Final Countdown

Peru had elections this week. I admit that I hadn't really been following the various races - we don't have a TV and my Spanish is still quite lacking. Nevertheless, I knew elections were approaching, having witnessed a number of political rallies and parades and picked hundreds if not thousands of flyers off our lawn (I briefly contemplated constructing a sign for our front gate explaining that I would vote for whichever candidate's flyers I had the least of come election day, but it was a little too Andy Rooney and kind of a convoluted sentence to try to translate anyway).

Lima will have its first female mayor - we're just not sure which one yet. Here are the options:
Lourdes Flores is on the left and Susana Villaran is on the right, though that is the opposite of their political positions (come on AP). Susana "won" by less than 1% so nothing has been officially declared. There have been a number of challenges - lots of ballot irregularities. It's all very hanging chad. Fortunately the State of Florida should be entirely unable to muck up the democratic process this time.

But at least one noteworthy race is decided. Here's the Mayor of the district of Magdelena del Mar:
Guess GOB finally decided to live it up down old South America way.

I believe this was his acceptance speech:



Oh - and voting here is mandatory - or at least you have to pay a hefty fine if you don't. What do you think about that? Everyone is involved in their democracy ...albeit in a para-fascist sort of way. Of course, I don't envision Mussolini every time I put on my seat-belt (only on occasion). Though I wonder if the social cost figures for voting are actually the inverse of those for seat-belts.