29 May 2005

Is this an exercise in irony?

The BBC is reporting that the Respect Coalition candidate for Sparkbrook, Birmingham, in the recent elections is mounting a challenge to the results. She claims that some people were prevented from voting. Given the past behaviour of some of the parties in the Respect coalition in that same constituency the phrase "That's rich" comes to mind.

I live in that constituency. The Respect coalition campaigners (especially the JFK (Justice for Kashmir party, now renamed People's Justice party), a party who campaign mainly on the issue of handing the Kashmir region of India over to Pakistan) would routinely harrass voters outside the polling station (usually targeting white voters, the area is majority Asian) and follow them into the polling station, right up to the pollbooth, to continue to harrass them. Complaints to the officials in the polling station would result in a shrug from them and accusations of racism from the from the campaigners.

This year I avoided the harrassment by getting to the polling station before the campaigners were organised.

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