Morjes!

Welcome to my blog. I write about fitting in, sticking out, and missing the motherland as a serial foreigner.

Election wasteland

The UAE may not be a democracy, but the principles of voting for a candidate you believe in are alive and well in AUS's student council elections, which were held last month. I never had my camera with me during the height of the activity (which was as intense as anything I ever saw at the BYU), but I did capture this shot of a post-election wasteland.

I think it used to say "VOTE."

As far as I can determine, the way the elections are set up here is that people interested in running for the various offices put together a mini-political party of sorts. Then they develop a common platform as well as advertising, which is usually represented by a particular color. This time around, we had the purple and red candidates. The campaign posters usually feature a glamour-shots-ish photo of the candidate with his/her name and the position s/he is seeking, followed by the party slogan. The purple party had a great slogan that was ruined by an unfortunate typo. It was something like "We will: Lead. Advocate. Lister." That unfortunate typo was reproduced on all the 50 million posters around campus. Oh well.

From the AUS blog, here is a photo of a common election setup around campus (and a more detailed post about the process):

In the end, there could only be one student body president, etc., but the unsuccessful candidates took it all in stride. Everyone seems to have a lot of fun with the elections, setting up booths and handing out freebies and doing everything they can to encourage people to vote. It's a hectic week on campus but it's also fun to see what the students come up with each year.

Miriam and Harry Potter

June 14th, outsourced