Sunday, August 26, 2007

National versus local politics

Since I'm apparently in a political frame of mind...

Even though the upcoming election is for local/regional government only, all you see in media is the big-shot national politics, like the leaders for the major parties. The only time you'll see local politicians getting proper headlines is if they screw up beyond what's reasonable to expect for someone presumably not on crack, like the former mayor of Oslo, Per Ditlef Simonsen. Even in the supposedly local debates, they fly in the big names to do the job for the representative parties. Is that really conducive to informing the voters about the standpoint of local politicians?

I understand that there's no way the upcoming election would get any national media attention if only local politicians were featured, but it's still kind of messed up. Also, at least here in Trondheim, there was absolutely no campaigning from any party before mid August, and with the election date being September 10th, that doesn't leave a lot of time. So; when the election is treated like a pre-game, how does that affect voter turnout? And democracy, for that matter?

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