Australian elections by a foolish Brazilian

Hi,


This one is about the election process that just happened here in Australia. I must confess that it felt a bit odd the way things happened here, some because they were so surprisingly familiar and other because the were so uttlerly different...

- The prime minister can choose when he wants to call an election. He can do this at virtually anytime up to a time limit (in this case, the election must have happened in 2007). And the election is announced with only a bit over a month of advance;
- There's no budget spending lock-up prior to the election, so the government is free to increase spending in certain areas and benefit from it in the election;
- there's absolutelly no constrains on openly accusing and doing "political terrorism" about the other candidate/party. The campaigns are dirty, more focused on the downsides of the other than in the upsides of the oneselves. Though, very little (if anything) heard about corruption;
- In general the caimpaigns are ruled by fear. The politicians try to induce fear on people on what will happen if the other side gets to the government. This country is all about stability. Say that something will disturb the stability of people's life or the way they life and there will be people sreaming.
- There was, in my opinion, very few public movement about the election. Not many people commenting on the day-to-day, few ads and leafets, etc, promoting the candidates... It doesn't look like there was an election two weeks ago.

But above all, I think the most significant point of the election is that, when considering the proposals to run the country, it is not easy do differentiate the two main parties (Liberal and Labor). The proposals and ideas are worryingly similar and so the government plans. Despite some specific (but important) differences like the Kyoto protocol and the deploy of troops in Iraq, the main ideas are very similar.

That's all folks! Next posts I will try to write before I start sleeping. Then hopefully the text will have some sense....

Cheers