Today is the election day, a national holiday. 33,000 poll stations opened at 6am and will close at 5pm; however, for only those people who are already on queue will be allowed to vote past 5pm.
Some tidbits:
- Long queues at polling stations, some as far as 2-3 kilometers (abt 1.5 miles)
- Some technical problems such as thumbprint reader not working, female names with male faces popping up on poll station computers, etc.
- Some people started queuing at 4am, and voted at 10am, half of the time waiting in the cold and dark.
- Some polling stations got some mix ups causing either delays in opening poll (6am)
- Unlike in America, there is not really any "exit poll" where we would know which candidate are unofficially leading
- Also we do not know when exactly an official announcement of winning candidate (must be within 72 hours tho), or if we will have a run-off election on April 10th (I think) of only two top candidates
- Other than typical local and isolated violence, not necessarily related to the elections itself, they were mostly related to the police (some of them were killed), unlike in 2007 where it was mainly community against another community.
My uneducated observations:
- Elections should be peaceful, in despite to the long waits, and technical glitches
- The real problem (if it should arise) would probably be AFTER the polling closes -- on how things are counted, how things are kept honest, and if there are too much glitches raising speculations of corruption.
- The Peace Corps remain tentative on our release back to our sites, and whether we would consolidate again should there be a run-off election. We will know by Thursday.
So, we continue to enjoy our little Paradise here in the getaway resort. We had Football (actually football), and Football (soccer).
More updates to follow.
