligible.

There are also many people who have to go to their (grand-)parents’ village because they are registered to vote there, like a friend of mine who is supposed to go to Bint Jbeil to cast her ballot. She will not go, however. Knowing that the ballots in the South often come with even less variation than those in Beirut, I was wondering if the lack of choice was preventing her from voting, but that wasn’t the case. She told me: “We don’t vote unless we know the candidate really, really well. Imagine you vote for someone who is going to stay for four years, and in that time he does something that’s bad for the people – what would you say to God? How would you answer the question why you chose him when you get to heaven?” Now that’s taking voter-responsibility to a whole new level…

Friday-afternoon entertainment

I know it's old, and it has made the rounds by email and on facebook, but it's just such a hilarious song...

Recorded in 1978 in Kuwait by the Bendaly family from Lebanon. Enjoy!

Election mania

Did I tell you about all the old men presenting themselves for the upcoming elections?

This is in Tripoli, North Lebanon. I count sixteen of them in one street.

Know your constituency...

In less than one month there will be elections in Lebanon, and there is no escaping the electoral campaigns. Posters for candidates/parties running in the different districts are literally everywhere, usually with either insanely stupid or offensive slogans, or just plain old ‘n’ boring faces of (old) men. But then there is Michel Mouawad. He is the son of MP Nayla Mouawad and former president René Mouawad, originally from the town of Zgharta. Michel himself is therefore running in the district of Zgharta, but I guess he spends most of his time in Beirut, considering this poster from his campaign:

We see a girl with one Lebanese flag on her cheek and one in her hand, presumably at a ‘pro-government’ (March 14) rally, on the left, and a guy with a gun and a yellow flag next to him, so presumably ‘opposition’ (March 8), on the right. Himself part of the March 14ers, Michel Mouawad’s question to his constituents is: ‘Who resembles you more?’ Keeping in mind that the last time a popular politician from Zgharta (Michel's rival Sleiman Toni Frangieh) became a minister in the government, the following party erupted in his hometown to celebrate his new position…

… I guess Mouawad either doesn’t know his people, or he’s appealing to a small minority of Zgharta’s voters. Neither of those is a very smart election strategy, if you ask me.

New Math

Now here's a website with some entertaining math:

Made by Craig Damrauer, and there is a new one every monday... enjoy!