13 May, 2012

Democracy: a lesson

Democracy prize of the year so far goes to the village of Cimolais in the northern Italian region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, population 507.

The mayor, Gino Bertolo, found that he was the only candidate for his re-election and was concerned that if he stood unopposed he wouldn't get enough votes, so he persuaded his best friend, Fabio Borsatti, to stand as well.

I’m sure you are ahead of me: Borsatti won, despite all his relatives having voted for Bertolo, by 160 to 117. ‘I never wanted to be mayor’, he said.

By the way, as a broad average, 70% of the population are of voting age, so that looks like a turnout of 78%. In the recent UK local elections it was 32%.


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