The more… election rules change

Analysing the great political upheavals in European back in the late 1840s in their struggle for democratic governance, a French writer observed, “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” – “the more things change, the more they remain the same”! And so it was that a delegation from the European Union – the latest iteration of Europe’s many failed efforts to get their act together on governance – came, saw and observed our democratic elections. And, of course, offered copious advise for “improvements” – which THEY could use – but don’t!!
As a parting shot, the departing EU Ambassador pointed out that all the outside elections observers made some common suggestions for electoral reform – and these should solve our political angst!! Like for instance, the electoral advantages of incumbency!! He, however, failed to identify any specific innovation they’d introduced to address this admitted reality. Maybe they should look at say, Madagascar and Bangladesh where it was constitutionally mandated that the government resign 90 days before elections and the country be run by interim governments? Or maybe they looked and the coups and counter-coups in those countries following their innovation and were struck dumb??
Then there’s the support for the opposition’s demand for “biometrics” – in our voters’ registration and our voting day regimen – to prevent multiple registrations and voting. But rather than pointing out that we already have some biometric features – such as pictures and fingerprints on our IDs -your Eyewitness gonna simply quote from a research paper on biometrics introduced in several African countries to cure the same ailments the opposition believe are being manifested here.
Captioned, “The productive failures of biometric voting in Africa”, the paper says, “Biometric voting is booming in Africa. Since the mid-2000s, election management bodies have increasingly turned to biometric voter registration. 28 countries on the continent now use biometrics to generate voter rolls. A select few countries – Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda – also use biometric voter authentication on polling day. While most countries use fingerprinting, technologies are becoming increasingly sophisticated: in 2017, Somaliland was the first country to use iris recognition for an election.
“While biometrics has raised expectations among political opponents, they do not automatically prevent rigging. Biometric voter registration strengthens the reliability of the voter roll by preventing multiple registration, but it does not affect many other fraudulent strategies. Election technologies can even be counterproductive by creating black boxes that are inaccessible to citizens, reinforcing election commissions’ dependency on support from donors and foreign experts. In a nutshell, biometric voting is not only a waste of money: it has troubling implications for democracy.” Imagine that!!
Point of the matter, it doesn’t matter what changes are introduced, the Opposition’s never gonna “take their licks like a man”!!

…(cricket) changes
What can your Eyewitness say? That he’s heartbroken?? That he could hardly drag himself out of bed this morning after his Warriors were outplayed by – of all the teams – the Trinbago Knight Riders?? That he’s angry?? Naaah!! A team goes out to play in the finals of a tournament because they had to’ve passed through a harrowing qualifying process. So we gotta give our Warriors credit for that!!
Do we blame the captain for not electing to chase?? Do we blame specific players because they didn’t “come through”?? What’s the point?? Hindsight is always 20/20 – while foresight is always foggy, innit? Whatever might’ve been the innovations of T-20 Cricket, it’s still cricket. And we gotta learn to “take our licks like a man” – unlike some of our Opposition politicians!! Let us learn some lessons from our loss – and knowing that another season beckons next year – let us be happy our Warriors will have another chance to whup those Trinis!!
Cricket, after all, is a game of glorious uncertainties!!

…the merrier
And your Eyewitness thought academia was stodgy!! But here it is, in the latest Times and Sunday Times ranking of British Universities, Oxford and Cambridge didn’t even make the top three!!
O tempora!! O Mores!!