Tale of Two Elections

While the US presidential campaign winds down to its final month, Maldives is counting down the days to its first multiparty presidential election. Here's a look at the candidates. The new constitution requires the new president to be chosen by Oct. 10, so in the Maldivian tradition of meeting deadlines at the last possible moment, the voting will take place on Oct. 8 with results to be announced the following day. Compared to the American election cycle, which begins as soon as the previous election is over, the Maldivians are actually moving at breakneck speed, even managing to have two televised debates so far, one for the presidential candidates and another for their running mates. I was sorry I couldn 't be there as TVM and Think Nation carried out the template that was developed during our training, but they did an excellent job. If you'd like to check out the results, go to the video on demand section of http://www.tvm.gov.mv/. It's all in Dhivehi, so Americans won't understand the content, but you can check out the production values. For translations, go to http://www.minivannews.com/.