Democracy

In amongst all the elections taking place world-wide, people are asking me where is the bryans2nz comment on these momentous events. So having had my lunch, a cup of tea and a couple of nice biscuits, here it is.

Firstly the big one. Shawn Murray was elected as the student rep on the Board of Trustees election at Kaitaia College. His campaign was based on that old electoral favorite "time for a change", and he was greeted around school with the slogan "Shawn for change". I am sure that he will make a competent Board Rep and will learn a lot about how organisations change during his period of office.

More recently we had the House Captains election and Trigg house had to choose from 4 candidates. The whole house assembled in the Hall last Friday to hear their speeches and to make their choice. Sven Wright was one of the duly elected and will continue the family tradition of school leadership - his older brother Shay was Head Boy last year. His speech was witty and well rehearsed and must have contributed to his success.

Obama took a leaf out of Shawn's book and capaigned on a platform of change. I was not alone in expecting hime to be shot when he stepped out in Chicago to greet his supporters after having trounced McCain and co. What a speech! What a task he has in front of him, and yet I feel hopeful that he might be able to do it. If McCain had got in, I would not have been surprised at the American electorate, but it would have made for a deeply depressing global situation. Every time he spoke, all I heard was the word fight.

And then finally last night we had the result of New Zealand's election. Not a world shaking event, but momentous none-the-less given that Labour were kicked out after 9 years and national got in with a sizeable majority. Last time I was most concerned that national would win because their leader was openly divisive. I feared for race relations in this npart of the country where Maori and Pakeha live closely together and mostly get along with each other. National's new leader John Key is a more slippery character. He has a permanent smug grin and to me gives off that aora (?) of slipperiness. We shall see what happens.