IN OUR PUBLICATION TODAY 23/8/2013 FORMALITIES IN TEST BY OWLLI Jerry Reminiscent of the previous electioneering periods, we once again find ourselves delving deep into the pits of the unenthusiastic and rather peculiar modes of democratic election battles. Quite a commendable headcount of aspirants have their weights already thrown into the dreaded political arena. The heat keeps rising a degree higher with each passing dawn, in essence keeping the aspirants on their toes in their quest to woo voters into their fold. With this in mind, just what options do our aspirants have in this pursuit of success in the forthcoming elections? As has been the case before, the most common strategy employed by most aspiring leaders is that of falling back to various ethnic cocoons, where they believe the often misguided notion of blood being thicker than water would see them harvest all the votes there. Contentious as it may seem, yes, this vice is still regrettably strongly rooted within our institution. Though never ready to admit this in public, the politicians use this as their commencing point in their journey. Whether this will work again this time remains concealed in time. However, with the increased vigilance of the media within the institution, the effectiveness of this strategy seems very likely to waiver. It is also no secret that a considerable number of students loathe this vice. The divisions that it creates within the student fraternity seem to be dreaded hence making this strategy less effective. Another tactic employed by previous aspirants is that of banking on the voter block from their respective schools. Here though, not all aspirants get the advantage of numbers as it is evident some schools hold more students than others. In the elections ahead however, it would be suicidal for any aspirant to bank only on the votes from their various schools due to the large number of aspirants who have thrown their weights into the race, a good number coming from same schools. Voter partition is more likely due to this hence jeopardizing the prospect of a single candidate benefiting fully from their school. Still, we are all aware of fluent oration as a strategy to lure voters. In the past we have witnessed aspirants win over voters simply be being able to deliver a speech fluently, even if that would mean mimicking alien discourses. The last elections were quite engulfed by this. Such expressions as ‘we shall overcome’ and ‘when that noise goes down’ were coined by aspirants with aims of crafting personalized speech identities in the arena. A notable aspect this time round conversely is that the student fraternity seems unmoved by these duplicates. Tact may however still provide some speech liberty for the aspirants. They just have to figure out what the voter wants to hear. What remains to be seen however is whether the aspirants will stick to these already known tactics or device new methodologies. On the other hand too, the electorate remains under scrutiny with regard to whether they will welcome the strategies on not. One way or another though, each aspirant has a solitary target of getting that win that keeps sleep a rare aspect of their lives. The curtains have already been withdrawn and the aspirants are already engrossed with giving their best shows to attract the votes. The writer is a 3rd year LMC student
Posted on: Fri, 23 Aug 2013 09:51:30 +0000
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