Island Politics

There was an election recently - to vote for the head of the collectivite. Although I am eligible to vote, I don't really understand the system nor the local politics, and made a somewhat unconscious decision to abstain. I was intrigued by certain things, like the electoral boards that went up around the neighborhoods with posters of various politicians representing different political parties. I believe there were like 5-6 parties running, and each of them had to present a "list" of their candidates - but you vote for the party, not the individual candidates. I guess it's like voting Republican in the US but not choosing the Vice President yourself - that choice is made for you.

Anyway, it was the RRR party that won the local election (see people celebrating above) - but what has really got my attention is the scandal that (already) rocked the new government merely 2-3 days after it took power. Apparently the new president gave a speech - it may have been the inauguration speech - and somehow someone got wind of the strange coincidence between that speech and another speech given by the Prime Minister of Burkina Faso back in 2011. The biggest laugh was on the speech writer, who claimed that it was actually written by a consultant, who had also written the original speech in Burkina Faso. This consultant however is nowhere to be found. He was found on Facebook, with an account that was created a week ago, and with only one friend - the President's speech writer.

Hmmmm? Isn't life interesting on SXM?

The other interesting factoid is that SXM registered the lowest turnout nationally for the first round of the French presidential election last Sunday. Less than 30% of registered voters turned up to vote. I venture to guess that lots of people on SXM do not really feel French - a large number do not even speak French - and they may feel that whatever happens on the mainland doesn't matter for the island. St Barths, however, had a 56% turnout and voted overwhelmingly for Sarkozy (62% vs 34% in SXM). I wonder if more people will turn up to vote the second round?