Local Council Elections Delirium [Archives:2001/04/Focus]

Salah, so far, so near shouted Tawfiq as he immediately recognized his friend, alias school buddy, alias neighbor. He turned towards the taxi driver.
Salah stopped the car as he heard Tawfiqs voice, which he recognized quickly, despite the fact that he has not seen him in years. He eased his car into a safe parking spot. Salah bought the car, a long time ago, it seemed, in the good old days when cars could be easily purchased on credit. Salah tried to catch Tawfiq, hoping that he had not lost his friend in the mad people and car mix one now normally sees in Liberation Square. What bugged Salah the most was the cart vendors, who always managed to leave a scratch here and there in the car, although Salah had managed to remain literally accident free for over twenty years, since he purchased the car. He finally found Tawfiq paying out the fare of the interrupted ride on the taxi. Of course the taxi driver was not happy about this accidental rendezvous with Salah, and was probably cursing the daylights out of him. The competition for cab passengers was getting tougher and tougher everyday.Salah carried out all the routine security checks for locking the car and put on the triple lock combination for the prevention of the theft of his car, including the locally fabricated rough heavy iron combination break, gasoline and clutch lock that can easily puncture a mans skull if he was hit with it. The adrenaline flow became faster as he finalized all the procedures, in anticipation of his long awaited get together with his friend, yet Salah never failed to let his nerves overtake him from ensuring the methodical and safe parking of his car, which usually must be in a place that was neither threatened by an over zealous police officer, who could come and deflate one or two of his tires or give him a nasty ticket, for no reason at all, or by one of those careless drivers that work for a sheikh, who would easily knock out a few stop lights just for the heck of it.
Salah had a knack for trouble prevention and he always insisted that prevention is the best and cheapest insurance against trouble, especially car trouble. Just then he shouted almost at the same time as Tawfiq and as though both than no more than stereo speakers blurting out the dictates of a remote amplifier: Here, let me see how you look, you old fool. They always called each other degrading names, but in an amicable way, where neither of them was ever hurt by any name they called each other by.
Long time, no see. Tell me pal how are you? said Tawfiq.Oh, I am surviving and keeping out of trouble, answered Salah. Tawfiq knew that if there was anyone who could keep out of trouble it was Salah. He had a reputation in the neighborhood for being the only child, who was never whacked by his parents for disciplinary reasons. In school, he was probably the only student who did not get a couple of lashes or so, in the bare sole of the foot. In the mosques, he was the only child not scolded for jumping in and out of the ablution cubicles. It is not that Salah was square, or anything like that. He just had a knack for never being in the wrong place when trouble was about to arise. Tawfiq chided: With your nose you have an early warning system that could smell trouble half an hour before it occurred. The trouble is you never shared it with us. Come on let us have a cup of coffee over there. I really have a lot to tell you and we really must recall some of those great moments of our youth. Whatever happened to such happy times. I dont know, sighed Salah, continuing, It seems everybody these days are now walking in a daze. I think people cannot find cures for the worries that accumulate in their heads day by day, although they cant remedy their previous worries. What has gotten over people, is really hard to say.Tawfiq echoed his friends observation, I am sure that even you are finding it hard to stay away from trouble. Nowadays, even if you wanted to avoid trouble, before you know it, it will hit you even if you had fifteen locks on your door and slept under five blankets.Are you crazy? Who could afford to have five blankets?. Why just last week when cold temperatures prevailed, especially at night, I had the kids double up on the blankets, we had, because there was no way we could allocate two blankets for each member of the family. Of course, electrical heat was out of the imagination with the high cost of electricity. Salah could not help echoing some of the concerns of the times. Tawfiq directed their path towards the coffee shop and a table near the window with a wide view out to Tahrir Square: I do not know why they call this Tahrir, or Liberation Square. To this day, I have yet to find a Yemeni who can truly say he is liberated. I do not understand why there were so many people who really thought that Yemen could really become a true democracy and the will of the people will prevail above all narrow interests that have eaten the resources of the land. Yet, people will continue to run on the bandwagon thinking that their government really means business this time, only to find that they have been taken in again.Salahs nose smelled trouble: Look Tawfiq do not drag me into a political dialogue, I have little taste for politics.Tawfiq folded his cheeks with a wide grin: Boy, am I glad to see you, just a few days ago, some of the old friends in the neighborhood came to nominate me for the Local Council Elections coming up next month. I welcomed them and when they opened the subject to me, I could say nothing except to tell them: No chance, if you want me to go to jail or end up dead, you can nominate me. I can not keep my mouth shut against anyone who gets out of line. The best candidate for you and me would be Salah. He is sincere, conscientious and always managed to avoid getting beaten up or punished. He has a nose for this kind of business. You know what? They all agreed with me, that for our old neighborhood there can be no one to outclass you and outwit you.Slow down there Tawfiq!, since one have you seen me interested in politics. I do not know the difference between the Government and the Samsara that used to be in the old market place run by that famous Atiqah Salah was somewhat taken in by the surprise announcement of his friend.Tawfiq commented: Well, come to think of it there is not really that much of a difference between the government that we have now and Atiqahs Samsara, but then, we have to take advantage of every opportunity we get to infiltrate the government with any sincere and good people who could bring some change to all the mayhem we are seeing in Government today. That is why even the opposition political parties are getting involved in the Local Council Elections.Yes, Tawfiq, but I do not belong to any political parties, pointed out Salah.That is the point, with you being out of the partisan scene, you might have a better chance of winning. Dont you see people have lost hope in any of the existing political parties. In our neighborhood, you have the cleanest record of anyone I know; in fact, Dettol had just announced you as the most disinfected government employee, with not even the receipt of qat money to stain your record. We did a quick poll among one hundred neighbors and found your name on the top of the list of the most sincere likely candidates for representing the area in the Local Council. In any case, you are now being drafted into the position. There is really nothing you can do now to back out of the nomination. Even members of political parties that are represented in our neighborhood applaud the idea of your nomination. So please, do not let all your old friends and me down. We all have our hearts on getting you to that Local Council or else we will never talk to you again.That is not fair said Salah, continuing, if there is anything I dread is to have to loose the voices of my old friends, as little as I hear them nowadays.
To be continued

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