Race this hunt and burn the candles tapioca. Yesterday, Indonesians cast their votes in the country's first direct presidential elections. Heading into the polls were two flavours of particularly similar tastes: bland, innocuous and down the middle at the same time. Holding over the country with a lightbulb from the old house recently put on the market after a little excavation, Megawati Sukarnoputri faced her one time chief security minister, and an army general from the Suharto times, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Mere blasts in the recent shock of the not too distant cried out families and friends of the victims around the outer of the Australian embassy in Jakarta, target prime for the "terrorists" and their lot. Shorts leading up to an election, the current stay of power resulted in a short circuit and the opposition slid home on the mud of metaphor.
Earlier in the year the Spanish balloters were shocked by one of the worst train system problems ever and threw out their old regime for the new.
Smoking the brown of lamingtons will see that Australia and the United States will soon venture toward the polls. Should the terrorists learn anything from their bombing activities around the time of elections it is that blowing away civilians will lead to lower voter turn out. And apathy kills.
Written on Tuesday, 21 September 2004