Election Tension

Tom & friends dressed for a celebration

Election time on the islands is a tense time. This small country has seen so much corruption, so many coups, that many islanders don’t truly expect elections to be fair and free. Even the presence of international monitors doesn’t seem to allay people’s fears that cheating will take place. We’ve heard stories of fake ballots, people voting in multiple locations, voters paid at the polls, dead people voting and reigning governments “stealing” the election from any opposing candidates.

But then election day itself is quiet. The constant din of campaigning is forbidden. No one is allowed to travel between villages. There are no cars on the road. It is calm. The eye of the storm.

Once the polls close, the noise returns. Rumors abound. Unofficial results are shared and shouted. Some premature victory laps are taken by the supposed winners. In a clear cut election, this would be election day night or the next day and it would be over.

But this past weekend’s election was not as clear cut. We’ve heard from credible sources that the election for our island’s governor came down to 200 votes or less. The rumors went both ways. One said the incumbent won, others said that the opposition candidate won but that the incumbent was trying to steal the election. The gathering place right outside our house seemed to be constantly full of groups of people talking excitedly. Our neighborhood is split between the two candidates.

Next there were stories of groups gathering and blocking traffic…of a woman being roughed up after she was caught hiding false ballots under her traditional island wrap and entering a polling place. Sometimes we’d see the groups in front of our house suddenly start yelling and running— sometimes fleeing the approach of a military police vehicle or running toward some excitement down the street. The kids’ school was cancelled. On the last morning of school we were rushed into someone’s house on the walk home (less than a block from our house) because a crowd was rushing toward us and I was told it wasn’t safe to be on the road with the children. One neighbor told us that maybe we should just stay in our house for the next three days. Another grandmother said she had just been crying and crying— remembering the coups and violence of bygone years.

From our roof, military police & crowd

But for all this dramatic talk— nothing much seemed to actually be happening. For a while the excitement was centered right at the end of our block. People had dragged rocks and an old gutted car to block the road leading to one of the polling places. (Our neighbors gave contradicting accounts for why they were blocking the road.) We watched from our roof while they tried to light the car on fire, but then an island grandmother came out and yelled at them and they quickly put out all the flames with the air of scolded children. Apparently a group slept out on the street to make sure the road stayed blocked. But then the next morning a truck of armed military police came, took all the stuff off the road and themselves blocked the road, with a crowd of people tensely watching them. Later that day, there were no military police, no crowd, nothing blocking the road— life on the street was back to normal without any actual confrontation.

Yesterday (5 days after election day) the word came from the capital. Opposition candidates had won— both for president of the entire country and in our island’s governor race. We happened to be in the capital during the announcement and for hours we heard the shouts of victory and the honking cars.

The tension is over (hopefully). The results are in and fears that the standing government would “steal” the election rather than lose power have been proven wrong. Our islands have new leaders and now we pray that they will be good ones.

5 of our team kids

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are thankful that in spite of all the tension during the week, it appears that there was no significant violence. Our teammates packed up their homes and said their goodbyes. We have made it safely off the islands and are currently en route to our team’s final debrief (which will be taking place in mainland Africa). We were able to change one of our flights to allow us to make an appointment for our youngest son.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Please pray for our final week with our team. We have days of travel together before beginning our official debrief together on Wednesday. Pray for a good time of reflection and closure of this 2.5 years together. We’ve focused on finishing well on the islands, now we want to finish well as a team. Pray especially for the 7 team children who don’t always understand all the travel and transitions that are coming their way in the coming days.