Election eve

Tomorrow on the mainland (the state of Penang consists of Penang Island and a portion on the mainland) there is an important by-election. (I was going to check spellings and details but all the websites are overloaded with traffic - so bear with me and you will get an accurate overview). In March the opposition won 5 states - the first time the gov't was challenged in over 40 years. In Penang Anwar Ibrahim's wife vacated the seat so her husband could run. Ibrahim was jailed 10 years ago on charges of sodomy and recently the same charge has been made. Public apparently does not give these charges any credibility. 10 years ago he was the favored candidate to be PM

The by-election was scheduled by the Fed'l government for Tuesday 26 August and the polls are to close at 5. Normally elections are held on weekends and the polls stay open later. Last week it was announced that the schools would close (apparently schools are the polling places). Last night it was announced that the state of Penang had declared 26 August as a public holiday and later today the university followed suit.

When I went into the office there was a lot of comment about how late the university was in making its decision and that students had been calling all day. I remarked that obviously this was a university that new faced snow storms and school closing.

There is an air of excitement - more later.