they happened

A writer does not usually do herself a favor by putting disclaimers at the begining of a blog, but when said blogger is writing about yesterday's national elections, it is only honest. *Disclaimer: It is hard to follow the happenings of an election when you can't read or understand the coverage. Anyone with corrections to my crude sketch of the Faroese electoral process are welcome to submit them as a comment. However, as a (hopeful) student of Faroese culture, I couldn't let such an important event go by without mentioning it at all. The national elections took place yesterday to fill the 33 seat parliament, called the Løgtingið. There are seven political parties represented in the Faroe Islands, the most prominent divisions caused by unionist or anti-unionist sentiments toward Denmark, and "conservative" versus "liberal" leanings. There is also a relatively new Christian party, which would have laws made based solely on Biblical principles. After election numbers determine how many seats each party will recieve, several of the parties will form a coalition to create a voting majority. That coalition will decide on common goals for the next four years of ruling, and appoint the country's five ministers and prime minister, or Løgmaður (literally "law man"). Both the ministers and Løgmaður could be individuals not elected to the parliament. If a person within a party is selected to "move up" to minister or Løgmaður, the candidate in the part with the next highest number of votes moves into the vacated parliament seat. Click here to view the full election results. Although Ben and I will not be here long to live with the decisions the Faroese citizens made yesterday, it was interesting for me to observe a political system with an extremely high rate of participation (90% of eligible citizens vote) and extremely low amount of hype. Campaign budgets are modest, consisting mostly of plywood signs posted at key intersections and public debates in town halls, and political differences are confined by the highly personal nature and small size of the Løgtingið. The Faroese elections provide particular insight into the culture. What does that mean for America's upcoming, grossly protracted, multi-million dollar dog and pony show of an election? -a