THE ELECTION!

ELECTION BLOG

Election time in Cape Verde – and how very interesting!

Sunday was voting day, the final day after all the excitement of the last few weeks, with the voting all day and the announcement at 9pm...

The weeks leading up to it had been noisy to say the least, as the main method of getting your ‘party policitical broadcast’ to the people here is via very large and very loud speakers being driven around the town constantly on the back of a pick-up truck.

The criteria for gaining votes seems to be who has the loudest speakers, and who has the most annoying tune….

There were only two candidates; Scapa, of the PAICV party, and Figueiredo, whose party is GIMS. I won’t go into details, wouldn’t like to get it wrong and be sued… however PAICV were the original party when Cape Verde gained independence in 1975, and GIMS are the party currently in power on this island.

Scapa's tune was a song about him sung by schoolchildren and then remixed in the reggae styli (to appeal to everyone of course); Figueiredo's was a kind of Vangelis type number, just slightly conjuring up the image of black and white pictures of Russian soldiers marching through grey streets.....

In terms of annoyance levels, Scapa's pick-up driver lives next door to me, so would park his pick-up truck for the lunch break and leave the sound system on for one hour, whilst Figueiredo's headquarter are opposite our office, so they would park and the leave sound system on outside the office all day....

Then there were ever increasing levels of parties being thrown to woo the voters, starting with street parties with live bands (Dub Squad for Scapa, more traditional music for Figueiredo), bands of marching drummers, balloons for the kids, T-shirts for all, free grogue, finally culminating in one of the candidates bringing over the Benfica football team at the weekend from Portugal to play the local team in Espargos.... an utter coup! (and no, I didn't spend Saturday night trawling the bars to try and find them... or did I?)

So, at 9pm last night, as I was in blissful oblivion at a beach BBQ watching the fire and the stars, the cars starting hooting, cheers went up all over town, the sign that it was all over….

I called a friend and local businesswoman, Milu, who tearfully told me that George Figueiredo, GIMS, the existing mayor, has remained in power and we are all now safe for the future..... we like George, he wears white and has good parties….