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An inspiration to
cast a vote
JACK METTA revisits the NCD by-election 10 months ago as an
inspiration on the eve of the national election
GOING to the polls can spring some
‘entertainment’ and a few surprises and perhaps, some bitter
lessons.
From the outset, it was the guilty conscience that spurred you
into jumping on the bandwagon of voters at Station 76 at the
Boroko Netball Courts that Sunday some 10 months ago.
You just couldn’t be bothered on that Saturday and come Sunday
morning, you thought about missing that too.
But as you debated the pros and cons of exercising your
constitutional rights, you concluded that your vote could well be
the decider in this so-called universal democratic process.
If you didn’t cast your vote, you might live in the shadow of a
‘tyrant’ whose decisions in the corridors of power would affect
you just as much as those who voted him in.
You decided the missus should tag along too; afterall the
democratic process was just as much her right as anybody’s, though
you flinched at the thought of the direct opposite that had been
exercised by the ‘males’ of our society for generations throughout
the ages.
The pro on this occasion was that two votes were better than one
and that both would go a long way towards enabling your chosen
candidate to enter the corridors of power.
The con, from your point of view, anyway, was that the missus had
her own choice of people and all of them were quite separate from
yours.
That prompted a bid to deny her her constitutional right but a
heated debate ensued with the missus eventually winning out
because her pros were more logical and more rational than yours.
A point that springs immediately to mind was ‘vote for people you
or you family members personally knew because in the course of
your association, the leader would still touch base’.
That was okay until you counted the number of candidates you and
your kin personally knew and realise that there weren’t enough
votes among all your family members to go around.
To make matters worse, the sister was around on Saturday and
informed you that her household – a big one at that with five
families living under a single roof – was divided over the
candidate initially agreed upon.
The reason behind the division was that ‘the money the candidate
had dished out via the local youths for distribution throughout
the village, never went past the first receivers, namely the
youths themselves.
And it wasn’t any wonder that they were drunk all week. And that’s
not counting the local pokies parlour and the home brewer who had
suddenly reported an upsurge in business turnover.
The division was further aggravated by one family member’s
sarcastic remarks that ‘we don’t need the votes of this house to
win the by-election’.
Having ruminated on this scenario, you jump to the conclusion that
come what may, the main thing was to exercise your right to vote.
You would vote for the candidate of your choice.
Having cast your vote in all elections since independence, the
general trend was that if the candidate of your choice, even if he
was a family friend or a friend of a friend, the only thing you
would most likely receive back for your support was a ‘hullo’ and
perhaps a handshake on those rare, brief meetings on the streets
or at an important official function.
Maybe once in a blue moon, after the appropriate reminders, he
would drop around to mourn the death of a family member and give
you back in kind and cash, what had been rightfully yours all
along, anyway.
There’s strength in numbers, they say, and by all accounts, our
friends from the Highlands seem to have a slight advantage in that
area in determining the final outcome of this so-called democratic
process.
And if you’ve seen and heard the latest reports in the media,
you’d realise the importance of that ‘numbers’ issue. The airline
schedule for the Highlands destinations are booked to the brink
and the rumours are that the travellers are going home to cast
their votes.
But it doesn’t end there, we hear. After they’ve done their
business at home, they’d return to Port Moresby and do the same
back here. It’s their way of exercising their democratic and
constitutional right and who’s to argue with that.
And if the number of people arrested for pushing that end, even to
the extremes is considered, you can well understand the lengths
people go to to ensure their candidate’s victory.
A final consideration before you set off; you wonder if your name
is on the common roll. You’ve made the point of registering
yourself and if you memory served you right, this was the regional
by-election and the electoral commission has urged everyone
eligible voter to call in to the nearest polling station and cast
your vote.
So off you merrily went, the missus by your side and a big gob of
buai in your mouth, to the greater Bisini Park, selfishly
confident that since there were 189 polling booths in the National
Capital District for the occasion, there was bound to be one or
two at the sports oval in close proximity.
You didn’t count on walking 2km – and that’s after asking passers
by for directions, when you didn’t locate any polling station
where you expected at least one to be.
Standing on one side of the field and looking towards the other,
you notice a couple of ‘shady’ guys idling by the tall grass on
the perimeters of the field.
In fear of an encounter of the raskol kind, you wait until a
family of four saunters by. You join them and head towards the
other side of the field. Only, it was like the blind leading the
blind and you end up at a dead end and had to retrace your steps
back towards the direction of your worst fears.
That’s when you realise that the characters you took to be shady
were in fact, a couple out on a Sunday rendezvous. Having got over
your worst fears, it was another 100m to your destination.
You were half way there when you saw the bunch of burly cops, walk
determinedly towards you. Some of them were armed with automatic
weapons and a few wielded what resembled black whips. The latter
were two or three pronged contraptions that signalled “ouch” from
the outset.
One only had to take one look and conclude without an iota of
doubt that this thing could really pack a sting worse than a bee
just by a mere touch.
Panic gripped you. A thousands thoughts flickered through your
mind as to where you went wrong with the law.
Had the missus not being at your side, fear would have lent you
wings and you would have literally flown across the sports field
that you had just crossed.
That honour, however, fell on a potential voter moments later.
But first, the cops stopped and circled a yellow Mazda Ute parked
10m on your left.
Panic evaporated, replaced by curiosity. Some questions were asked
and a search of the vehicle revealed some things to indicate that
the passengers of the vehicle were up to no good.
Two of the vehicle’s passengers were hauled out and the whips went
to work.
The gyrations of the two youths under the whips spoke the common
knowledge of pain and you wondered why anybody would stoop to such
a level to invite it.
From your vantage point, you flinched, almost feeling the pain as
the whips rained down on various parts of their bodies.
The duo reacted to this in kind with flailing of arms and legs as
if dancing to a silent tune punctuated by the whiplash ‘zings’ of
the whiplike contraptions.
By and by, the vehicle and its passengers were ordered to the
Boroko police station, under police guard. By now you had joined
the queue of about 20 potential voters when a whip-wielding cop,
as a matter of course, checked a youth’s bag not more than three
bodies ahead of you.
An item wrapped in newspaper was extracted and unwrapped. All
those in line and sundry could see a small container of laundry
bleach.
Questions were barked but the youth was unable to explain himself,
obviously tongue tied by guilt and fear.
One thing was certain however; he certainly wasn’t out to do
laundry on that day.
And the cops knew that.
The cop’s whip or what by now you had learnt from the cops
themselves, the ‘crowd control implement’, went to work.
During a momentary pause, for the cop to catch his breath, the
youth was off like a rocket, literally tearing the netball surface
up as he sped blindly towards the far fence.
The onlookers were amazed and quite amused really, to see him
scale the fence in one stride.
He obviously thought the cop was hot on his heels but the officer
just could not be bothered.
Again, the topic of conversation was what drives people to risk
their lives to cheat a democratic process?
As if in reply, a commotion involving a white van on the road
attracts everyone’s attention.
Three youths in electoral official T-shirts are dragged out of it
along with bleaches and some unidentified papers and soon the
crowd control implements are back in use before the van and its
contents including the humans, were dispatched to Boroko police
station.
As they sped off, it was your turn to vote and it all came to
naught when you and the missus discovered that your names were not
on the common roll. So if you asked me if I voted, my reply would
be: No. But there certainly wasn’t a shortage of ‘entertainment’
and new observations.
The latter, of course, refers to the knowledge that sales of
laundry bleach skyrockets during elections, the crowd control
implement is quite effective and credit should be attributed to
the cop or cops who came up with its design and production, and, a
rethink on why a quiet weekend should be ‘spoilt’ by a failed
attempt to exercise one’s constitutional right and partaking of
the oft-trumpeted democratic process.
But certainly we should be more concerned about the future as the
Wise Counsellor’s words demonstrate: “We should all be concerned
about the future because we will spend the rest of our lives there
…”
 
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