Here in the second of my worlds elections take up a fair amount of people's time, energy and money. Today was the election for the regional head. In the past people only voted for president but now they are being allowed to vote for governors, regional and district heads and village heads. mayors, etc. Makes life so much more interesting and a great source of money. Case in point. One of the top two contenders for this position is the former mayor of the provincial capital. As part of his campaign he has been busy visiting all sorts of groups, including visiting many, many churches and making large donations. But some recall when he was mayor a few years ago there was an attack on a pig farm just outside of town by a group of radicals (real or fake) carrying out jihad against the pigs. They slaughtered them and just made a great mess. Well, word is going around mouth to mouth (I tell you it’s faster than the internet!) that the current candidate, then mayor, was actually the one who commanded that little operation. So despite the huge amount of money he has been throwing into good relations with churches, it is all being undone at the speed of lightening. Once nonMuslims hear, you can see in their faces their minds change on voting for him. I talked to one guy about how pigs are smelly and pollute the environment and since the city is growing it makes sense to move the farm. The guy said, “Of course, but what annoys people is the way it was done, with “radicals” doing it, it is extremely offensive. There are more law abiding ways to move a pig farm.” Since the area has a very large nonMuslim population, it will be interesting to see the election results, because up until 2 weeks ago he was thought likely to win.
Addendum 10-17: Yep, looks like he lost.
