Saturday, August 21, 2010

Sydney - the Election

First Hung Parliament in 70 Years
Saturday night was the big night. They'd been building up for this moment for many months and the television and newspapers covered nothing else. Austalia was voting for a new prime minister and parliament. I had a hard time figuring out who the good guy was and who the bad guy was: it was the incumbent Julia Gillard against a Labor Party challenger named Tony Abbott. Apparently, noboby else could figure it out either. Neither won a majority. There are five independent seats out there for the grabbing which make all the difference in the outcome. Let the jockeying begin...

2 comments:

Sal said...

Doesn't it seem that people all over the W. world elect lawmakers in such a way that they cannot get anything done? Hung Parliament in Canada & Australia; close to stymied in US Congress? Sarkozy in trouble; Israel with a shaky coalition. What's going on?

FN said...

@Sal - that's why the oligarchy here in SG can get stuff done! Too bad if you don't like what they do, though....