Now that the whole (futile, if you ask me) exercise of electing local council reps is over, allow me to bore you some more about the subject. Then we can consign it back to the depths of our subconscious for some more months, while a bunch of quasi public officials do their best to further bust our collective coffers.

I'll start out by coming clean: saying that I'm not a fan of local councils is an understatement. Seriously, does our government - whoever that might be – really believe that it needs to subcontract the day-to-day administration of the affairs of less than half a million people to third parties in order to be able to function properly? If the answer to this is yes, then we really have lost all sense of perspective.

My conclusion? These elections are a waste of time, of money and of resources and only serve to give a handful of people a disproportionate ego, making them think they are actually essential to the running of the country. They are not.

Judging by the amount of people who didn't even bother to collect their vote I'm not alone believing this. But that's by the by. Councils are here to stay and bitching about the futility of it all is useless. The current rant relates more to the way we love to blow all things out of proportion and this includes the electoral process of regional government. I'm talking about the media blackout - hilariously dubbed "the day of reflection" - that is enforced on polling day of every election, including local council ones.

In practice, this means that only factual news reportage is allowed in the media on the day. No opinions, no predictions, no partisan propaganda etc etc.

At a stretch and under protest I can shut up and accept this in the case of general elections. But only under protest: I like to believe that we have matured quite a bit in the past decades and the blackout is unnecessary. People know how they are going to vote anyway and a political statement on polling day is hardly likely to sway them.

When you apply this media blackout in the context of local council elections the whole thing stops being hilarious and becomes irritating. So last week we had the Broadcasting Authority rap both parties on the knuckles for daring to show footage of their respective leaders on their way to the polling station. The nationalist party, we were told in solemn tones, was especially naughty and showed this footage not once but (shock, horror) repeatedly during news bulletins. Such undue influence on the voters is disgraceful. I'm surprised the whole elections weren't declared null and void because of this peccadillo.

To switch back to serious mode, I'd tell our legislators to get a life and focus on the more important kind of law making and law enforcing. Like, you know, human trafficking. Imposing a media blackout on regional elections smacks of trying to put a leash on freedom of expression. A harmless leash to be sure, and done with the best of intentions, but a leash nonetheless.

On a more practical level, does it make sense to impose a blackout on the official media when social media will just go ahead and laugh in the face of your silly regulations anyway? Or are we planning to pull a fast one like Canada did, threatening hundreds of Facebookers and Tweeters with jail and massive fines for daring to post about the elections on polling day? Now that would be a hard one to justify.

If you remain unconvinced, allow me to point out that any footage aired on either of the political stations is likely to be viewed only by those whose voting choices are a foregone conclusion, no matter how many hours of reflecting we grant them. There is a reason why these are political stations, after all. And even if a "floater" (snigger) were to chance upon one of these stations on polling day, I hardly think said voter is likely to allow some simple footage to sway him/her.

In short, dear legislators, stop treating voters like daft morons.

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