Polling results and blood pressure - Sikaman Palava

Vote counting during Sunday balloting

To be a political aspirant requires a lot of blood pressure. Some people prefer to call it 'blood pleasure'. Listening to certified results, a politician's blood pressure can swing like a pendulum depending on the nature of the figures hitting his ear-drum. There is a spiritual, if not spirito-electronic connection between polling figures and blood pressures.

That is why some people don't enjoy listening to electoral figures. First, it is likely to make them palpitate. Second, it can induce diarrhoea. For dietary reasons it can also induce constipation, because the worried listener is likely to refuse food and subsist on bread and 'pure water' which has turned some civil servants into chronic 'constipators'.

How can a worried politician enjoy his usual fufu and groundnut soup with all the bush-meat accompaniments when the radio is on and he is trailing hopelessly in a particular constituency? He can only call his wife and ask her to pack away the sumptuous meal for the time being.

"I can't eat now. The appetite is not there!" he'd declare to his bewildered better-half. And his long-suffering wife will understand perfectly. The bloke cannot handle his favourite dish. Too bad! And he has grown leaner like a stray dog after all the gruelling campaign the length and breadth of the country.

"Can you have a slice of bread? You look hungry!" the wife will plead.
"Make it two slices. Add pure water."

Election results are made to humble human beings, so that those addicted to Lucozade and Irish Cream will now wish for common 'pure water'. Anything else will not suit their mood. The truth is that waiting for election results is not an enjoyable pastime.

Ordinarily, people will lose elections and wouldn't mind a bit if they didn't spend too much on the damn campaign. But where they spend huge sums of money, they must lapse into mourning. Weeping and gnashing and teeth. Actually some losers are visibly shaken and have to keep indoors lest they are asked if they lost their mother.

However, I wonder why it has only been like that.
Someone lost his mother-in-law and said he was crying not because the woman was no more; he was mourning the fact that he had no money to fulfill his obligation as a chief mourner. So the tears he was shedding were more financial than obituaristic.

Politics is like gambling. There is either a windfall or total wahala! Gamblers better have low pressure to begin with lest they developed stroke. I have a poultry farmer friend who says he is not afraid of losing all his flock because he has low pressure. He reasons that although he'd lose his flock of birds, he'll still survive any soaring blood pressure and stay alive to start all over again.

Of course, certain occupations require their appropriate human types. Some people are easily discouraged and should not engage in high-risk ventures. Don't go and be a money lender when you are a tearful crybaby! Someone can run away with all your money and you'll cry the rest of your lifetime.

One of the major letdowns of this year's poll is the poor showing of Kwesi Ndoum. The confidence many had that Nduom will lift the CPP game waned as the polling centre results were getting announced. At certain centres, he was busy netting zero when his fans expected something above sea-level.

I am sure that the CPP spirit is almost tizzling out there. If Nduom had shown better, Nkrumah's party would have been revived and next four years, it would have taken up governance of the country. As it is now, there is little hope that in the next four years, the CPP can command that leverage enough to make it electorally attractive.

Or is the saying "CPP without Nkrumah is no CPP" haunting the party?

At least Dr Limann managed to prove otherwise. May be, we need another Nkrumah to bring back that espirit d'corp that made the CPP unbeatable on land and in the air.

Credit: Merari Alomele; Spectator; E-mail: [email protected]