After being cooped in the house for the last 4 days or so, I went out with Awi and Haziq this morning to buy breakfast. I was kind of surprised to see the changing landscape along Kerteh town. It has started for a few weeks already and with the general election (GE) coming up, it is expected in this part of the nation. I am referring of course to the flag war. The whole highway is lined up with flags of the three main parties fighting for seats in this Malay heartland, the ruling party at federal level, BN, ruling party in the Terengganu state, PAS and the considerably new party of 5 years, Keadilan. It's kind of exciting and I can't wait for nominations day when the campaign season will begin. It's only 8 days but I don't really care because I can't wait to vote. More on this in later entry.
In addition to flags, some of the parties have used slogans to get across their messages. For instance,
3 Langkah Untuk Pembangunan di Terengganu:
1) Undilah Barisan Nasional
2) Undilah Barisan Nasional
3) Undilah Barisan Nasional.
A few are quite personal as well like saying this one party befriends the devil, swears, lies and does all the 7 Deadly Sins. Personally, I want a more matured debate between all parties. Be rid of all the rhetoric and present issues that matters to the voters. Issues like education, healthcare, corruption, abuse of power, rising crime, infrastructure like better roads and clean water. Do I expect to see them in this GE? Well, looking at the slogans along the streets, I don't expect there to be much. Our politicians don't think us voters are matured enough yet. We still have a long way to go. In the developed countries like the States and UK, you can see that the politicians don't treat the voters like small children. I remember in the UK, all parties including the opposition parties are allowed to airtime on TV and radio to state their manifestos. They could take up page ads in the mainstream newspapers to tell what they plan to do should they win. Representatives from different parties can slug it out in an open forum on the TV debating on a particular issue.
What about us? I don't know if this will happen or not in the near future but it is something which will benefit the country and its people. No emotions, no rhetoric, just plain old school type debate on issues.